With the surge in online Augmented Reality, we often get asked, “How many people actually have webcams?” Given webcams are becoming a standard accessory to new laptops (and desktops) we’ve spent some time compiling numbers that we’d like to share:
79% of laptops now have webcams. (source: PC world)
72% of 18-20 year olds own a laptop. (source: Pew Internet & American Life Project)
83% of college students own a laptop. (source: Student Monitor)
More than 50% of Gen Y owns a webcam. (source: Cisco)
As of March 2011, more than 40% of Skype minutes involve video to video calls (source: Skype)
Furthermore, on recent web-based Augmented Reality projects we’ve launched both on our own (Cannonballz) and for clients, we’ve seen on average approximately 78% of users with webcams enabled.
With the continued growth of video chat and Augmented Reality, it’s an inevitability that webcam’s will be a standard of any PC experience in the near future. Though most web-based Augmented Reality is a solo experience, with the growing popularity of video chat, we can expect to see Augmented Reality evolve to a one-to-one and even one-to-many proposition. The following press announcements from Google, Facebook and Skype help to show how video chat is integrating itself into the social experience:
Social Media is all the rage now, but interactive video chats will help evolve conversations and collaboration to an even more real-time experience. If you haven’t seen our ZugSTAR prototype, take a minute to check it out below to see how the interactive video chat experience can work from anything to Virtual Dressing Rooms to Telemedicine.
eMarketer recently had an interview with Catherine Moellering who runs the Tobe Report, a fashion industry publication that forecasts trends. There were a few important insights on Teen Girls and their shopping habits that are listed below:
Teen girls are motivated by what their peers are doing and what they’re wearing
You have to find a way to engage this consumer (teen girls) and keep her involved beyond sales promotions and coupons
It’s really about providing the tools on your site so girls will start to associate you, the retailer, as a great place for putting together their prom look
Bottom line – its important to engage the teen girl shopping demographic with social media, innovative tools, and other emerging media/tech they use in their lives. You can read the interview here.
The blog post below initially ran on AdAge last Friday, January 28th and you can view the actual post here. It’s no secret how we feel about the current crop of Mobile AR apps being overhyped to the point they’ll damage credibility for the entire AR industry, but read below and let us know your own thoughts on whether or not you agree…at least we’re content knowing Forrester Research shares the same opinion…
We get quite a few inquiries involving mobile AR and pass on most of them. Why? For starters, we don’t feel like we should waste potential clients money. There’s a gaping gulf between the practicality of current mobile AR and what’s shown in marketing driven or concept videos. A great example of this is World Lens. If you haven’t yet checked out this AR tech it’s a concept that is game changing – it will literally translate Spanish text into English text in your mobile viewfinder when you load the app and point your viewfinder at text. But there’s a problem when you view the promise of the video and actually try the current execution. I’ve tried the app and though the potential is unlimited for this technology, the experience is subpar. I’ve included the marketing video for World Lens below and I suggest you watch that and then read this review from ReadWriteWeb which did a more formal review of the app itself. In short, the execution doesn’t live up to the concept video and current user reviews on iTunes reinforce that.
Though World Lens is the type of mobile AR app that promises utility and will likely be game changing once the kinks are worked out, it’s the current crop of “iPhone Lite AR” mobile AR apps that have fueled the level of hype for AR that will be hard to overcome. Though iTunes created an Augmented Reality section for these types of apps, most of them aren’t even true AR. Most of them involve using a stationary image you place via your viewfinder on an object or use the viewfinder itself as the backdrop for the app. The Star Wars Falcon Gunner game is a great example of this. Is it true AR? Not really. Though this is a fun game, when you use the AR option, it’s basically removing the Death Star in-game background and replacing it with your real world viewfinder background. There’s no additional interaction from the game with the real world background so it really is “Lite AR” in that the AR function itself doesn’t provide any additional gameplay value or interaction. Most of the iPhone Mobile AR games also use this same approach and it’s not helping to advance the mobile AR field one bit. In fact it’s hurting the field and leading to underwhelming consumer expectations of mobile AR.
A recent research report from Forrester sums up what we’ve been saying for the last 2 years – that mobile augmented reality is very overhyped and not ready for primetime. We’ve blogged numerous times about issues and limitations of mobile AR – processing power, battery life, development fragmentation (iOS / Android) and so on. Though everybody in the AR industry will agree that mobile AR will one day become the focal point of all AR, it’s not there yet and won’t be for another few years. We’ll likely start seeing some innovation in the mobile AR area in 2011 but it likely won’t be until 2013 or so that mobile AR really starts reaching its potential.
