LAYAR: SPRXMobile recently launched Layar, “the world’s first augmented reality browser for mobile.” Layar “displays real-time digital information on top of reality in the camera screen of a mobile device. While looking through the phone’s camera lens, a user can see houses for sale, popular bars and shops, jobs, healthcare providers and ATMs.” Layar premiered on the Android platform in the Netherlands yesterday, with five launch partners: ING (bank), funda (realty website), Hyves (social network), Tempo-team (temp agency) and Zekur.nl (healthcare provider). Until this amazing utility is available State-side, you can read more and view screenshots at Layar.eu, and/or watch this YouTube demonstration.

TRACKLE: We recently learned during research for a client that, while some people are aware that they use RSS on a regular basis, many users of RSS are not aware of what it is even though they already subscribe to updates from their favorite sites, podcasts, and the like. People don’t know what RSS is – and they don’t need to. It's not the simplest thing to describe: say, “oh, it means ‘really simply syndication’” and you haven’t really explained it any better. The challenge becomes: how do you say “subscribe to this content or update” in a way that’s more intuitive? You could come up with a name/skin for RSS feeds and alerts that implies "a way to track your favorite digital content"… Trackle, currently in beta, aims to be an effortless way to keep you notified about all the things that are important to you. There's already a whole catalog of Tracklets to choose from.

GET HUMAN: Automated phone systems are notoriously clumsy and user-unfriendly. When you have a problem you need addressed by customer service, talking to a glorified answering machine often only exacerbates your frustration. The desire to circumvent automated systems and speak directly to a human was the impetus for GetHuman, a site that collects all the ways to “bypass phone systems, talk to a live person, share customer help tips”. GetHuman isn't exactly new, but their new mobile app is. Now it’s even easier to get better customer service from anywhere with the free Get Human app on your iPhone or iPod Touch (iTunes App Store link).

TWEET PSYCH: See what your Twitter may reveal about you with TweetPsych. "TweetPsych uses two linguistic analysis algorithms to build a psychological profile of a person based on the content of their tweets". It works best on account with more than 1000 tweets, but may still be revealing when applied to those with fewer.

In Bb 2.0 takes the next step in YouTube-fuelled musical collaboration demonstrated by Kutiman's Thru-You and Tan Dun and Internet Orchestras. Named for the tuning of each clip, In Bb 2.0 is designed to give the viewer more control over the remix (though "Start All" and "Stop All" controls would be a welcome addition). Create Digital Music described it simply: “As the name implies, everything will blend, so you can start the videos as you wish, and control volume with the volume sliders. It’s part of the ongoing evidence that sometimes simple ideas can be deeply musical and effective."

Tinker is a Twitter aggregation tool that aggregates Tweets into “events” – and does so in a way its creators claim is “brand-safe” (filtering out negative conversation, surfacing only positive conversation in the form of what Tinker calls “events”). In some respects this is a step away from the Web’s overall leanings toward greater transparency. In another respect, Tinker makes Twitter more useful for marketers, which could in turn draw even more users into the Twitter and micro-blogging universe. Watch this Tinker demo video and visit Tinker.com to sign up and learn more.

It will be interesting to see what comes of Amazon’s Kindle Publishing for Blogs. Amazon describes it as “a fast and easy self-publishing tool that lets you upload your blog for sale in the Kindle Store”. See that part about “for sale” in there? My hunch is that makes more sense for an already-free blog to remain free when read on a Kindle, but I have yet to create an account and explore Amazon’s broader publishing program further. If you have, kindly share your experience in the comments. Thanks.

Folks from all around the Tribal DDB network have been getting more-than-acqainted with Augmented Reality (AR). To pick up where I left off with my last post about AR, here is a great example of AR in action, from our fellow Tribalites in Hong Kong.

In the few years it has been running, McDonald's Dip Jack promotion is one of the most popular programs in Hong Kong. To build on this success, and target for remarkable sales results this year, Tribal was asked to develop an integrated through-the-line campaign that strongly engages consumers in a way that highlights the uniqueness of Dip McNuggets.

