16 Top Augmented Reality Business Models

VIA:

I am developing and producing a range of Augmented Reality (or if you prefer AR, ‘blended or layered media’) applications at the moment. I have also been asked to present at a few conferences and create a detailed white paper on the implications of AR for government & business looking at privacy, legal, copyright & crime issues.  As readers of this blog will know I also lecture, run workshops and work with creative teams to come up with future ‘social entertainment’ based around virtual worlds and augmented reality.

But the purpose of this short post is to simply list and try to categorise the many types of business Augmented Reality apps appearing in the market. The first manifestations of AR appeared in the late 60s, became real in the 70s and by the 90s were already being used by major companies. Now portable computing is finally powerful enough to deliver AR to anyone who has a smart phone or latest generation PC or console. But first my simple definition of Augmented Reality.

Information, 3D models or live action blended with or overlaid onto the physical world in real time. A camera & attached screen is used to view the combination of reality & real time virtuality. Devices or systems commonly used for AR include

But the purpose of this pretty detailed post is to simply list and try to categorise the many types of business Augmented Reality apps appearing in the market and to try to identify opportunities.

According to wikipedia, the first manifestations of AR appeared in the late 60s, became real in the 70s and by the 90s were already being used by major companies. Now portable computing is finally powerful enough to deliver AR to anyone who has a smart phone or latest generation PC or console. For those unfamiliar here is my simple definition of Augmented Reality.

Information, 3D models or live action blended with or overlaid onto the physical world around us, in real time. A camera & attached screen is used to view the combination of real world and metadata or rich media. Devices or systems commonly used for AR include:

• Mobile devices with inbuilt cameras such as iPhone, DS Lite, PSP or Android
• A head mounted display HMDs (eg: glasses or futuristic contact lenses) attached to a wearable networked computer
• A PC or Mac with webcam
• A games console with camera accessory
• A large TV screen with advanced Set Top box and Web cam
• Others in development

Before the more detailed list I embed my summary flickr chart whose purpose is to try to categorise types of business orientated augmented reality apps so to identify opportunities. The graph places 16 on axes of commercial value (likely revenue or marketing potential) vs adoption (scale of popularity vs a niche, client user base). It is a starting document to aid classification of this emerging commercial sector that I hope you find useful. The AR types, color key linked to each model is suggestive only.

Mobile Augmented Reality boosting Proximity Marketing

Proximity Marketing as described by Wikipedia is “the localized wireless distribution of advertising content associated with a particular place.”

The commercialization of location will get a boost by the power and opportunities offered by Mobile Augmented Reality applications.

Have a look at the first real-time Augmented Reality proximity marketing platform by Insqribe:

Two disadvantages of conventional proximity marketing are that users need to enable the mobile device to receive location based information/ messages, secondly not each and every message received is welcome or relevant for the receiver.

Messages can be perceived as irrelevant and spam, users can receive too many promotional messages which will backfire proximity marketing as a tactic because devices can and will be disabled again to not receive any messages again.

Enabling a mobile device to receive information is a primitive form of acknowledging the interest on the location, the possibilities offered by Mobile Augmented Reality will boost and enhance the primitive form when it comes to location based promotions (Point of Sale promotions – POS) nearby initiated by the user.

Mobile Augmented Reality makes it possible what users want to see and when they want to see the information .

Augmented Reality powered Proximity Marketing is much more gentle, it becomes more of a pull mechanism instead of a push mechanism. The pull mechanism increases relevancy towards the users because the users control when he/she activates the system to scan the surroudings. This is the difference. Enabling bluetooth is not synonymous to being receptive for all and any kind of promotional messages. The new Proximity Marketing is exactly the other way around, by activating the system the user shows -initial- interest and decides what message can be further explored and not.

Of course permission systems do exist before messages are being send out, but the concept is the same, push versus pull.

Will Proximity Marketing be fueled and made more fun by Mobile Augmented Reality?