If Augmented Reality, Then Perform!
November 9, 2009
In the last months I have seen so many AR “campaigns” that I can not list them here – anyway there might be a list with the top 10 top 50 lists out there. Quite a few gave me “kinglike content”, “a unique (gaming) interaction / sharing function” or “at least a stable and robust AR product experience”. Thus I wouldn´t have a too long list because most of them are underperforming in some or all the essential and crucial criteria a good AR marketing measure is made off. And last but not least: the optical reference is created especially for the microsite. It´s an extra piece of paper! I think, that as long there is print out there – and this will not change too soon – we can enhance existing products, flyers, books, magazines or whatever with an augmented reality experience. On top. You should use it to connect print products with websites and have elements for conversion. Well, you need a good feature tracking for that, unless you don´t want barcodes as a full page design element. (Of course I do exclude putting the print reference ALSO as a PDF on the site, for the online-only people.)
But back to the technical part, that´s more our playground… Please, and I mean, PLEASE, consider Shockwave the next time you are selling web based augmented reality to your customer! You have a brilliant, native renderer. You can create appealing, high-resolution content people are willing to see, just like a quicktime, that is clicked, although people have seen a movie before (don´t come with that novelty-only approach, AR is a medium, nothing more, but nothing less). You have all the capabilities of the Director and can get in physics engines, your own game scripts or all the other existing Xtras. And most important: the application will perform well. There´s hardware rendering for smooth and high-speed and there´s a stable tracking. The engine won´t moan, it will purr. Compare FlashAR with Shockwave AR and you will know, what I mean.
For your evaluation I can provide you with the latter technology, as a movie directly here and as the tool, right here.
From Metropolis* To Interactive Websites
November 3, 2009
BUZZIN MONKEY, die agentour and metaio were once again successful with the „World premiere of the new MINI Convertible” and have won an ANIMAGO Award 2009 – one of the most renowned CG awards in Europe. Blending 3D data onto a print ad with augmented reality convinced the jury in the category “Best interactive production”. The price was handed out at the ANIMAGO Conference in the FX-center of the Babelsberg Studios on Thursday evening. It was nice and inspiring to be on the conference and on stage with Paul Kanyuk a technical director of Pixar or Tim Borgmann from “Infected” – a very friendly 3D artist, who won an ANIMAGO for this fantastic project. So I proudly present once more the making-of of a campaign which was the first in a long row in 2009 to bring augmented reality home:
* A remastered version of this piece of movie history, which was produced in the Babelsberg studios, will be presented at this years international film festival in Berlin!
Augmented Reality Is An Award Winning Technology
October 14, 2009
It generated a lot of buzz in the media planning and advertising strategist / planners newswires, but this thing has not been mentioned in the official “I love shockwave based augmented reality” blog, which you are reading at the moment. The campaign, which used the cover of Popular Science magazine as a stage for GE´s smart grid augmented reality advert, won the “Buzz Award” by the US american “Adweek” in the category Print. Here you can find the ADBUZZ 2009 winners and here you still can check out the most stable, robust and strategically interesting augmented reality print2web campaign of this year.
And because I like to do things very consequent, here´s the rest of the self-adulation programm for today: metaio has also won a “caught their eye” trophy at this year´s IBC and has won the Mobile Startups LaunchPad by GigaOm. I did not know, that we are a still a start-up, but I can use a quote of my mom here: you are always as old as you feel 
Ich Glotz TV
September 10, 2009
You only understand the word “TV” in the headline, that´s enough. I´ve seen the applications by our partner DNP, did not understand the voice over, but hey, that´s enough. To say “I like”:
Augmented Kingdom
August 14, 2009
Once upon a time, there was this information kingdom, ruled by hype cycles and catchy videos. Speed was the currency, quantity was the drug and image was everything. It was the time of virtual birds, twittering the news and rumours in a 15 seconds of fame (and attention) pulse through the venes of the newswires. Some even called it a war when it came to a certain point where the world as it has been known was on it´s way to change. I mean, the way this world was seen. In these times even the most deliberate knights, the warhorses of this visual battle were forced to use the ultimate measure: a demo video ! (drum roll, rolling thunder, pathetic music). And this is the story I want to tell you today…
3D Adventure
July 15, 2009
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Caption: Mr. Selick with Coraline in his gifted hands.
To cover one of the recent AR campaigns for movies I want to pick out an example, where I see a very good correlation between the storyline (product promise) and the augmented reality implementation. First of all it´s called the secret garden, where you can discover something hidden behind (or on) the printout. The Wow factor: ticked. Moreover the website is communicating the DVD release, where you can find a 3D version of Coraline on the premium edition. So how do you transport this better, than with AR? Finally the artwork is very nice, thus the 3D real-time content gives you an indication about the overall quality of the movie. And there is some interaction and a movie texture in the 3D object. Nice piece of work! Maybe you want to get your own impression. Or you just grab some popcorn, lean back and watch this movie by the enthusiasts over at UGO´s movieblog:
http://movieblog.ugo.com/movies/exclusive-first-look-coraline-3d-viral-website-debuts
Functional Augmented Reality – A Classic
July 3, 2009
Hey, since the AR hype started way after we released this software tool, I wanted to share this classic application with you. As there are more and more augmented reality applications popping up, whith a functional approach (sometimes the execution is a little weak) this viewer should be named. Actually this movie is based on our good old interior design tool, where you can plan your living environment within a simple picture of your real apartment. But with a little effort we created the living movie …
iLive and iPlay
June 10, 2009
Let me introduce my charming colleague Katha and two of our iPhone apps to you. While the latter are available in the app store, it was only Mihai Corlan who had the pleasure of a live-demo at this years Webinale…
Have a nive day!
AR-B-Q
March 31, 2009
Some things are quite easy to imagine: me, in front of a plate with a juicy steak on it, with frolicing potatoes dancing hand in hand with fresh salad around that splendid specimen of meat. No problem. But what about an outdoor kitchen in my garden? Besides the fact that I only have a balcony in the middle of Giesing (represent!) it would be very hard to get an impression of such a context sensitive and solid element in an outdoor living environment before I have decided to buy and integrate it. Especially with regards to the many configurations, constellations, materials and functions of such a product. In correspondence to the infinite creativity of nature, architects and gardeners. But of course an augmented reality tool comes to the rescue: YOUReality allows you to configure your individual outdor kitchen and to integrate it directly into a picture of your own garden. Augmented Sales at its best! And I think it will help to “sell outdoor kitchens better” as they say in their slogan… What do you think?
And… Errrr, this self adulation these product presentation news has been brought to you by the technology provider: metaio.
