Fantastic Four

The 2012 Final Four Italian Cup, which will take place from Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon in Rome, will see a breakthough innovation in the engagement possibilities with the crowd.

This weekend 1ring will be the brand new and free tool that the best Italian volley teams will use to engage with their fans.

During the upcoming games of the Final Four competition, fans will be able to choose the MVP in real time with a free phone call to the 1ring number associated with their favorite player.

All fans have to do in order to vote is login onto 1ring to get the number and make their player go up the charts. Each free call is one vote and fans can vote as many times as they want.

There’s even more! Another competition runs among the fan groups to choose the most competitive and fierce among the four.

Both from the bleachers or while couch-potatoing, fans can take active part in the games.

For the two semifinal matches fans will be the only ones to choose the best player. After Sunday final match, fans votes will be summed with those of a selected panel of journalists and coaches to elect the MVP of the whole competition

Login for free on 1ring and vote for your MVP.

Paper rings

Books. From the days of Gutenberg to those of Zuckerberg, the term has evolved, but the core concept has not changed. And we mean just one thing: books and their power to broaden the readers’ horizons. (Sorry if we’re widening the book in “Facebook” too).

For as much as we might appreciate Kindle and the likes, the fascination that originates from scrolling through pages is on a completely different level.

Whether it’d be a book, a magazine or a leaflet, print material conveys a higher evokative message than cold pixels. Just think where a book or a magazine can be read: on the bus, subway, in bed, on the beach…and so on.

All of these contexts usually make for a relaxed and therefore inspiration-inclined mind that might spark ideas that need to be developed later on. Yet they are all situations in which it is not comfortable to go in depth into something that catches the reader’s attention. Here we come.

Imagine if you could learn more about the author bio or watch the exclusive interviews with one ring from your cell phone. On the other hand, think of the possibilities for marketers to come up with a thousand ways to delve deeper into a book universe and engage with readers. Book industry (and media industry as well) can benefit a lot from new opportunities.  All this is possible through our free service.

As far as magazines are concerned, well, it’s even easier to envision the revenue opportunities for advertisers. By associating a 1ring number to any given book or magazine, publishers create a link with a world of business opportunities that are invasive or spam-like.

For instance, our numbers are now being used by OGGI, a weekly publication (magazine + books) that allows readers to gain access to extra content on the magazine. 1ring suits them all.

For us, it feels like we’re going back to where our adventure began in the first place. Remember the good, old days when 1ring numbers were being used by Wired magazine (Italian edition) to deliver exclusive extra contents related to the main articles.

Creating a link between real objects and virtual ones is a thing we’ve always believed in and that has huge potential.

More coming…keep reading!

New Ring Resolutions

Everybody loves numbers. And lists. Everybody loves numbers and lists. That’s why everybody loves resolutions.

Ok, we’ve passed the second half of January so you’ve seen (and possibly written down yourself) resolution lists. Chances are you’ll dig these even more since they have an almost unseasonal appeal.

Resolutions are meant to be broken, but this time we’ll try not to. Especially since we’ve added a twist. We chose a song title to work as a mantra for each resolution.

The followings are a compendium of everything we wish for the next 12 months.

1. “Circle of Life“: stuff happens – never mull over the detours along the way. Think of this childhood memory, reconnect with your inner child and…get over it.

2. “Oops, I did it again“: whenever hitting a bump, get back on track, or be able to rearrange the route if necessary. Take a leaf out of Britney’s book and keep reinventing yourself.

3. “Perfect day“: make work fun. Enjoying the fact that you get to work in a young, lively environment should be enough to get up cheerful in the morning.

4. “More than words“: turn team-building into more than just an inspirational thought. The more you share, the more others will feel inclined to do the same. It’s that easy.

5. “You get what you give“: not just for clients. That’s especially true when dealing with coworkers and acting bitchy. There’s someone who might be bitchier than you, it’s called Karma.

6. “Live like you were dying“: if you want to sign a deal, that’s the fine line you’re looking for. A positive, take-it-all attitude will work wonders when we feel we don’t have that much to lose.

7. “True colors“: and we’re not talking about the great impulse our presentation skills received. There’s a second meaning to this song about not feeling fearful or small that’s particularly appealing to us.

8. “Enjoy the silence“: this might seem to contradict previous resolutions. In fact, it doesn’t. Working in team is stimulating, but it can be a burden to your creativity. Sometimes a little solo time is what will do us good.

9. “Contagious“: the adjective we wish to apply to our communication. Word of mouth and viral is what we need now.

10. “Don’t stop me now“: things are falling into place. We.will.not. let anyone dampen this feeling.

Better get going and press “Play”!

Call the A-team!

Last Sunday a brand new service made its on-the-field debut in the sport industry.

The volley team Lube, together with 1ring, introduced an engaging contest that put all Lube players on trial…only to be judged by their own fans!

During the afternoon match between Lube and Monza held in Macerata, Lube team fans were able to test, for the first time ever in Italy, a new voting system that allows anyone at the stadium to choose their own favourite player simply through a free ring from their mobile phones.

Anyone was able to vote for free one time during each set till the MVP was elected. But how does this new voting system work?

If you want to choose your MVP, save this number +39 029 296 63 XX on your phone and add the two digits that make up your favorite player’s T-shirt. For example, if you think Savani - number 3 - was the best, add the final 03. Make a phone call and follow the easy  instructions in the message you’ll receive!

The initiative takes off from our technology, which can be applied to tag anything (ora anyone in this case), including volleyball players. Fans can choose their favorite player and vote for him in real time through a free call to his 1ring number, eliminating the need for smartphones and costly mobile devices connectivity!

For voting and/or having access to extra contents on LUBE players, fans only need to call a traditional number. 1ring provides a new way to take LUBE always with you and relive the most exciting actions and the highlights of every match.

