So I ran in to this over on Crave.  As part of a massive ad campaign that Westin has installed in Grand Central Station in New York, there is a billboard offering up a free ringtone to passersby via Bluetooth.

For years tech folks have been talking about a similar type of service that would allow merchants to beam coupons to the phones of passing folks, but for a variety of reasons it hasn’t happened in the US.

I think what Westin is trying to do is a pretty good idea, but I don’t think it will work.  In the Crave article it talks about how the billboard is located someplace that people don’t linger…  But I think there’s even more to it than that.  This billboard like most billboards is located someplace noisy, which reduces the possibility that the intended recipient will notice that they have received a Bluetooth file transfer request.  Ideally this billboard needs to be placed in a waiting area, as the longer folks are in range of the billboard, the greater the chances that they’ll notice it’s there and trying to send them a file.

But there’s also the fact that most people (especially those over 25 and outside the Crackberry set) don’t know how to do much more with their phone other than send and receive calls.  How many of the folks likely to stay at a Westin (even those with Crackberrys) would know how to respond to a Bluetooth file transfer request on their phone if they got one?

For those who are savy enough to know what a Bluetooth file transfer request is and how to handle one on their phone, how likely are they to accept such a transfer from a source that they don’t know?  What about you?  Would you accept a file being sent to you randomly by a stranger in a train station?