However, there are some mobile AR executions that do show potential and where the mobile AR field is headed. Layar is the most prominent mobile AR developer and they’re doing some interesting things with their platform mostly as it pertains to enhanced information. And I’m referring to executions like showing where the Berlin Wall used to be when visiting Germany vs. overlaying directional information in the mobile viewfinder which is still inaccurate and limited to current mobile handset technology. Two of my other favorite mobile AR apps include Sunseeker and iButterfly and show that utility based AR applications can be developed with current technology.
The press often assumes that all of AR is mobile AR. But it’s not. As even Forrester points out, web and kiosk based AR executions are much further along in terms of consumer adoption and you’ll likely see more of these executions in 2011 than others:
“According to Mr. Husson, mobile augmented reality applications are not delivering. There are more significant short-term opportunities to tap into with Web-based and kiosk-based augmented reality solutions and there is great potential for the technology in ecommerce.”
There’s a reason why web and kiosk based-AR is more practical for your brand right now. With the web, you have the greatest reach for your AR application especially when you develop with Adobe Flash to obtain the greatest reach without the need for a proprietary plug-in. And with kiosks, you have greater processing power and removal of consumer barriers (i.e. markers, webcams) to achieve innovative and engaging executions for retail, OOH, POP and event marketing. But with mobile you still have the limitations I listed above that are not going to be overcome in 2011, much less 2012. Though tablets might provide some innovation in the mobile AR arena, web and kiosk-based AR will likely be your best bet for any AR initiatives you’re targeting to develop. Even Connected TV sets and gaming devices that offer webcam functionality will likely be a more developed and practical platform for AR than mobile. Microsoft Kinect with 8 million sales in it’s first 60 days is already showing quick adoption of AR in the digital living room.
In final, the PR value for AR is diminishing quickly for brands and doing an AR application or initiative just to do it, does not make sense anymore. If I had a nickel for every inquiry we get where “I want to have the consumer point their phone at an old car and change it into X brand”, well I’d be able to buy a 99 cent mobile AR app. AR can be a very useful technology for many different areas and industries and it’s contingent on brands and their agencies to look to utility, practicality and value over quick PR and concept reels for their AR needs.
Smartphone apps – particularly for Android and iPhone – are the darlings of agency and marketer’s interactive marketing initiatives. I won’t go into a long list of why developing only for the Android and iPhone platforms is limiting the reach of your mobile initiative and will just let the graphic below speak for itself. By eyeballing the graphic, Android and iPhone subscribers equate to about 30 million U.S. mobile users. That’s leaving behind 262.8 million U.S. mobile users (approx. 90%) who won’t be able to view your shiny new smartphone app…via Engadget.
I recently created an op-ed for Adage called CES 2011: Welcome To The Year of Tablets and Digital Living Rooms which you can view here. This is a preview of what to expect at CES and how marketers might be able to leverage certain technologies unveiled at the annual electronics show. You can also read on below…
CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 2011 is almost upon us and like all gadget-obsessed technorati, half the excitement of an upcoming CES is trying to guess what new innovations will be unveiled to the public. CES 2010 appeared to be the year of 3-D televisions (fueled by the success of “Avatar” and other popular 3-D films) but adoption by consumers has been lukewarm at best. As Financial Times reports, price and need for 3-D glasses has made many consumers hesitant to purchase last year’s next big thing.
So with CES 2011 just weeks away, what can marketers start preparing for? My guess: tablets and connected TV sets.
Tablets
The iPad has been a runaway hit for Apple and helped create a new electronics segment sitting squarely in between laptops and netbooks. With Samsung also jumping into the tablet market with the Galaxy Tab, anticipation is high for other Windows 7-, Android- and Linux-based tablets from the likes of Dell, HP and others. So though we can expect tablets to soon be their own category, what does this mean for marketers? For one, it will continue to provide a fragmented market when it comes to campaign development. Apple refuses to support Flash, while Google (with their Android operation system) has been a huge supporter — even going so far as to integrate Flash into the Chrome browser. Then you also have the app vs. mobile web issue to take into account, which leads to greater fragmentation and cost to a marketer.
