For some years now, games have been a marketing platform for brands. Auto major Toyota's premium brand Lexus is the latest to jump onto the virtual marketing bandwagon by tying up with Atari's hit car racing game "Test Drive Unlimited". With big gaming companies routinely including brands for a fee, what's new about Lexus' recent launch of a free downloadable patch for "Test Drive Unlimited" ?

Lexus' download patch enables players to choose to "drive" the latest Lexus models (especially those which Lexus wants to promote, like the "IS" series or the yet to be launched "F" series). While this ensures that Toyota achieves a synch with the young* players, what's more interesting is that by increasing its engagement with gamers, Lexus has taken virtual marketing a step further. The virtual Lexus dealership for example, enables players to "drive" out in a new Lexus model if they have accumulated enough points.

* "Test Drive Unlimited" has already sold half a million copies worldwide, mostly in the age group 18 - 34 years.

The "Connected" City
There's been a lot of activities happening vis a vis Govt funded Wifi hotspots, sometimes referred to as Metro or Municipal Wireless Networks, around the world. But the "i-City" (pilot) project by the Belgian Govt extends the concept to the connected city of the future.

The Govt of Belgium has enabled 2 square km of Hasselt town with a high-density Wi-fi mesh comprising of nearly 300 hotspots. And simulated a connected micro city by roping in private firms along with a few thousand citizens armed with cellular/Wi-fi gizmos. (Note: The operative word is "connected" and not "wired" !)

Now everybody knows that the Belgian Govt is not the first to initiate/sponsor Wi-fi hotspots. But the difference is in the implementation - by making available a last layer of sophisticated application software - which for example, display scheduled time of the next bus as you pass by a bus stop; special offers (ads) as you approach a shopfront, and so on.

Being a pilot project, "i-City" is as much an exercise to popularize new technology as to observe how the populace adapts the new technology. In short, whether the utility of the municipal / government applications & databases will be appreciated? Or whether the wireless ads will be the killer app (!) Or whether the network will be used most for social networking coupled with the available built-in geo-positioning - a sort of one level ahead of Myspace, Orkut or Twitter !