Tribal DDB Hong Kong bet Augmented Reality (AR) technology would perfectly fit the Dip McNuggets promotion. And they were right. This McNuggets "Do the Dip" 3D game, not only extends the excitement long after the food is comsumed, but also playfully reinforces the "Dip action". (Click here to view in English, or here to view a demo video on YouTube.)

A unique AR code is printed on every puzzle card (received with purchase of a McDonald's McNugget meal), consumers simply visit the local McDonald's HK website, point their card at their web cam, and a virtual McNugget becomes a gamepiece for three different mini-games: Fast Dip, Follow & Dip and Catch & Dip.

Giving McDonald's fans a new way to play with their food seems to be paying off, too. Just one month after launch, "Do the Dip" has attracted more than 173,000 page views, over 8,000 people registered on the site and generated an astounding 30,000 game plays.

 
Thanks for the tip, Kaya!

Taking a moment to put together three pieces of news coming out of the Google camp this week.

Two pieces pertain to YouTube. First, pictured, is a more deliberate mix of Hollywood and homegrown video content. An article on Wired's Epicenter blog reveals that Sony is the latest Hollywood partner to work with YouTube to "better promote authorized versions of full-length movies and TV shows on the site". The article goes on to quote Google CEO Eric Schmidt, saying that this new featured content will remain free for the time being, but that the company does "expect over time to see micropayments and other forms of subscription models coming" to YouTube.

Add to this news of YouTube's partnership with Universal Music Group to offer VEVO, "a music and video entertainment hub featuring UMG's premium content" and you start to see where things are headed: more premium content, and the potential to pay for access to it.

The third piece of news makes this even more interesting. Om Malik posts that Google's Android operating system is being ported to set-top boxes designed "to play DVDs, CDs and featuring a full-fledged Chrome-type browser". As Malik suggests, this positions Android as the operating system for a new generation of fourth-screen devices. With the provisions already being made for premium and potentially paid content at YouTube and VEVO, Malik's suggestion appears to have some promise.

2009 could be a big year for Android. But will it also be the year we start paying to watch videos on YouTube?

I spent some time this afternoon researching Augmented Reality (AR) for a couple client initiatives, and for our own curiosity. What I found was too cool not to share...

Augmented Reality is working its way into everyday use, thanks to the likes of Google’s Street View, as seen from Android which uses the device’s accelerometer and compass to re-orient the on-screen view to the direction you’re standing or holding your phone. See it here.

Of course, we wanted to find more than just Street View... Next, an exploration of an iPhone app by Pankaku called Xmas Camera2. It was intriguing, but left something(s) to be desired. You’ll see what I mean once you compare to the next link.

ARf is an Augmented Reality pet application, still very much in development at Georgia Tech. Lucky for us, there’s a video of it in action – click here to view it.

A step beyond ARf is this amazing Augmented Reality program developed for Topps Baseball Cards. From Topps’ 9 March 2009 press release:

“For Total Immersion, Topps 3D Live trading cards represent the company's first consumer product available commercially, introducing a broad audience to augmented reality, an interactive experience where virtual components are dynamically merged into a live video stream in real time.

Interactive code cards can be found in every pack of Topps 2009 Baseball Series 1 pack and also in packs of the new Topps Attax baseball card game. Fans log on to www.toppstown.com, enter the Topps 3D Live section and select the player on the code card. Once the player is selected and the program is initialized, it's game on! By simply holding the card under a standard webcam, the player magically pops up from the card onscreen and springs to life. Players can then be rotated around, and fans can control the action with just a keystroke or two as it unfolds on the desktop.”

Keynote starting at 9:00 am pacific with Bill Buxton and Scott Guthrie. Anticipating much discussion on Silverlight 3 -- beta tools are already available for download:

• Silverlight 3 Beta SDK: http://tinyurl.com/crfogs
• Silverlight 3 Tools for Visual Studio: http://tinyurl.com/d7q4v9
• Expression Blend Preview for Silverlight 3: http://tinyurl.com/ckapmy (Link not yet active)

Reminder, follow us on Twitter: @pauldain and @caubry.

