The evolution of mobile technologies has changed the game for today’s advertisers. Indeed, studies have shown that 94% of consumers aged between 18 and 29 years old have a phone fitted with a camera, the mobile usage is expected to grow by 60% by 2011, and Internet access through mobile devices has increased by 34% between July 2008 and July 2009. However, until recently, marketers were unable to engage their audience through this medium.

The latest technological advancement has given advertisers opportunities to develop new communication experiences. Mobile devices have now the ability to display 3D content; cameras have become a new type of input interface, replacing mice and keyboards; and smart phones can access high speed Internet networks.

On the other hand, the Interned has evolved from a one way communication channel, pushing information to the users, to an interactive platform, enabling users to create content and to form online communities based on specific areas of interest.

The evolution of these technologies is fostering a convergence of the real and virtual worlds unlike anything we have seen in history. The challenge for marketers is then to catch the maximum value that can be delivered by these tools.

I – Technologies Involved

A. Social Media

A social media website is a website that does not only display information, but interacts with you while exchanging information. It is the set of online tools that Internet users access to collaborate and communicate. Social media incorporates the online technology and methods by which people can share content, personal insights, and swap perceptions or thoughts on global issues. It is the collaborative part of the Internet.

It enables people to have online conversations. These conversations can be forums, blogs, social networks, communities, photo sharing, co-creation, content tagging and, generally connect each other via the Internet.

Traditional media can be considered as a one-way street that offers to the user a very little ability to give an opinion on a topic (reading the newspaper or listening to a report on radio). Social media is the two way street media that enable the user to interact and communicate with the author of the source.

Because of the variety of users and applications relevant to that area, we can classify the social media tools in different categories:

• Social Networks: Social Networks are platforms that allow users to create a personal profile. The platform is generally used to discuss and share information with your friends and family. Facebook and MySpace are among the most popular examples of social networks.

• Blogs and Micro-Blogging: A blog is a website presented as a journal which is regularly updated with new content. Microblogging is an online tool used to publish short stories comparable to text messages. It is also a great way to get a quick snapshot of the mood of the time on any given subject. It is also one of the first services to go viral in the mobile space. WordPress (blogs) and Twitter (micro-blogging) are two major players.

• Photo and Video Sharing: Media sharing sites allows uploading and sharing photos or videos with the rest of the Web community. Although social networks such as Facebook enable users to upload photos and videos, autonomous services are still incredibly popular. Flickr is the most popular photo sharing website; YouTube is famous for video streaming.

• Wikis: Wikis are platforms for collaboration that can be directly created, modified or shared by anyone with access to it. Wikis have been widely adopted by small teams that find in these tools an easy way to create online collaboration.

• Social Bookmarking: Social bookmarking websites are platforms which allow users to locate, store, organize and manage bookmarks of web pages. The particularity of this method is that web pages are not stored on a particular machine. Users save lists of personal web resources and usually make these lists publicly accessible. Delicious is the best known social bookmarking site.

• News Aggregators: News aggregators or sometimes called social news, pull and display relevant feeds on latest news stories submitted by users and encourage them to submit and vote on news stories and other links.

This list is not exhaustive; there are many more types of social media sites on the Internet.

B. Crowdsourcing

The idea of soliciting an input from the user is not new. Indeed, the open source software industry has proved that it is possible to accomplish a task by involving many people outside of the organisation.

Even if the term “crowdsourcing” was coined in 2006 by a Wired magazine journalist, Jeff Howe; the concept dates back to the 18th century when the first editions of the Oxford English dictionary were crowdsourced by volunteer contributors sending in definitions on paper slips. More recently, governments and industries have adopted crowdsourcing through open contests like the X-Prize (supported by BT).

Crowdsourcing basically consists in assigning a task which was previously performed by employees or contractors, to a host of experts and brand enthusiasts by the means of an open invitation to collaborate. The fundamental concept of crowdsourcing is to harness collective intelligence.

