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Tag: MR

  • Augmented Reality has Reached the Tipping Point: 10 Tips to take advantage of AR

    Augmented Reality has Reached the Tipping Point: 10 Tips to take advantage of AR

    We hear a lot about Extended Reality these days and, while neither AR or VR has reached maturity, AR is already having a significant impact on most business sectors. Retailers, advertisers, educators, travel experts, and more have begun to incorporate AR into their products, services, and marketing campaigns.

    In a couple of years, 5G will be a reality, at least for all of the US, and probably many countries in the European Union and Asia. If you are just learning about 5G and wondering how it is going to impact AR’s growth and subsequently your products or services, you are not alone. 5G is the fifth generation cellular network technology that will allow us to stream content directly into mobile devices and computers, in most cases without a download.

    With over 1,000 AR companies already in existence, sometimes it’s hard to understand the landscape.  Are they all the same? Which company or technology will suit your needs?, What kind of AR, or aspect of it, matters to you? I hope the tips below help you better understand your options, and how you may start to develop a solid strategy, use cases, and analyses to leverage AR for your business moving forward.

    1. Focus on mobile. It is the real addressable market and is being propelled by both Apple and Google,with critical hardware innovation. Over a billion devices are now AR ready.

    2. I Love Magic Leap, and Hololens, and others, but consumers, and most small and medium businesses are not ready to spend thousands of dollars per device any time soon (and perhaps never will be.). Furthermore consumers are not going to walk around with bulky HMDs that make Googles’ smart glasses from a few years ago look cool. These kinds of devices are many years away from becoming mainstream (other than in amusement parks and some entertainment venues).

    3. Current market-leading technologies you should learn about, including their differences are ARKit, ARCore, Vuforia, Wikitude for software and Qualcomm if you are interested in hardware.

    4. Leading enabling services and platforms you should investigate are: SparxWorks, Augmania, Spark Studio, Lens Studio (Snapchat).

    5. Three key things you need to be mindful of so past mistakes are not repeated

      1. No proprietary authoring environment! Pay attention to services that let you leverage your team’s expertise, the tools you know how to use, and enable creativity and that basically makes it easy and efficient to publish AR. Don’t go down the Betamax hole!

      2. Choose a platform or development solution that is flexible, efficient and easy to use.

      3. When you investigate financing options, remember that flexible licensing plans are hallmarks of companies committed to being true partners. No one shoe can fit all!

    6. Usability, as it relates to your products and services, is extremely important. Do your homework, create strong use cases, be practical, sometimes less is more.

    7. Understand what tools, platforms, or distribution ecosystems can actually reach your market. For example don’t try to reach baby boomers with SnapChat, or millennials with Facebook.

    8. Seek the right help. If you don’t have an in-house expert seek a consultant that has real experience, and is actively engaged in developing real solutions, Accenture, Media Monks, RYOT, SparxWorks, are some companies that come to mind.

    9. Understand the legal issues that can arise from the use of AR, and VR for that matter.

    10. And finally, you don’t have to hit a half-court shot. To use a well worn but true cliché, Rome was not built in a day. Take it step by step. Start simple. Remember what your products and brands are about before creating AR /XR experiences. Make a lasting impression, not a “saw it, cool, next” moment.

     

    I hope this basic list helps you get started or steers you in the right direction. If you’d like to learn more about Augmented, Mixed, and Virtual realities please join us at the Mobile World Congress in Los Angeles from 10/22 through 10/24. I will be discussing strategy opportunities with an amazing panel on10/23 at 11 AM. I will be joined by Raffaella Camera (Accenture), Olivier Koelemij (MediaMonks), Nigel Tierney (RYOT), Silke Meixner (IBM), and Patrick Costello (Qualcomm). We look forward to sharing what we have learned with you. If you can’t attend, request our PPT presentation which includes valuable information and analytics about the industry. It is free!

    If you can’t make the date, we’ll also be presenting at Digital Hollywood November 12, CES January 6, and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this coming February.

    I look forward to seeing you and answering your questions.

  • How to Make Money with AR: Introducing “SpectatAR”

    How to Make Money with AR: Introducing “SpectatAR”

    Over the past two years, we have seen numerous examples of how AR is becoming a game-changer for many industries. Among those examples/pilots some have actually made a lot of money, others a little bit, and most have served just as  examples of things to come.

    This year we have focused on working with companies that are ready to integrate AR as part of their business model. The first adopters for business uses have come from retail, advertisement, entertainment, and hospitality vertical markets, and on a smaller scale, from training and education.

    Today I want to introduce you to “SpectatAR” a new application we built for Carpe Diem International, Inc. / BizNevada, a premier publication in Nevada,  “SpectatAR” is the first app they are rolling out, It is focused on promoting events before they take place, enhancing live events, and retaining users and brand building after events are concluded.

     

    “SpectatAR” Use Case 

    This is an interesting case.“BizNevada” was looking to add value to the print side of their business. After spending time analyzing their marketing strategies and goals and creating personas to better understand their end-users, AR was chosen as the best way to add value. The pluses include creating an immersive experience for the readers, access to special offers and services, and more importantly an expansion opportunity. With this new AR app they are now able to support and promote live events, opening new sponsorship, sales, and branding opportunities. Of equal importance is that by using the Hoodoo AR platform, all the services provided by “SpectatAR” will include strong analytics, which gives sponsors, content creators and publishers the ability to measure success and reach.

    A great deal of thinking, exploring and researching went into the final product. The insight and leadership provided by Chris O’Sullivan, and Richard Moore were key to arriving at the right solution. As Chris explained their go-to- market strategy, “We want to encourage sponsor and event organizers to use AR through SpectatAR to add excitement and boost the ‘cool factor’ for their events”.

