Sorry for the lack of insideAR updates recently- we have been quite occupied with the free release of our metaio Mobile SDK. Rest assured, updates will continue as originally promised. Oh, and look! It’s snowing.
For those of you who weren’t able to attend insideAR 2011:
Not only did you miss a fantastic talk by Transitional Media Founder John C. Havens- you also lost the chance to see this guy rock out on blues harmonica. No really- that’s how John started off his presentation entitled, “Virtual Air Rights: How Augmented Reality Will Transform Advertising and Identity”.
Mr. Havens recently wrote an article for Mashable dealing with the same issue- his presentation at insideAR took the long form of expanding upon many of his ideas and theories regarding the role Augmented Reality will play in the future with regard to social media and targeted advertising.
For Mr. Havens, the question of virtual air rights is one that has yet to be answered or defined, but can be seen as an opportunity for the AR community when posited as a question of identity, especially that of the individual user.
According to Havens, when you take into account the emerging technology such as image recognition like Google goggles, social facial recognition platforms like Viewdle, gesture and eye tracking interfaces like the Microsoft Kinect, and general GPS and location-based services, the implications are pretty shocking when paired with social media data.
The future is not far from the following: “I walk into Starbucks and using my Google wallet I [pay], using Google Latitude I automatically check in [to the physical location]… I walk near the counter, as NFC improves, and you already know my preferences because of [shared social media data] and the idea is that you already know what my coffee is.”
Havens imagines a future where social technology turns the consumers into the marketing and leveraging tool rather than advertisements and paid media.
Brands could reward consumers for brand advocacy and loyalty every time that person shares or recommends something socially that could influence a purchasing decision.
Where AR comes in is the ability to access and display this information. Facial recognition technology could easily be used to pull up this kind of data, especially in a future where AR glasses or contact lenses exist.
Havens imagines a system of “Accountability Based Influence”- social metrics and purchasing data that contributes to an overall drive of marketing and reward systems:
“To me this is inevitable- you’re watching your show, American Idol or something. The next day you walk to work and you get a text: “Hey you watched American Idol last night and Coke is a sponsor, do you want a free Coke for being a loyal fan? And then you walk into a store, someone hands you the Coke.” And of course, any other purchases would be made using Facebook Credits, which Havens believes may be one of the largest banks in the world in just a few short years.
Mr. Haven is a regular contributor to Mashable, and you can find him on Twitter at @johnchavens where he tweets about Social Media, Augmented Reality, and new technology that will almost assuredly control our every actions without us ever knowing it. We were very happy he joined us at insideAR and hope to see him again in the future.
Posted by Trak 
