Coca-Cola is trying to be the facebook of cell-phone interaction for kids. With its upcoming Sprite Yard, it will try to get young teens to sign up and use the interaction site to chat with each other, play games and post photos, all with the purpose of generating brand loyalty to its soda pop. The idea of a cell-phone based social interaction site is new, too. This may not change the world, but it does signal something I think is significant: that a consumer company is trying to branch out to do something completely out of its realm in order to solidify its customer base. In the past, companies like Facebook and MySpace developed their social interaction sites to get like-minded folks to link up and talk about interests. With Coke's Sprite Yard, it's all another form of advertising. How effective or popular the site will be is hard to predict, but I think it's safe to say that a soda company developing new technology in hopes of gaining more soda drinkers shows how technology truly does reign in our society.
Here is a link to a New York Times article about the site:
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