I’m personally still on the fence regarding tablets in general, but it’s refreshing to finally see an electronics manufacturer (Samsung in this case) get it – and by get it I mean how suited AR is for tablets with front and back facing cameras. This is the new Samsung Galaxy tablet with more details from Crunchgear and from the Galaxy product site.
As most of you know, yesterday, Facebook launched “Facebook Places” (their foray into the location based app marketplace). And even though Places is currently “coming soon” to “my region” (which is the tiny town of Los Angeles by the way), I can promise you that I’ll soon be done with Foursquare and moving forward with Places. And my guess is you will too. Here’s why: My friends and family are already on Facebook. It’s that simple. At the end of the day a community site, just like an offline community, is about the people. The power of these apps is not the “game-play” it’s the people/community and the experiences that they are subsequently able to facilitate. Imagine checking in to a restaurant, and seeing that an old friend and his wife just checked in at the bar across the street. Wouldn’t you meet them for a drink? Which would be more important: Minor details in the way the app functions, or the access it gives you to your community? I think for most people, it will be the later.
As we’ve seen, community sites take years to “tip” and unfortunately for Foursquare (and their competitors) they just didn’t have a large enough window. Will some people stick with the app they’re currently using? For the time being, probably. Will the “masses” adopt one of those apps now? Doubtful. Why would they use another application when the same functionality (in their eyes) is built in to an app they already have (let alone, most people currently have no idea what the heck Foursquare and Gowalla are…)?
I think we’ll see an exodus, as people that use a different app migrate to where the people are, Facebook. And while Foursquare was a brilliant idea, my guess is that it will soon be remembered fondly… the location based “Friendster” if you will.
Via Mashable comes the Last Exorcism viral campaign on video chat site Chatroulette. This is one of the better ones out there though is showing the trend of how easy it is to use prerecorded video/animations on video chat. Similar to how chat bots took over Instant Messaging back in the day, initially it will be hard to tell if you’re having a conversation with a real person. At least with video, you can have an augmented reality experience which makes it a bit more interesting…
Google will be giving demonstrations of the new Google Goggles technology at the upcoming Augmented Reality NY and Augmented Reality LA meetups. If you haven’t seen Google Goggles before, I suggest checking out the embedded video below. This is a game changing technology and sure to be a killer app for any mobile device. Both events are usually livestreamed so even if you’re not in either city, you can still watch the presentation…
ARNY (Augmented Reality New York) meetup is this Tuesday, 8/17 – more info here.
ARLA (Augmented Reality Los Angeles) meetup is this Wednesday, 8/18 – more info here.
We Are Organized Chaos (WAOC) is Zugara’s (www.zugara.com) interactive marketing and advertising blog where we’ll be featuring some great projects and discussing upcoming trends in the digital world. Work — good and bad — will be critiqued. Hope you’ll enjoy reading our insights and thoughts on interactive.
