Voting for products at CES

Pangolin's Interactive Messaging Unlimited was a key component at two high-profile interactive voting competitions held during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. In both events, attendees used SMS text messaging to vote for their favorite CES products or technologies.

Pangolin's IMU software, running on a laptop connected to a cellular modem, gathered and tallied the votes. As votes came in, a video projector displayed the results in real-time. Advanced features such as tallying multiple simultaneous votes, and blocking multiple votes from a single phone, were used at both CES voting competitions. (For technical details on how IMU handles interactive SMS voting, click here.)
 
 

ShowStoppers reception and vote

The ShowStoppers reception at CES was an exclusive event, open only to invited media, industry analysts, and selected investment firms. One hundred seventeen companies showed their products or technology to around 1200 reporters and analysts. Attendees could visit each booth to receive in-depth interviews, demonstrations and sneak previews.

Attendees could also vote for their favorite products and technologies. At each booth was a sign telling how to vote. For example, at booth 85 the sign would read: "To vote for this product, send the SMS text message '85' to 9908."

Voting in four categories, with one vote per category

There were four categories of products and technologies:

• Audio, Video and Digital & Interactive Entertainment
• Computers, Cameras, Printers and Digital Media
• Productivity and Security Tools and Software
• Wireless Mobility, Communications and Home Automation

Each ShowStoppers attendee could send an SMS text message to cast their vote. They had four total votes, one for each category.

Features in Pangolin's IMU were used to ensure that once a vote was cast, the person could not vote again (from the same cellphone) in that category. If they tried to vote more than once in a category, they received a reply SMS message such as: "You can only vote for a single product in the Audio, Video and Digital & Interactive Entertainment category. You can however vote in another category."

Voting results

Over the three-hour ShowStoppers event, about 500 official votes were cast. An additional 200 votes were received, but not counted, due to people trying to vote twice in a category.

The use of Pangolin's IMU was a great success. The interactive SMS voting method made it easy to receive, tally and display the results. And this was the first time IMU had been used for so many candidates -- 117 companies in four categories, all being handled simultaneously. Features such as blocking multiple votes helped ensure fairness, and IMU was able to automatically send messages to users with blocked votes to explain why they could not vote twice.
 
 

PC Magazine's "Last Gadget Standing"

Since 2001, PC Magazine has held its "Last Gadget Standing" competition. Editors narrow down their choice of "best gadget" to the top ten finalists, and then there are two sets of votes taken. One set is done by the public, via Internet voting at PC Magazine's website. The other vote is done live at the CES show. Since Pangolin's IMU was used at CES, the live procedure will be described below.

At the Last Gadget Standing event, each of the top ten nominees had four minutes to present their products. Then, at the end of the presentations, the 400 attendees had ten minutes to vote for their favorite by sending an SMS text message.

Here is PC Magazine's description of the voting process, taken from their website:

As with the ShowStoppers event, the interactive voting went very smoothly. Most voters only sent one SMS text message vote; although a few tried to "stuff the ballot box" by trying to send up to 25 votes from the same phone. Once again, IMU's built-in features automatically detected and rejected all multiple votes. (Note that this feature can be switched off, since in other scenarios such as "American Idol"-style voting, multiple votes might be allowed or even encouraged.)
 

A note about voting procedures

Pangolin's IMU software can be used for "fun" interactive voting competitions, as well as ones where voting accuracy is important.

• For fun competitions like "American Idol", the audience can be encouraged to send SMS text votes multiple times from the same phone. If a charge is made, such as 10 cents or 25 cents per vote, this can also increase revenue for the competition sponsor.
   
• More serious competitions will want to allow only one SMS text vote per phone. This is easy to set up with IMU.
       Optionally, if additional votes are received, IMU can automatically send back an SMS text message such as "You have already voted, so any later votes are not counted."
       One limitation of this system is that people could call their friends and have them vote using a different phone. A simple way to cut down on this problem is to limit the voting time, making it harder to organize "outsiders" during the vote period. (At Last Gadget Standing, the voting period lasted 10 minutes.)
   
• For the most accurate interactive voting, you can specify in advance which cell phone numbers will be allowed to vote. For example, at registration or at the door, ask attendees for their cell phone numbers. These are then entered into Pangolin's IMU, using the Sender Filter feature. Only these numbers will be added to the list of permitted callers.

In all cases, votes can be displayed live as they arrive, or you can hide the results until all votes are in.

As you can see, Pangolin's IMU system has great flexibility. For more information, contact Pangolin to find out how easy and simple it is to set up interactive SMS voting for your event or competition.