    While coming up with a strategy took several months of hard work, creating the new app was fast and simple thanks to our cloud-based integrated AR Platform, “SpectatAR” was built, submitted for approval and launched in less than two weeks!

    “SpectatAR” is powered by our Hoodoo platform www.gethoodoo.com and can be downloaded via the Apple and Google app stores or through these links https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nss.spectatar&hl=en_US and https://apps.apple.com/us/app/spectatar/id1473297416

    If you want to learn more about our “Hoodoo platform”, or about “SpectatAR” please follow the links above, join my blog, or just reach out to us.

    I will be blogging again with more use cases and practical ways to add AR to your marketing strategy to create added value and extend your brands.

    I will be speaking at the Mobile World Congress conference in October, and Digital Hollywood in November.  More on this in my next blog post.

     

  • Augmented Reality Highlights from Digital Hollywood—What We Learned!

    Augmented Reality Highlights from Digital Hollywood—What We Learned!

    I just finished day one at Digital Hollywood. What an exciting day! I had the honor of kicking off the day moderating an amazing panel with Raffaella Camera (Accenture), Tony Parisi (Unity), Olivier Koelemij (Media Monks), Nigel Tierney (Ryot), Silke Meixner (IBM), and Michael Leventhal (Holmes Weinberg). Our conversation focused on real use cases, opportunities and challenges, and what we can expect in the near future. We ended the session distributing a PowerPoint loaded with information about the industry, success stories and more. You can download a copy free (no tracking, no login, no sale J) by clicking here: https://news.sparxworks.com/2019/05/21/dh_may2019/ and you can see the webcast of the session at http://www.videodigitalhollywood.com/SessionListTuesday.html Special thanks to Victor Harwood and his team for giving us a platform to inform people about this powerful technology.

    Of course mine was not the only session and there was much more to see and learn at Digital Hollywood. I was able to attend several sessions focused on the delivery of holographic images, virtual reality, investors’ perspective on XR, and more. Nancy King’s session was very interesting. It focused on how AR and MR are transforming digital interaction. One of her panelists was Ariella Lehrer, the creator of the AR app for “Game of Games” for the Ellen Degeneres show. This use of AR was “smashing success” to quote Austin Powers. You can see the webcast of the session at the Digital Hollywood website.

    For day two I am looking forward to Ted Cohen’s session on AR/VR/MR as new branding strategies, or as additions to your current strategy,. Among other panelists, Natasha French from VNTANA will participate.   Natasha’s company is one of the early pioneers delivering holographic images to consumers. If you attending DH, you should check it out!

    My next stop is  Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara. I will be there for the entire event. If you are interested in learning about how AR can be an asset to your advertising or branding efforts, or if you need help formulating your strategy to use AR for your brand, products, or services please come to my session “How to Make Money with XR” https://www.awexr.com/usa-2019/agenda/538-how-to-make-money-with-xr. I’ll be addressing how to make money with AR citing real experiences, oriented to the addressable market, with the most innovative approach and flexibility to create instant AR experiences, together with a marketing-friendly financial model.

    I will also be available for meetings from 5/29 through 5/31 along with our company chairman, Paran Johar.  We look forward to seeing you and learning about how we can help you incorporate AR into your brand and offerings.

  • Augmented Reality Advertising Strategy—a Must!

    Augmented Reality Advertising Strategy—a Must!

    If you are working in marketing, advertising, PR, or retail, now is the time to develop an AR strategy for your brands and clients.  Everyone knew that AR was a powerful tool for gaming when Pokemon became an amazing success and created a billion dollar company in just 60 days.  And today, the success stories in retail and advertising are so numerous it’s hard to keep track all of them all.  L’Oreal, Ikea, 19 Crimes, Ellen’s Game of Games, and so many others have already proven the impact AR can have on a brand or campaign.  If these stories aren’t convincing enough, just look at where the smart money is going—Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft are all investing heavily in AR.  The question now is can you as a marketer, advertiser or brand afford to be left behind when we hit the big tipping point?

    If you’re not aware of its many use cases  you may wonder what makes AR such a powerful advertising tool.  Put simply, AR can take consumers directly to a website, or specific content; advertisers can engage users much more creatively bringing them directly to a video, commerce opportunity, or to an immersive experience.

    AR can also dramatically increase engagement with products as well.   Along these lines, I am proud to share that our company will soon be launching  two new AR enhanced toys with our superpartners at What Kids Want https://www.whatkidswant.com/.  These toys use AR to provide children with exciting immersive experiences while at the same time employing time-honored  play patterns. Jordan Kort, CEO of What Kids Want, reached out to us to create a joint venture and together we created the beginning of what we all hope will be an extensive line of products. Jordan’s experience with toys is amazing and the collaboration was a great blend of his toy knowledge and our tech skills. We are looking forward to creating more amazing products in the coming months. Extra thanks to Caroline Kim for all her marketing help!

    If you are planning to attend Augment World Expo this year in Santa Clara, clearly the premier event for AR, please do attend  my session “How to Make Money with XR”  https://www.awexr.com/usa-2019/agenda/538-how-to-make-money-with-xr. We’ll be addressing how to make money with AR. Well discuss real experiences, oriented to the addressable market, with the most innovative approach and flexibility to create instant AR experiences, together with a marketing-friendly financial model.

    I will be available for meetings from 5/29 through 5/31 together with our Chairman Paran Johar.  We look forward to seeing you and learning about how we can help you incorporate AR into your brand and offerings.