All contents are available 24/7 and in real time. Thanks to this new system the applications for the sport industry are tons: fans can easily stay up-to-date with how their team’ s doing by simply consulting the updates on latest games and save the information about their MVP on their personal profile.

Save your favorite player’s 1ring number and get voting!

Taking action in the field is just a – free – phone call away!

Hostin’ powers

Tuscany is the ideal setting of basically anything you can romantically or artistically think of. Yet you wouldn’t expect it to be the location where the innovators gather to make the difference.

Tomorrow and Friday the Stazione Leopolda in Florence will host the annual event dedicated to the digital tourism, Buy Tourism Online.

The event’s fourth edition offers new web-based business projects addressed to the tourism industry the opportunity to take off and grow.

At a time when self-service tourism is the rule, thanks to low cost airlines and the likes of Groupon Escape, agencies in the tourism industry have a very hard time. If tour operators want to keep being competitive, this can only be achieved through innovation. Hence this year’s BTO features Storming Pizza. This format, created by H-Farm in order to choose next breaktrough ideas, gives start-ups no more than 15 minutes to both explain the idea and answer questions from investors.

The initiative, developed by H-Farm, invites anyone with a business idea based on the Web and related to travelling, to take part in the selection and seize the chance to see their idea go beyond the Beta version. The eight best entrepreneurial projects that make it past the initial selection, will speak in front of the H-Farm investment committee in a special Storming Pizza session.

The goal is to see the winning start-up’s idea come to life, through managerial and financial contribution by H-Farm. So where does 1ring fit into all this? Each start-up team will step up in the Main Hall carrying a sign with a 1ring phone number to get voted.

By calling our free numbers, the audience and people who’ll be following the event via streaming, may vote for one or more ideas that will make their debut in each of the four sessions.

Good luck guys!

Ivy is longing for her Apple

Paradoxical as it may sound, real innovation is not always found in the institutions that are born to foster new ideas and eagerly wait for sparks of genius to come along. Simply put, universities are rarely the birthplace of breakthrough projects. Not only in mainland Europe, but also in the U.S., where some of the most successful start-ups are born without higher education’s blessings.

Two VIPs who followed this pattern are among the most famous people of our times. Archetype of modern fairytale hero, late Steve Jobs, is to some extent similar to the ubermodern hero of the social generation, Mark Zuckerberg. Yet the apple never falls far from the tree and not just in the well-known, iconic Stanford speech. Harvard dropout Zuckerberg (as anyone who saw The Social Network knows pretty well) returned to his alma mater while on a recruiting mission just in time to witness some pretty big change. Last Friday marked America’s oldest college debut in the start-up scene with the i-lab, a start-up incubator. Harvard University‘s very first time in this enthralling world of innovators comes wrapped in crimson and institutional presence. Talk about the old and the new come together.

Buzzing with entrepreneurial activity since September, as the Gazzette reported, the i-lab is Harvard’s reply to West Coast universities competition, not to mention the one coming from a most annoying neighbor, the MIT.

The space, which is meant to give physical shelter (and shape) to a process that was already up and running in the university, is ideally set in Allston, probably the one area in Beantown with the highest rate of young people (and garages).

The incubator model is somewhat the polar opposite to the almost dramatized garage-thinking philosophy. The Cambridge-based college probably meant to put its authoritive signature on the innovation process by providing funds, one-on-one coaching, workshops and training in order to create new – hopefully succesful – start-ups.

Back in our early days, here at 1ring we immediately turned to universities because we have always thought them to be incubators of new ideas and key links between research and business world. Since last March, the Internet Marketing class of the University of Padua has set up a hands-on laboratory, in which students offered their takes on the service, testing it throughout the entire semester. They worked really hard to come up with different ideas and ended up exceeding our expectations.

Heart-filled with this succes, we then turned heads to Milan, where the city’s most international campus (Bocconi University) will host our service for a class to do the same. And possibly, even more. There are no two ways about it, if you want to keep being competitive as a start-up and make it in the almost saturated market, universities should be top of the list of your go-to places.

So much for “stay hungry, stay foolish”.

1ring to become King of your Land

RE/MAX Real Estate Group, the world’s leading real estate franchise with 100,000 agents in 7,000 agencies over more than 85 countries, chose 1ring to deliver extra content to its clients.

The service debuted during the latest edition of the Swiss International Holiday Exhibition, held in Lugano. The 2011 edition once again marked the go-to meeting point for travellers, both from the Ticino area and from Italy. The affluence for this year’s edition, with about 40 thousand visitors, once again turned into an event tour of huge importance in the European landscape.

In this international context 1ring met both RE/MAX and its clients’ needs perfectly. ​​Since 1ring is an already existing technology, its communication tool very much like that of traditional phones, turned out to be very intuitive and certainly made the exhibition experience a much more fun experience for those who used than for those who didn’t.

Through 1ring numbers, the agency provides extra content on the properties on sale and their surroundings. No more need for heavy handouts: all visitors need to do is simply make a phone call.

Among the extra features delivered via 1ring numbers were virtual house tours made up of pictures of the property and the area in which it is located. This way, visitors who crave more information on their dream home don’t have to settle for the few things they find on reports, but can get an accurate idea of ​​the property without having to necessarily set a face to face appointment.

As usual, after the first ring, the software automatically ends the call and the user receives all the extra content in real time on their 1ring and email account if they have a smartphone. If not, or if they want to peruse the contents later they might do so once they’re home on their desktop computers.

After 15 solid years of activity on the Italian front, 1ring adoption helps bring some fresh air to the real estate agency business.

Looking for your dream home? Just dial the free number +39 029 296 6054.