Vaporware Vendor Targets New Markets

You have to admire a technology company that can build a business around airborne water particles. FogScreen has done that, with an impressive customer list that includes Disney, Nokia, 20th Century Fox, Sony, and Microsoft. Now it's taking its act to Vegas.FogScreen, based in Helsinki, Finland, introduced its fancy fog machine about four years ago. It's the misty equivalent of a reflective projector screen -- one you can walk through. The company describes it as an interactive, airborne projection screen. You can see it in action here.

Last year, FogScreen opened an office in San Francisco, from which it targets amusement parks, museums, events, and other places where you wouldn't want to set up a physical projection screen that might topple onto bystanders.

As it turns out, this vaporware can be used in nightclubs and bars, too. FogScreen is pitching its product this week at the Nightclub and Bar Convention in Las Vegas. Did I mention that Playboy and Victoria's Secret are customers, too? In some businesses, smoke and mirrors aren't necessarily a bad thing.

FogScreen's system is available in two versions: the one-meter FogScreen One and two-meter FogScreen Inia. U.S. president of operations Jorden Woods says the push into nightclubs "opens the floodgates" for immersive, original branding campaigns. Given the FogScreen's use of ordinary tap water, that's no surprise.

Woods says companies can use FogScreen to reach customers at the point of purchase with a "90% retention rate." Impressive -- and he's not talking about water retention.