From a business point of view, it allows managers to gain a deeper insight on what customers really want, at a significantly reduced cost. Crowdsourcing is a golden opportunity for companies which have captured rich business data, but have been challenged to make it accessible and useful for end users.

From a marketing point of view, crowdsourcing offers three major opportunities. First, marketers can outsource the promotion of their brands with passionate volunteers. Then, crowdsourcing can outsource content creation by the crowd. Finally, for marketers, crowdsourcing is a great opportunity to outsource innovative ideas and solutions to the crowd.

C. Mobile Image Recognition (MIR)

While the human eye handles image recognition naturally, it remains a challenge for computers. Indeed, the use of a CAPTCHA for authentication is an obvious example of the inability for computing systems to recognize images. If a computer passes a CAPTCHA test, then computing science get close to the artificial intelligence.

Thus, several scientific teams around the world are trying to develop a reliable image recognition software, this with the aim of improving the image searches (the majority of image searches are based on meta-data or text captions, not the actual images). This is the case at the MIT where scientists are trying to teach computers to search for patterns and sequences into digital data.

Basically, each image is composed of pixels. Then, the goal of computing systems is to interpret the pixels as a series of numbers. If the computer succeeds to identify numerical series in several similar images, it can recognize that the images are all part of the same subject.

When this technology is applied to mobile phones, the snap taken by the phone camera (front end) is sent as a picture message to a back end application that matches the broken image with a pre-existing image stored in a database in order to provide content related to the image on the mobile phone. Thus, if one takes a picture of a building in a researched city, the software can retrieve information about it.

MIR is image-centric. It is focused on the recognition of the image in order to provide image related content. MIR could also use location-based data to vary the content delivered depending on the location.

MIR presents various application opportunities:

• Optimization of existing images (book / cd / dvd covers);
• Linking printed brand logos to online content;
• Associating someone’s face with online content.

The drawback of MIR technology is that for the image to be recognized and solved by the MIR-compatible camera, the image must have been previously treated and stored in a database.

D.  Mobile Tagging (MT)

Mobile Tagging is a process that connects real world items with information available online by using information tags. Indeed, it matches a unique image in a specific tag format (front end) with a back-end image in order to display the relating content. The tag can be linked to a website or a piece of text.

MT is content centric. It focuses on the tag recognition of a specific location on the visual in order to provide content related to that tag. MT does not take into account the geographical position as this information can be pre-encoded in the tag. MT presents interesting opportunities in regards to:

• Linking physical objects to online content;
• Linking printed material to online content.

However, the drawback of MT application is that the tag must be first created and linked to the physical item.

E. Location Based Services (LBS)

LBS are services which provide additional information to LBS subscribers regarding to their personal profiles and to their current location in space and time. These services enhance social interaction applications and help the access to entertainment information or transactions. These services affect the way by which users interact with their environment by adjusting the textual, visual and audio information. The emergence of collaborative mapping services (web 2.0, virtual globes), the evolution and miniaturization of technologies (GPS devices) and the convergence of Internet and mobile telephony helped in the development of these services.

The performance provided by the LBS services may vary regarding to the surrounding environment and the quality of the network. Also, different techniques have been developed in order to provide these services to users in areas with poor GPS coverage. Finally, some technologies using Bluetooth, RFID, WLAN and WiFi have been developed in order to improve the quality of service for “indoor” usage.

F. Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR)

MAR is a group of technologies that blurs the boundary between the real and the virtual world on a mobile device. By overlaying computer graphics on a real-time display of the world, MAR enhances reality by assigning meta-data to physical items. Two technologies must be involved to enable MAR, a positioning system such as a GPS or cellular triangulation and a third party application like Yelp, Wikitude or Mobilizy calling the meta-data.

Some mobile phones like the iPhone 3GS or Android fitted devices also use a built-in gyroscopic compass that can provide a general sense of perspective in the application. The gyro compass is the tool that allow to identify what is the user looking at, not the phone. This is the boundary that separates the LBS to advanced MAR technology. Therefore, we consider MAR as location and orientation centric. This new technology has enormous potential for an ever changing range of user-selectable to augment reality with a variety of online information.

