Esquire. Spicing up print with Augmented Reality.

November 17th, 2009 • Experimental
Tags: Augmented Reality, Business, Cool, Experimental, Ideas, Lifestyle, Market, Print, Strategy, Tech, Tools, visual

Okay…Augmented Reality. About a year ago three words which simply had to be said by someone in a digital creative brainstorming was Flashmob, Social Media and QR code, with the latter being replaced in 2009 by Augmented Reality (“Creatives Bingo”).

To be honest…currently I only see few interesting use cases for it (the way it is used by brands nowadays). No, dear brands. I am not interested in an animated version of my cereals box. And no I won’t hold print ads into my webcam in order to see ads.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe, it’s a great technology. Augmented Reality can work – in the moment it delivers added value. Something which is more than just a moveable 3D-version of ads, ads, ads. Take Layar for example, a mobile browser which intertwines AR, mobile and knowledge. Or Invizimals, a pretty cool looking toy for the PSP. And maybe….just maybe….magazines and newspapers might create new, cool experiences intertwined with their print content as well through AR… One year after their 2008 E-Ink issue Esquire has published its first AR issue together with the Barbarian Group.

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Evolution. The U.S. Blogosphere 2008-2013.

Oktober 29th, 2009 • Blogs, Trends
Tags: Blogs, Diagram, Market, Tools, Trends, US, World

As a European it is sad to see that the overwhelming majority of insightful data and statistics comes from the U.S. and is mainly U.S. exclusive. This one here is well, but it gives a good sense of what lies ahead in Europe (in about 2-3 years). eMarketer has estimated the number of blogs in the U.S. over a 5-year period from 2008-2013 in a study they have just published. According to this study the number of active blog authors will rise from about 25 to about 38 million. While the majority of U.S. online users will read blogs by 2013.

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