As anyone who has played baseball with me can confirm, I’m no Babe Ruth. Although my fielding skills are passable, I’m never going to show up in the cleanup slot in the batting order. In fact, I’m probably not going to even show up on the roster. I prefer contact sports.
That said, I’m pointing to the fences on this one. Augmented reality is going to change things for the better. It’s a new buzzword and it’s still shiny enough for me to justify a blog post about it. People have been throwing around the term for awhile, but we’re finally seeing a few applications emerge that justify the excitement.
So, what is it?
The term “augmented reality” doesn’t describe any one piece of technology. Instead, it’s about exchanging information directly with your immediate surroundings. The idea has been around for awhile: overlay the real world with data. You use a mobile tool (like the iPhone) to access the data in the surrounding geographic region. Think of it like adding the internet to your surroundings.
It’s easier to explain by example. Let’s imagine that you’re dropping over to your local Starbucks for a pick-me-up. You’re standing in line and you pull out your iPhone to check in. Since it’s a long line, you check in to one of your augmented reality apps and you notice a coupon on the floor. You use your app to pick up the coupon and, bam! — it’s a virtual Starbucks card loaded with enough for a free brew.
Uh… cool.
As digital marketers, this gets us excited. It encourages people to tie their digital engagement to a real-world interaction (or vice versa). You build additional loyalty and create another reason for people to visit you. If you’re smart, you make sure it encourages behavior that is profitable for your business.
But here’s the important part: the scenario I outlined above is not the end-all of this medium. My example is basic and, if you boil it down, is just another form of distributing a digital coupon. It’s cool and kind of fun, but there’s still a lot of power to be tapped.
The Core is Geolocation
At the core of augmented reality is the ability to identify your user’s location to some degree of precision. That’s the new, exciting variable. I can identify that you are in a particular location when accessing a database. Because of this location ability, I can deliver specific content to you (be it a prize, a piece of relevant information, or simple kudos). So how can we use this to our advantage?
Gaming
For example, let’s tie it to gaming. We’ve all played the game “Capture the Flag”. Foursquare, a rising star in social applications, taps in to this idea. The application allows people to tie their presence in a particular location to a status elevation in that place. For example, if Nick checks in at dynamIt ten times, he becomes the mayor of dynamIt. If I check in eleven, I can unseat him as mayor. It’s fun because it introduces a gaming aspect that overlays the real world. Nick and I can tie a simple game to our day-to-day interactions.
At present, it’s just kind of silly and without any “real” reward or depth. It’s just kind of fun to beat up on Nick.
So where’s it going?
Possibilities
First of all, let’s just talk about it like it’s a game. It’s easier that way.
Imagine a world where I can do more than just unseat Nick as the mayor of our offices. Imagine that I can leave a trap for him at his desk, and, when he arrives, he can get stung by it. Maybe the phone emits a fart sound, that’d go over well where I work. Maybe Nick and Steve then gang up on me to retaliate. We could tie a “points” system into the whole thing, turning the real world into some screwed up version of GoldenEye.
It could go further into the “capture the flag” idea. We might want to storm the offices of our buddies at Shift Global, conquer their tower, and grab their company item (the Soul of Rock and Roll). Once we get it back to our location (by overwhelming their numbers and scurrying home), we could post their item in our online Trophy Case (which we could then embed on our web site). They’d immediately start sobbing and plot their revenge. Awesome.
That’s just the beginning. This “game” engine will be much, much richer than just these basic ideas. It can facilitate real-world transactions (like the redemption of coupons for goods / services) and other digital consequences. It can add context to a location (imagine a labyrinth or a virtual tour). And in the future, it can interact with real-world items and technologies to offer you a richer real-life experience.
APIs to Lead Us
Application Programmer Interfaces (APIs) are going to fuel this field in a big way. Once the technologies get a little bit more mature, they’ll adopt a model or two like the ones I’ve described above and allow us nerds to get our grubby little hands on the ideas. Like the iPhone, like twitter, the real responsibility of the companies selling augmented reality is to open it up to the world. After that, we’ll see ideas that blow this pitiful blog post out of the water.
So let’s brainstorm: where do we see this going? Do you have some good ideas for some killer augmented reality applications?