In addition, though the tablet market is technically more akin to the smartphone than the laptop, there will be mobile marketing-based opportunities for marketers targeting the “always on the grid” mobile consumer. Augmented Reality is one area that can benefit from the larger display screen and processing power of a tablet. LBS will also likely mature to provide more beneficial services for consumers outside of becoming a mayor of a restaurant.
And finally, Skype has already stole some pre-CES thunder by releasing its mobile video chat application for the iOS — iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and the iPad. Though Apple made an initial splash with its FaceTime mobile video chat app, it’s hard to see Apple, or anybody for that matter, denting the Skype armor considering the market share Skype has already amassed. And this market share is interoperable and across mobile, web and even the digital living room via connected TV sets. Skype, like it or not, will become synonymous with video chat just as Google was synonymous with search.
Connected TVs
The battle for the digital living room has been ongoing for a while and it’s now finally made it to the mainstream. This year it appears that connected sets and peripherals (i.e. set-top boxes) will be the big bet this year from OEM’s. With more than 200 apps in their store and 1 million app downloads, Samsung has both taken a leadership position in this space and helped validate the market. Though Google has also thrown its hat into the ring with its own Logitech-based set top box and Sony-based TV, they also have had a few problems to date. ReelSEO has a good rundown here. With Apple also selling 1 million units of their Apple TV in 2010 alone, it does appear that the consumer is finally ready for internet connectivity in the living room.
What again does this mean for the marketer? For starters, there is a shift happening from the desktop PC to the connected TV for consumers. The connected-TV environment will not only increase the expectation for interactivity with content but usher out the “passive” viewing experience. If you ever watch ESPN “SportsCenter” and notice the interactivity both on the left and bottom of the screen, this will likely be the future of how we view content in this connected format. Apps will allow for even more interactivity and contextual integration fundamentally changing how marketers will need to interact with viewers.
Though there are likely to be other cool gadgets on display, there’s one other technology that I hope will make an appearance — Kinect. Microsoft’s motion gaming device has been a blockbuster so far with 5 million units sold over the last few months. Though this has created an evolution in gaming, it’s providing a revolution in how people interact with digital information via the Natural User Interface (NUI). Just as consumers were getting used to touchscreen displays, we now have another shift to motion-based interaction and gestural control. If you have the time, it’s worth checking out the Kinect Hacks site to see how “hackers” are using the Kinect technology to create mind-blowing examples of everything from Predator type “cloaking” to the Minority Report navigation system.
Zugara and One To One Interactive are looking to do a pretty mind-blowing session at the upcoming SXSW Interactive conference. If you’re not familiar with Neuromarketing, you can read more about it here and here. Needless to say, this should be a pretty engaging panel so I hope you take a moment to make sure it’s part of SXSW’s program by voting for it here.
You can find other details on the panel here but this is the short description:
“Augmented reality and neuromarketing have been getting a lot of attention as cutting edge innovations that are available to brands to engage their customers and measure effectiveness. This panel will discuss ground breaking neuromarketing research that explores the difference between an AR e-commerce application vs. a traditional web based e-commerce application. The study will highlight perceptual changes, the level of neurological attention, and the post-purchase emotions that each experience yields. The study hypothesis is that e-commerce applications that utilize AR to enhance the buying experience will yield higher levels of positive engagement vs. traditional e-commerce applications.”
After years of hype around Web TV and the “Digital Living Room”, it appears we’re finally ready to get connected in new and exciting ways. In this op-ed entitled “Ready for the Tidal Wave” written for Adweek, I tried to communicate just how large this digital ecosystem is set to be. You can read the entire adweek op-ed here or read it below.
Ready for the Tidal Wave?
Those of us on the fringe of emerging media and technology are often faced with the question, “What’s next?”
Mobile (especially location-based services) is obviously here to stay and will be the critical component to any integrated marketing campaign. Also, marketers seem to understand that augmented reality can be a useful and utility-based technology.
But the area about to explode? Internet-connected TVs with application stores. That is, TVs with the ability to both connect to the Internet and have interactive apps downloaded directly onto them by consumers.
There’s been lots of talk about the Battle for the Digital Living Room. Sony, Microsoft, Apple, Roku, Boxee and a host of other players are trying to rush out Internet-enabled boxes or gaming systems that will provide digital content and Internet connectivity on standard television sets. Cable providers are also trying to get into the game with partnerships with companies such as ActiveVideo that can stream content “from the cloud” to most standard consumer cable boxes. Even Google is trying to get into the game by modifying its Android OS for this new, connected digital living room market.