Finally, MAR reaches its full potential when a MIR technology is added to the GPS, Compass and third party application.

 

II- Marketing & Social Media

A. Marketing Applications

1. B2C Opportunities

Before the arrival of the augmented reality on mobile phones, the user had to launch its browser and to submit the subject of his research in order to access to a more or less accurate information delivered by search engines. Today, technology offers a direct and accurate access to the inquiries. Indeed, by marrying the technology with the context (temporal and geographical position), the mobile augmented reality application provides a targeted, specific and unique answer. First, the user select a point of interest or a need, and the application associated with the context of the investigation will deliver quality information.

Developers and marketers understood the importance of business opportunities offered by this new technology. “Digital marketing campaigns incorporating Web-based augmented reality graphics can add new dimensions to the kinds of content available for online advertising“(Fisher, 2009). Indeed, the two advantages, context and profile, delivered by MAR to the end-users, are also two valuable targeting variables which can be used for marketing purpose. Pushing the right commercial information at the right time and at the right place has always been the ultimate challenge for advertisers. “Location is not everything… If you’re hanging out near Times Square, it doesn’t mean you want to eat there. But if we know that you like Spanish food, then we could suggest a place that’s on your route. The real value lies in providing better suggestions” (Linner, 2009). Thus, tagging real world objects is a process that has to be learnt by marketers and integrated in their communication plans.

However, a good understanding of the use of the tool will be critical to the success of MAR commercial exploitation. Indeed, if marketers only consider MAR as a new way to invade screens with floating ads and popup banners, then the tool will loose of its value to customers’ eyes. Therefore, the MAR application should offer clear information selection choices such as “View Mobile Website”, “View Coupon”, “View Special Offers” or “View Journalist/Expert Review” to the end user.

2. B2B Opportunities

While, as previously demonstrated, the development of MAR technologies offers plenty of customer-oriented business opportunities; it also leads to new business relationships between the actors within that field.

The first level of commercial exchanges occurs between advertisers and the owners of MAR applications. Indeed, the applications developers will hold a variety of data regarding to the use of their softwares. Indeed, they will be able to track and monitor the information regarding the access to their applications, and then be able to sell this knowledge to marketers. For instance, the marketing department of a particular brand, in exchange of a monthly fee, could subscribe to an automated feed of metrics related to the access of their products or services.

Then, the MAR applications owners could also charge advertisers for accessing and modifying meta-data stored in back-end databases. A fee could be asked for every new advertising entry and evaluated regarding to the length of the ad, the nature of its content (images, audio, video, URL links), or to the length of time of the displayed ads.

Also, the owner of the application should allocate some resources to monitor and track new trends, local traffic increases or new commercial opportunities. This activity will help them to add value to their applications and to attract new advertisers.

The only way for application developers to create valuable MAR applications is to charge for back-end meta-data access. Indeed, providing a free access to MAR content creation or modification would turn their application into an unwanted junk of spams and commercial pop-ups.

3. Current Applications

The following video presents two already existing applications. The first one shows the application of mobile augmented reality to the real estate industry using Layar. The second example is a demonstration of the application called Nearest Tube which is an MAR directional guide for tube stations in London (a similar application has been developed for the city of New York, and is called Bionic Eye).

 

B.   Social Media Integration

1. Concepts

The next step in MAR applications development consists in adding the content produced on social media platforms into the applications. Indeed, by integrating social media users created content, MAR applications can display relevant information in relation to a person’s online profile and interests. More than integrating personal data, it can also tap into others’ online profiles and create awareness of people who are nearby and who are sharing common interests. Then by just holding a phone in front of someone’s face, the application can return information gleaned from public databases, public profiles and social network searches. It is then easy to discover common friends, talking points and to instantly add this person to one online network. In a professional environment such as in a conference it enables users to find out who has common connections with whom, as well as avoiding the embarrassing situation of forgetting someone’s name.

