Why Augmented Reality Should be Blowing Your Mind - especially for marketers

So I've just been getting into researching Augmented Reality (AR) and forgive me if I'm behind the times a bit (many of the articles I'm reading are from January). But with the release of the new iPhone, the simplicity of a camera being combined with GPS/location track technology plus the compass feature apparently makes the iPhone adaptable to many AR usages that imo with be utterly transformative to technology, marketing, and culture in general. And I do my utmost to refrain from industry hyperbole, so that means a lot coming from me.

First off, check out this video to get a sense of how freaking cool AR can be while sitting at your computer and combining your video cam plus a tag embedded on a product, in this example a baseball card: (thanks to the blog at Make in the UK where I discovered the video - to blow your mind further check out the folks at Total Immersion who created the technology shown in the video)

Along with this video, I highly recommend you read Jamais Cascio's Fast Company articles, iPhone Augmented Reality and When 'Mad Men Meets Augmented Reality'.  The second one is particularly fascinating in terms of how privacy and technology always have an interplay that reflects on culture, sometimes in a negative or dark way.  Here's an excerpt, where Cascio make the point that AR when utilized on your new iPhone could eventually allow you to hold up you phone, snap a picture (or simply look through the viewfinder) and have AR technology show you a virtual map of just what you want to see--it could block ads or even images (suggestive billboards, etc) you don't want to see.  But there's a concern here as Cascio points out:

This may sound appealing, but it has a dark underside. The moment that we can easily display location-aware images on a blended-reality system, people will try to block any images they don't like. Forget ads: Some people will block even slightly suggestive images, or signs proclaiming religious beliefs that they oppose, or newspapers and magazines with arguments they don't like--anything that would upset their custom-built reality. Or maybe anyone. Consider the "Prop 8 Maps" site, mashing up Google Maps and public records of people who donated to support or oppose the 2008 California proposition on gay marriage. Suddenly, you could easily see who around you agreed or disagreed enough with the proposal to put up money.

That's not too hard to imagine. Face recognition technology is progressing quickly, and often relies on the same heuristics that enable the recognition of physical objects. This means that, technologically speaking, it's not too far of a leap from blocking advertisers to blocking out the people who annoy us. With one click, we construct our own realities, ones that don't include the ideas -- and people -- we dislike.

I can't even begin to fathom how important this technology will be for the culture in general, but specifically to advertisers.  Right now we're all wondering about the metrics for social media (like Maura and the very smart/cool folks at SMAC, the Social Media Advertising Consortium) which is great and necessary.  But I read about AR and I'm thinking of the ethical implications of both my being able to block out whatever I want, and advertisers having to work around the fact that I can do so.  And what do I mean by "work around?"  How can I try to commuincate value for clients or even friends when I'll have to wonder how I can relay ideas to them?  And who determined where it's okay for me to relay ideas and how?  Can I tell you about a book I liked on Facebook but not blog about it?  What if you give me an author's copy of a book that you got from a friend and I review it?  As long as I disclose where I got it, am I safe, or do I have to wonder if I'm a Mom that I might catch heat from the FTC?

A lot of question marks in that last paragraph but I have to say I haven't been this excited on a topic since I first delved in to transparency years ago.  And I think the convergence of the following four factors will be mind-blowing in terms of where marketing/advertising along with culture will be going:

• AR technology
• Privacy Issues (how do I let you know what I want and what I don't?)
• Open ID type technology - how soon until my unifiied identiy (all of my social network URL's, personal info validating I am who I actually say I am, etc) can be more actively and easily merged with my mobile life so I could eventually be walking in NYC, search under 'restaurants' and know that a place that has my favorite meal will be open in ten minutes, that three of my geek-buddies are in the area, that 35 friends (searched instantly via Tweet Deck or whatever) have enjoyed the meal) and that I could order and pre-pay for my meal before I even arrive?) I realize I melded about seven technologies there, but the power of mobile with AR in conjunction with the concerns of privacy (and opportunities when well managed) are amazing.
• Social Networking (like I mentioned above--this is nothing new, but Dopplr and other location based networking will up the power and relevancy of Twitter for networking and marketing to a major degree)

Pretty fascinated by this subject.  If you have any thoughts or info on this, please feel free to email me at: johnhavens AT blogtalkradio DOT com.

Comments

[Brian Barela]

great post John. thanks for sharing this. i've not engaged AR at all. this gives me plenty to think about in terms of how to apply the principles/future realities to my organization.