iCabTV- A revolutionary in-taxi digital infotainment network

February 2009 marks the 1st 6-months of UzoneMedia's iCabTV network in Singapore. We would like to take this opportunity to thank our clients as well as our taxi partner ComfortDelGro for their continuous support, making iCabTV network one of the most exciting location-based, interactive, digital OOH media in Singapore. Most importantly, we would like to thank the millions of taxi passengers who has taken an iCabTV equipped taxi for the past few months and especially those who provided us useful and relevant feedbacks to help improving our services on iCabTV.

Here at UzoneMedia, we believe the in-taxi passengers resembles the true foundation for our media’s success, hence from the inception of the iCabTV network, we have focused on building a digital media platform that can enhance public transportation traveling experience. Before iCabTV, traveling around taxis usually means downtimes for the passengers, whether you are a house wife or a business man, there isn't much you can accomplish when taking taxis, you only choices are probably make a few calls, look out the window, or....chat with the taxi uncle :-). iCabTV will help change all that, by taking a taxi equipped with an iCabTV screen, you can access the latest news, weather, stock/financial information, and locate the nearest restaurant, hotels, shops, bar/clubs, events, ATM location, and nearby discounts/promotions. You can also check the latest movie with ratings, synopsis, theater show time, and latest top hits/music albums. You can casually check up on daily horoscope, where to go, and what to do. Not in the too distant future, you should be able to check flight information, 4D/TOTO results, download movie previews, promotional music videos, ringtones, movie tickets and promotional coupons to your handphone.

Ergonomics is another focus we spent a lot of time on when designing the iCabTV network, we have done a ton of research, spoke to a lot of people and realized that more passengers get car sick when riding cars looking down, thus we placed our screens on top of the front passenger seat, at eye level, this position dramatically reduces car sickness while watching the screen (even though, we understand there are still roughly 10~15% of people might feel a bit discomfort watching TV for a good length of time in car). In addition, our screens are only positioned at arm's length from the passenger thus allowing them to access the iCabTV screens and interact with it easily.

Some interesting intelligence we have designed into the iCabTV digital media network:

1) The iCabTV screen is connected to the taxi meter, it only comes on when the meter is engaged which means there is a guarantee passenger in the car with every play of the screen. In fact, our central server will log every “real” iCabTV spot-plays and calculate a total number of viewership at the end of the campaign for our clients.

2) Passengers will find the iCabTV interactive and user friendly, at a touch of a finger the screen comes to life. Passengers can also adjust screen brightness, volume+/-, mute, or even turn the screen off if they wish not to be disturbed. The coolest part is, doesn’t matter what adjustments the previous passengers do to the screen, the next passenger steps into the taxi, iCabTV will rest and turned on with our default setting including volume and brightness level.

3) All 1000 of our screens have a live 3.5G wireless connection back to our central server, we log where they are, screen on or off, and what the screens are playing. This helps to provide accurate monthly statistics and campaign effectiveness report to our client’s review when a marketing campaign is launched with iCabTV.

We believe the iCabTV network is truly the Out of Home Media that is Captive, Interactive, and Measurable, here's why:

1) iCabTV is Captive: it is easy to justify the captivity of the iCabTV network. In a taxi environment, it is extremely captive, it is in-escapable for the passengers to be viewing the iCabTV screen. According to our statistics in December 2009, we have a staggering 97.9% screen uptime during taxi rides which means 97.9% of the passenger are keeping our screens alive through out their trip. Compared to traditional media like TV and newspaper, as well as other OOH digital networks and billboards, iCabTV network by far has the highest view-rate which also means it is much more captive.

2) iCabTV is Interactive: The iCabTV screen consists of an 8-inch touch screen and a robust CPU, think of it as a mini-computer inside taxis:-). Thus we have built-in the ability to play flash-enabled files on out screens. And depending on the creativity of our clients, the iCabTV network can display flash-based interactive messages that engages the passenger, creating a long-lasting impression in the passenger mind. Note: our iSearch Directory Buttons were accessed over 5.6 Million times in December with 1000 screens.

3) iCabTV is Measurable: We have built-in extensive logging capabilities into the iCabTV network. It is the ONLY OOH media in Singapore that can provide a post-campaign effectiveness report to our clients and inform them of when and where their message was played, how many times was it played (yes, we only count them when screen is on and alive) as well as the reach and exposure of the message. If the campaign was interactive, we even include in the comprehensive report the interactions on the screen by the passengers. This report easily provides a baseline for our clients to calculate the ROI of the campaign as well as justifying future campaigns launch on iCabTV.

Finally, at UzoneMedia, our passion is to build a revolutionary digital OOH media network for people on the move that's intelligent, interactive, location-aware, and measurable. Our vision is to become the largest intelligent mobile infotainment media network in Asia that converge content, commerce, and services. Thank you for your continuing support to make our vision and passion come true and we hope to hear from you!

We strife to constantly making improvements to our iCabTV digital media network with your valuable feedback. Should you have any feedbacks or suggestions on how we can further improve on the iCabTV digital media network, please send us an email to feedbacks@icabtv.com.

Thanks again!