Augmented reality

Augmented reality has been on the fringes for some time now but it has only come to my attention over the past couple of months. When I bought my first Smartphone, the G1, back in 2008 I was one of the first customers at the T-mobile store to walk away with one of the converted handsets. On the way on home my best friend asked me why on earth I would want a phone that could do all of these things when I had a perfectly good laptop at home. In short I couldn't answer him, I just knew that it was the way things were headed and it just so happens I was right.

It was a few months after I first bought it that I was introduced to my first Augmented Reality app and I was far from blown away. It was slow, clunky and I couldn't understand why someone had gone to the trouble of producing something that clearly didn't have a future. Well in this case I guess I was wrong. Over the past few days I have been investigating the new and improved Augmented Reality software now available and this time I was amazed. Technology has come far from my last encounter with AR and my word it shows.

OK so some people are still using AR for stupid gimmicky stuff that is never going to sell or appeal to the wider audience but the video of the Toyota iQ above shows a real potential for marketing success.Over the years some of the big car manufactures such as Audi have done very clever and innovative things with direct mail but surely the future lies here. If you could send out an appropriately appealing piece of direct mail with a marker that would allow you to do that then surely it would be a winner?

I remember seeing the Back to The Future films as a child and thinking that the advertising show for Jaws 19 and the new hover cars would be something for my children to enjoy but maybe this billboard will become common place in my life time.

In my research I stumbled across Ikea's new development, My Ikea. My Ikea is an online service where you will be able to print out markers and place them around your room. Each marker will be linked to a certain Ikea product and when viewed through your My Ikea webcam the markers turn into fully three dimensional pieces of furniture. The idea behind this is so that you can "try before you buy". Well this seemed too good to be true for me and had to be tried. My Ikea is still in it's infancy and currently there are only three demo products available but it gives you a good idea of things to come. Although I struggled to make the sofa work, the lamp and side table were excellent. Give my Ikea a go yourself here.

So does AR have a future and can it help service delivery day to day? Well in it's current form I would say no. Who is really going to walk around town viewing life through the small screen of a Smartphone? I love some of the ideas popping up with new and interesting ways of using AR but I personally believe it won't be truly successful until we can use it in innovative marketing or condense the technology into a pair of normal looking glasses.