From a commercial point of view, integrating social content enables to display customers’ products or services reviews, enrich the experience by displaying images or streaming videos related to the purchase, as well as checking competitors’ online offers.

Another marketing opportunity relates to customer relationship management. Indeed, a customer of a particular brand can point his camera to its favourite store, capture the image, and then by becoming “fan” the shop, being fed on the long run with new products arrivals, their availability, customers reviews or whichever new added content related to that store.

Finally, from a practical point of view, the user can choose the type of content he wants to be pushed to its mobile phone. The user can select the paid-for content only (business owners or advertisers) or the unpaid content only (journalists or users reviews).

2. Google Wave, Opportunity for a MAR Framework

Google’s new real-time communication platform has been launched to the public on September 30, 2009. Already, MAR experts consider using Google Wave as the basis for a distributed, multiuser open augmented reality framework. Indeed, Google Wave protocol presents many properties which can be used for the development of a MAR infrastructure.

First, the wave service uses two components, a federation gateway and a federation proxy and is based on an open extension to the XMPP core [RFC3920] protocol.  This protocol models the communication between two nodes on a network. These two nodes can be updated quickly and simultaneously. It allows near real-time communication between two wave servers. Moreover, the XMPP protocol supports different types of conversations:  presence, notifications and subscriptions. Also,this protocol supports a wide range of communication types such as text, audio, images and videos.

The platform allows anyone to create any number of waves and to set who can view or edit them. The changes brought to that wave are spread to every single server sharing that wave. Then, this AR framework combined with the internet would create new opportunities for data flows, mashups and shared augmented realities.

Also, Google Wave present many possibilities for MAR translation services which enable people who are speaking different languages to communicate through MAR applications. One imagines that the alliance of Google Wave protocols with current translation services could instantly translate someone’s speech.

3. Current Applications

Some applications combining both augmented reality and social media content are in development or already available on the market for iPhone 3GS and Android platforms mobile owners. The following video presents some of these applications. The first example is the Yelp application which displays business listings accompanied by star ratings. Next is the Sekai Camera iPhone application which helps events attendees to find out information relating to their point of interest at the time of the event. Then a video presents TwittAround which is a Twitter content viewer, including the distance that the application user is from other tweets. Finally, the last video demonstrates the TAT Augmented ID, a technology that displays public profiles and online business cards through an iPhone.

4. MAR Deployment Issues

a. Technology Limits

Currently, MAR applications require a smart phone fitted with a camera, a GPS, a compass and adequate processing power. However, for mass adoption of the MAR technologies; the devices will have to offer better resolutions, more accurate GPS location services, and batteries with enough capacity.

“GPS location accuracy is not adequate currently for many applications, requiring additional techniques to refine location precision for shopping applications, or for game applications in which virtual objects must be placed precisely on the display near corresponding real objects” (Joe Madden, 2009).

b. Reflect of a Hyper-Materialized Society

Even if the majority of individuals will consider the MAR technologies as a major technological progress, some others will consider MAR application as another new way of categorizing the world as a gigantic interactive catalogue where everything is for sale, rated, and as just another reflect of a hyper-materialized society.

c. Buying Behaviour Impact

For some people, the MAR technologies may have an impact on their buying behaviour, at the risk of turning them into MAR addicts, perhaps causing them to spend money beyond their means.

d. Privacy

Privacy is another major issue related to MAR technologies deployment. Indeed, while privacy concerns regarding to social media and other digital media are raised all over the world, the ubiquitous MAR deployment may be considered as another intrusion in individuals’ privacy. Indeed, while a certain level of control over online private data will be applicable, there will inevitably be some misuse or leaks of personal information.

 

 

References

• What Is Social Media?
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• What Is Crowdsourcing? by Alsever, J.
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• Augmented reality set for major growth: ABI Research. by Harnick, C.
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