This BusinessWeek article, How Companies Use Twitter to Bolster Their Brands, made me think. At first, I didn't get much further than the subtitle:

The “creepy trend” part is slightly confusing. What’s so creepy about attentive customer service? Monitoring Twitter feeds that mention your brand is one thing, and a no-brainer at that. Like any social network, online or offline, this is an environment in which brands are expected to be sociable. Tweeting back to the offended party might be a more appropriate response than no response at all.

Sure, the potential is there for brand voices to come off as creepy, awkward or forced when venturing into emerging social situations such as Twitter feeds – but brand voices face the same challenge in every medium. The anxiety expressed by the BusinessWeek article reflects the hesitation many marketers have for social networks like Twitter.

There are good reasons for that hesitation. Twitter is new, and therefore a little scary for some. Like blogs and other social networks, it demands dedicated resources. Twitter is unreliable, now notorious for repeated outages and network down time. Twitter is instantly public – whatever you do is out there for everyone to see, right away. Sounds intimidating.

There are good reasons to be brave, too, because it’s pretty cool when it works well. GM used Twitter in an attempt to help a ready-to-buy customer at a Saturn dealership who couldn’t find a salesman. Jet Blue uses Twitter to monitor customers in need of information on flight delays or cancellations. Brands like Dell, Comcast, and Whole Foods recognize the Twitter user as an “influencer” of a target audience, and pay attention accordingly. The potential for evolving customer service is huge. The immediacy can work to a brand's advantage, enabling real-time responses that reach a consumer wherever he or she may be. This is a new means for brands to prove their usefulness to consumers, but it's probably not for everyone.

Still, what’s so creepy about it? The article points out that “not all Tweeters want Corporate America following their Tweets” -- yet they continue to post Tweets for everyone to read! That’s a conflicting message, but it’s also a defense mechanism. These influencers are still getting used to the personal transparency that, in many ways, resembles the same transparency consumers want from their favorite brands. Transparency can be a scary thing, because there's no hiding once you have it. Right now, these conflicting messages keep corporations guessing about how best to socialize their brands.

Personally, I’m fascinated that people who willingly and publicly broadcast their lives, 140 characters at a time, are so surprised to learn that the likes of Jet Blue or Zappos are reading Twitter feeds. Because, really, which is creepier: microblogging your every move for the entire world to read, or responding to a single post that implicates your brand or business by name?

Trolling through the Red Ferret Journal today, I came upon a post about a new video enhancing technology that augments video with still photography (to over-simplify it). The implications for advertisers are potentially huge: you could replace products in video you’ve already shot, polish user-submitted videos for a campaign, or tailor elements of a single video to different geographic locations or audience segments. Below is the demonstrational video created by the team developing this software. For you video editors, they’ve posted most of the source code, too. Here’s what they had to say about the qualities their technology can lift from a photograph and apply to a video:

The ten things include the origins of the Internet, from a 1963 memo about an "intergalactic computer network" to ARPANET (pre-cursor to the Internet we have today), to the first instances of spam and web logs. Not an exhaustive list, as made clear by a few of Neatorama's commenters, but an enlightening look at the origins of a technological evolution that helps pay our bills. From the post:

... how much do you know about the Internet? Did you know that you have the Soviets to thank for this wonderful invention? Or that despite the flack that he got for inventing the Internet, Al Gore actually did play a major role in the creation of the Net?

It's easy to take for granted a lot of technology that wasn't available just ten years ago (when a few of us started working here). But understanding where the Internet came from can help us understand where it's going next, which can be a huge advantage in our line of work.
 

It's worth noting that this is not just a Radiohead promotion. This is a significant marketing move for Google, tying a major international rock band to a variety Google properties like YouTube, iGoogle, Gadget Ads, and Google Code in one succinct effort. Smart stuff.

When was the last time you pitched Google Code as campaign tactic?