Do you ever wonder what really goes on behind the fences at construction sites? Then surf on over to OxBlue and see what you’re missing.
OxBlue is the marketing website for OxBlue Corporation. OxBlue Corp. is a company that primarily targets its products at land developers and general contractors. This new development of theirs is available for the general public also to enjoy. It’s a really neat product providing automated remote monitoring solutions that the company claims “to improve construction management and project coordination.” They call it the “Automated Remote Monitoring (ARM) System.”
I call it “my virtual hole in the fence (MYVHOITF) system. The stroke of brilliance is in the pairing of two simple technologies: wireless cameras with the Rich Internet Application called Macromedia/Adobe Flash software. Click on any of the three construction site sample offerings on the OxBlue homepage and begin your trek over the construction fence. On the right side of the screen are “thumbnail” images of three different construction sites. Choose a site. Another web page will load in Flash, containing a larger image of the chosen site. On the left side will be displayed the current date and time of that construction site in local time. There will also be a calendar, defaulted to the current day. The fun is in the calendar.
Daily construction site images are stored and archived chronologically there. Clicking on any previous calendar day allows the site surfer to view the construction progress. Just want a quick peek? Then click on the “view most recent image” button. A cool new feature is the “forward/backward” panel. With a little bit of practice, visitors can create a stop-frame kind of movie of the building’s progress. How cool is that?
OxBlue even has a zoom feature. Want to see what shenanigans are occurring behind that portable cement mixer on the fifteenth floor? Just work the zoom slide. It’s not perfect, but it works well enough to play with repeatedly. Add your own sound effects of stereotypical construction worker catcalling and whistling…and well, you’re right in the middle of the pit, and yet simultaneously in the comfort and safety of your own home.
Because OxBlue does require Flash to successfully surf it, you will have to go first to the Macromedia/Adobe site and download the software, if you don’t already have it on your computer. Despite that, the site can be surfed equally well from a dial-up as from a broadband connection.
To summarize, OxBlue is a great example of Internet marketing, possesses an ingenious web camera feature adaptation, and is pretty easily navigable by surfers of all languages.
Finally, OxBlue rates a .com Dish! “E” for everybody.
