Dance music thumps and the alcohol flows, but the patrons at this nightclub bow their heads over cellphones as their thumbs poke out text messages.

And Rob Allen, manager at Union Hall, couldn't be happier.

What might seem like a worrisome sign of bored customers really means they're into the place -- because they're actually interacting with each other via the club's 15-foot projection screens.

The nightclub is one of a growing roster of businesses from bars to multinational corporations around the world using software developed in Edmonton to attract customers, entertain them and market to them through their own mobile phones.

"It's just something for people to do to keep them entertained inside the club," Allen said.

"Quite regularly, you'll read text messages such as 'that bartender over there is hot' or 'Fred, meet me by the bathrooms.' "

The Union Hall's owners installed FireText a year ago.

It lets a customer send a message to a phone that's hooked to a computer, which in turn sends it to TV screens for everyone to see.

Messengers' phones are assigned a four-digit name that identifies the senders on the screen.

Club-goers exchange birthday greetings and song requests and even flirt with each other. (An electronic filter or human moderator screens out obscenities.)

But it's a three-way relationship. The Union Hall keeps senders' phone numbers and texts them news on upcoming promotions -- a feature members can unsubscribe to if they wish.

FireText taps into instant messaging's soaring popularity and the growing pervasiveness and power of cellphones, said owner Raoul Bhatt, the 28-year-old Edmontonian who parlayed a high school education and self-taught knowledge into a 10-employee software startup.

"It's such a simple concept: putting messages on screen, and the feeling it gives a person, when you see a person when their own words are on the Jumbotron screen, the joy on their face is priceless," Bhatt said.

But it's also a dream tool for marketers that goes beyond conventional Internet and on-site advertising, he said.

The target audience interacts with the sponsor, and companies in turn get access to customers' cell numbers and exposure for their brands.

"You constantly notice people texting on their cellphones," Bhatt said. "Why wouldn't they be texting you? Why not tap into that market?"

The company developed the software two years ago, making its first sale to an El Paso, Texas, nightclub in 2006. "After that, it took off like a rocket."

FireText now boasts about 4,000 clients worldwide, including sports arenas, churches, conferences and rock concerts where the crowd can text messages or questions to giant screens.

Marketers such as Garnier, Smirnoff and Rogers get brand exposure on FireText's most popular product, text-message-to-screen service, by graphically branding the video screen backgrounds where messages show up.

Besides text-to-screen, there are other services available, like text-voting.

The Oilers and Eskimos sports franchises are also showing interest, Bhatt said. Fans could text-vote right from their seats for the game's star players, for example. Or, spectators could text-message birthday shout-outs or send song requests for the arena DJ to the scoreboard screen.

Many of FireText's local customers can't believe that the software is home-grown, Bhatt said.

"It was an idea that we thought would be pretty cool if we could do that, and we had the skill and I had the team and the resources to do it."

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© The Edmonton Journal 2008

 

Original Article at The Edmonton Journal

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/business/story.html?id=e908306e-8535-4d06-b121-52945afab71f

Cellphone software developed in Edmonton connects event-goers with each other and with marketers

Bill Mah
The Edmonton Journal

Saturday, July 26, 2008

EDMONTON -