(There’s a great three-minute video that shows just how disruptive Google’s entry into the connected-TV environment can and most likely will be.)
Not to be left out, many electronics manufacturers that create TV sets don’t want to be without a chair once the music stops playing. So now you have companies like LG, Panasonic, Samsung and others also trying to bring Internet-enabled television sets to the digital living room as fast as possible.
Regardless, whether it’s the TV itself, a gaming system, set-top box or other connected peripheral, the Internet-enabled digital living room is upon us.
So with all this connectivity, what’s the end game for the consumer? Think of the still-exploding smartphone app market and apply that to your living room and TV set. It’s no secret that consumer electronic manufacturers are hoping to replicate the success of the iPhone app market by offering the same type of direct-to-consumer app ecosystem.
Consider these recent projections from In-Stat:
• U.S. shipments of Web-enabled consumer electronic (CE) devices that support TV applications will grow from 14.6 million in 2010 to 83.4 million by 2014.
• By 2014, over 59 million U.S. broadband households will own at least one CE device that supports TV applications.
• By 2014, the U.S. installed base of CE devices that support TV applications will be 136 million units.
As you can see, there’s a pretty high trajectory for this market.
But what of the potential pitfalls?
Well, similar to the entire mobile ecosystem, there might be app compatibility issues and, unlike “mobile Web optimization” that can act as a common bridge, the interactive television app market doesn’t appear to yet have a Plan B.
However, unlike mobile phones, most consumers don’t trade their TVs in every year or are tied to one carrier to determine what hardware they can buy. So, in this instance, you’ll probably see a few market leaders dominate the space and because of app purchases, stick with the same brand /compatibility for future purchases.
Content owners or brands that wish to create apps in this digital living room ecosystem will most likely need to go with the leaders or wait until standards are in place and uniformity exists (which is unlikely at this point, since every new emerging tech market seems to fragment).
You’ll also most likely see demographic splits where older viewers are more interested in passive viewing experiences versus younger audience viewers who are more apt to download apps that can create a more social, collaborative and interactive experience similar to online.
By replicating what already works for interactive online video on the Internet, “social TV” on connected sets will most likely start gaining traction. If you were at CES this past January, you might have also seen that almost every TV set manufacturer has a partnership with Skype to offer the service via sets with webcam integrated into the hardware or ability to add webcam via USB. I personally cannot wait to see connected apps take advantage of this video chat technology tied in with contextual information from shows people are watching.
Finally, there’s the whole mobile app market itself that is already offering TV-companion apps, remote control functionality and so on. It will be interesting to track how consumers will start using the sets, and where and how mobile apps will be used in relation to TV-connected apps or if they will most likely function together. I’m betting on the latter vs. the former.
However it plays out, there’s a good chance that you’ll soon “augment” your viewing experience with downloadable apps that can provide further context on a show, allow you to play games tied to content you’re watching, and create an overall interactive experience for your new customizable digital living room. The only question will be if the market dictates 99 cents for these connected apps as it did for mobile.
Gartner today released their annual Emerging Technologies Hype Report – you can buy the official report here. I’ve embedded the Hype Cycles form 2008 – 2010 so you can see how certain technologies are tracking. I suggest you check out the 1st image below to get explanation of how the graph is defined.
Hype Cycle Definition
2008
Note: As you can see below, Augmented Reality was looking at more than 10 years adoption by mainstream…
2009
Note: In one year, Augmented Reality went from more than 10 years to mainstream adoption down to 5-10 years.
2010
Note: AR Continues to climb so expect even more of it in Q4 2010 and all of 2011
Conclusion: AR has been on a unbelievable trajectory and will continue so with mobile and kiosk-based AR sure to capture the imagination of marketers everywhere – especially in 2011. Throw in Kinect and the adoption of ‘gestural controls’ in the digital living room, and I think you’re going to see much faster mainstream adoption of AR than predicted here. If you’re sick of hearing of AR already, I think you’re going to need to deal with it because it’s not going away anytime soon…
P.S. The webinar also had another interesting graphic showing a different view of information in the hype cycle. I personally think AR is transformational but that’s just me Embedded below.
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.
Embedded below.