So, Juniper Research just issued a report that “predicts global revenues from (mobile) augmented reality applications and services will approach $1.5 billion by 2015.” And I wanted to see what you guys thought about that number… Does it sound accurate? Is it way off (in either direction)? What’s going to drive that revenue? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
For the record, my official answer is: WTF??? By 2015? How?
That is a gigantic number, and I’m not sure how it’s achievable given the issues mobile AR has and will have for the next few years… I’ve tried to raise industry awareness about the (current) issues with mobile AR by writing about them in this blog ad nauseum. Those issues include: inaccurate civilian grade GPS; fragmented development environment (iOS, Android); inadequate processing power of handsets; battery life; and, subpar/unnatural consumer experience (to name a few). If you want more details, you can read one of our previous posts by clicking here. In my mind, these issues will delay consumer adoption/usage and serious development efforts.
To put $1.5 billion in context, Mobile has been blowing up in the States the past few years and according to eMarketer we’re finally going to surpass $1 Billion in mobile ad spending for the first time in 2011… Oh, and the largest segment of that ad spend? Text message marketing.
Obviously the app market is a crowded and difficult one to succeed in but I came across a quote yesterday that I think is pretty applicable and telling (especially about consumer usage habits): there is a 5% retention rate on free apps after 30 days. So where is this $1.5 billion going to come from? If people don’t even use free apps after 30 days, do you think the “average person” would pay an upfront fee for any of these apps? I don’t…
Now, I’d love to hear your thoughts below, or on Twitter: @jack_benoff
Mobile augmented reality (AR) apps get a ton of press. There seems to be a love affair with them. And while we definitely believe that mobile AR will be absolutely gigantic one day, we think the current fascination is premature. Sure mobile AR seems amazing on the surface, when you first read about it or see it, but over time we don’t think it provides the every day utility/experience it currently promises. I mean, are you continually using an AR app over competitive services (e.g. google maps)? That said, we’ve been wrong before, so we thought we would set up a little informal poll to see if people are actually using Mobile AR applications (repeatedly, not just reading about them in the trades and thinking they sound cool), or if they are just checking them out because of the novelty (and their ability to impress one’s colleagues)… a one and done type scenario.
Now, let’s be clear about what I mean when I say “Mobile AR”. I mean these applications that layer information on top of your smartphone’s video screen. They use your phone’s GPS and Compass to (allegedly) tell you what direction the nearest McDonalds is, or the like. Yelp’s Monacle would be a good example.
Please fill out the poll below, and let us know your thoughts in the comments. I’d love to get some dialogue going on this issue (or you can hit me up on twitter https://twitter.com/jack_benoff).
If you have an iPhone, chances are you’ve had an issue with the battery suddenly draining even when not in use. When searching on google, you’ll come across usual quick fixes like turning off Push Notifications, changing email to Fetch, and so on. You might even consider doing the dreaded Backup and Restore – but who was 10 hours to wait for that? Kudos to Mobility Minded for figuring out a quick fix that at least worked for me. If you have Exchange Email hooked up, chances are the issue is as simple as deleting and recreating your email account. Not sure why the iPhone seems to do this but overall fix seems to work. Here’s directions straight from Mobility Minded’s site:
I have discovered that the sudden extreme battery drain has to do with your Exchange Account that has been set up on your iPhone. For some odd reason it keeps check and checking for new info and it won’t stop. Before trying to do a restore on your iPhone I would first recommend deleting your Exchange Push Account on your iPhone and set it up again as a new account. This will save some time in the fix for the extreme fast battery drainage.
Follow the steps below to fix the extreme battery drainage on your iPhone.
Go to your “Settings” on your iPhone.
Select “Mail,Contact,Calendars“.
Select your account that has been set up with an exchange server.
Select “Account Info“.
Copy down the information which you will need to set up this account again later on.
Select the “Arrow back ” on the top of your screen with the name of your account.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and select “Delete Account“
Let the iPhone do its work. It will remove all e-mails, contacts and calendar items from your iPhone associated with your account.
When done Turn off your iPhone and Turn it back on.
Once your iPhone is turned back on you can go back to Step 1,2
Back in the “Mail,Contacts,Calendar” Settings you have to select “Add Account“
Select the “Microsoft Exchange” and enter the credentials you copied down before.
The server information is not visible in this field yet, it will appear after you set up your E-mail, Domain, Username and Password are entered and “Next” has been selected.
Now your account has been set up again. It will take some time for the iPhone to synchronize everything back. Give it some 5-10 minutes.
Now your Exchange Push account has been set up again and your extreme battery drainage has been stopped. If you think that after these steps you still have this issue, I would recommend using the “Restore” function in iTunes while your iPhone is connected.
This isn’t ‘new’ news but title says it all. Alot of people still aren’t aware of this site so thought it warranted a quick blog post. Every day, a new iPhone app is featured and is free. Listed below are a few of the most recent games that were featured and are now on my iPhone. You won’t see the higher priced EA or Gameloft titles on here, but there are some quality games including:
MMS has been the next ‘big thing’ in mobile for the last 6-7 years. In a bit of irony, MMS has now become the major tech use for “Sexting”. If you’re unfamiliar with that term, it’s when people send naked pictures of themselves through mobile. And from this article on Gizmodo, 1/3 of Young Adults are leading the charge with the Sexting phenomenon. I give it 2 years before Sexting becomes an official word in the dictionary. But, if you want a good laugh now, you can see the various definitions of it on Urban Dictionary…
Pizza Hut App – 100K downloads since Launch - Pizza Hut declined to give Sales figures so draw your own conclusion to how many of those 100K downloads are actually being used
If you love getting new tech toys, I just got one that’s ALOT of fun. I previously wrote a post on some mind-blowing technologies from the Streaming Media East conference and Qik was one of those technologies. Well I just got my hands on the Qik application for the iPhone and this thing is SWEET. (This is a BETA application for the iPhone btw and not public – unfortunately.)
In a nutshell, I now have video capability on my iPhone (not jailbroken either) and can stream that video in real-time to my Qik page. I also have Facebook, YouTube and Twitter all setup with my account so that friends, families, business associates, etc. can all get notified right when I’m starting a broadcast.
The application also allows me to see the current numbers of viewers of my broadcast and the delay (if any) of my broadcast to the destination point where viewers can see the video itself. You can see my profile at Qik or check out the embed below which will update any time I broadcast live. The only problem so far is that I was trying this out on EDGE which sucks and is horribly slow. So broadcast delays were about 20-30 seconds. I just ran a recent test on our internal wi-fi with much better results (as you can see from the video below.)
So other than some spontaneous Zugara office moments, expect some cool real-time broadcasts from E3 next week….
P.S. After I’ve played around with this thing for a few weeks, I’ll post a more formal review. On the surface though, this definitely seems to be a game changer in both the mobile and interactive video worlds…
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.
