Augmented Citizen’s posterous

"Try not to become a man of success but a man of value" Albert Einstein

ARE 2010 The next Event where I will participate like Augmented Citizen Advocate

The Web's open and scalable environment provides a platform for content and application developers worldwide and is a key to its success. The potential for Augmented Reality is very great, but for it to reach its potential, there must be open systems and widely accepted protocols for use by a variety of content publishers, designers of experiences we have yet to anticipate and the builders/suppliers of many, many different end user devices.

The W3C is hosting a workshop open to all those interested in the topic of Open Augmented Reality and the Web. 

Participants will contribute to shared understanding and explore the many opportunities and challenges at the intersection of Augmented Reality and the Web. Together we will build shared strategies for moving forward to
address obstacles to growth.

You may learn more about the workshop's scope and topics here:

"Try not to become a man of success but a man of value" Albert Einstein

ARE 2010 The next Event where I will participate like Augmented Citizen Advocate

Gracefully thanks you: speakers, participants, crew team, sponsors ( Ericsson  , Madvertise , Vito , Metaio  , Tic-Mobile , Smaato ), streaming team from Aurea , Location Management LEH, partners and media partners

I want to relate in this short ;-) story, the 24 hours experience of our 1st European Augmented Reality Conference, from my perspective :-)
Start on 22.04 Evening :-)

8:30 p.m. meeting with Kwela and Willi
10:00 p.m. Test the skype connection and take the movies from Max Celko   for the presentation
11:00 Chetan Damani is definitevely blocked in India :-(
12:00 in Bed, try to sleep...
2:00 a.m. Check the last time the list of the speakers that will come and who is blocked. NY people, oha... Think about a solution, skype and beamer - ah!! organize a beamer. 
3:00 a.m. Write new emails to be sure. Good news Alex Oldwal  will come, Pia Vuohelainen  not...
4:00 a.m. write the last twitts, facebook arbcon site
5:00 a.m. Matthew Szymczyk  told me that a live presentation will be very difficult to do, I need on my side AVS components, find a new speaker or improvize
8:00 a.m. From Gesundbrunnen to the Ludwig Erhart Haus, the way with S-Bahn
7:05 a.m. I am in the Haus, Sacha and Anja are waiting - very precise and punctual work, i love them. Start the organisation - technical think my improvisation with the skype calls is working.
Klaus Löw  and his team start to install the transmission hardware. Very professional, for the next time I have a some Idea how to make more interactive the event, but now constructive stress.
8:00 a.m. The first members of crew are coming. Oh, oh  I have forget completly to send someone to take the beamer, quick send Stefan Hampel - great that you were here :-)
8:40 a.m. The first participant!! and where are the Lanyards??
Harald Neidhardt  where are you?
Carsten  Szameitat  is the first to the exhibition area, he help me with very good information about the workflow of an Event. I remember for 4-5 years when we meet first time in Cologne, M-Days was just born :-).
8:45 a.m. OH, Oh Harald is coming with the Lanyards :-) Patience Dan, will be everything OK, said Kwela Hermanns , it's for me like a swister for all the day.
Sacha and Anja have finished to arrange the badges, people are coming, they are open to show or to learn something new. Willi call me, he is printing the schedule, we have one mobile but seems that people not to have enough devices to look on mobile. I hate paper, is very good for writing history but not for real-time information...

9:00 a.m. Beamer is here, start to install the remote part of the conference - I call this "Volcano Solution" I do not know how many conferences where organized this week, but I must to start a meet-up group  to chage information how we have managed this crisys context.
Alex  send me an email that his machine was canceled OHOOO!!!. But he will try to catch another. Now is to take a decision, take his speak out - I decided to wait, change with Christian slot, and let Alex to perform at the end. Hope will work. Sabine  have started to manage the press part, we meet first time face2face, but she is very professional. Stories based on experience, I like his Idea because this what I want to make with Augmented Citizen.

The story will continue next days, stay tuned... 

ARBcon.europe just started, stay tuned for new announcements

I had a chance to take an interview to Carsten Frien, a very jovial and open to talk guy. He is the guy that managed with success Madvertise, one of the strong mobile advertising company.He use the " banner " Momentum but his plans for the future can be read in the interview. 

1. Carsten, tell our readers who you are and where you see Advertising in the Mobile Augmented Reality ecosystem.

My name is Carsten Frien and I`m working as CEO & Co-Founder of Madvertise.Mobile Advertising GmbH is one of the largest and fastest growing marketplaces for mobile banner ads in the German-speaking markets.

Setting up mobile ad campaigns in Augmented Reality services is a logical continuation of our previous business activities. Placing ad banners in mobile apps which support Augmented Reality is already possible. By today, in-app-advertising is one of our main business fields. Further implementation possibilities are manifold and include the placement of ad bubbles directly within the camera screen, integration of virtual ad goods adjusting themselves to the surrounding landscape, and many more.

We believe that Mobile Advertising within the Augmented Reality ecosystem is a great source to refinance development costs. This makes innovative services and concepts, even from smaller developer firms, possible at all.

2. You have finished your A invest, can you disclose our readers who is involved and why they choose you?

The successful European venture investor Earlybird together with madvertise co-founder Team Europe Ventures invested a medium single-digit million Euros amount in madvertise.

There are various reasons to choose madvertise - such as a multitude of renowned clients, the increasing reach of our publisher network, our sophisticated technology and last but not least the growing global mobile advertising market worth billions of dollars including the associated growth potential for madvertise .

3. Why do you think mobile AR will become a huge market and will be interesting for madvertise  to support this?

Advanced targeting possibilities like the viewing direction of the user, to name just one example, can be fully exhausted. Via our sophisticated madvertise  technology we can deliver ad campaigns to the user, exactly matching their interests and, by that, creating real additional value. Also, there are almost no limits to imagination when it comes to display forms of mobile ads within the camera screen. madvertise will be one of the early innovators for ad campaigns within AR services.

4. Let us know where we can meet you and madvertise in the next future?

madvertise  can be found anywhere the mobile industry developes new ideas, finalizes deals, and pushes forward innovations. Conferences and exhibitions are a good example. To be concrete, in the near future this will be the 1. Apps Summit in Wiesbaden, the Droidcon and the Next Conference in Berlin, as well as the dmexco in Cologne.Very important will be the 1st Augmented Reality Business Conference in Berlin on April 23.

  Besides that, we can be contacted anytime in our headquarter in the heart of Berlin.

http://www.arbcon.eu/

For 2 months ago I had a post about  The most growing industry parallel to the mobile web: Mobile Augmented Reality

Now after fast two months Rimma Kats from http://www.mobilemarketer.com write on :

" LAS VEGAS - Augmented reality technologies are blending virtual imaging into real-time video captured via mobile phones, resulting in an enhanced reality in which information and entertainment elements are merged with a user’s actual surroundings.

A panel at International CTIA Wireless 2010 this week offered insight on incorporating mobile augmented reality into games, applications, advertising and other mobile sectors and how it will change the way the world is viewed via the mobile phone.

“From our perspective, it’s all about getting the consumer behavior going,” said Philipp Schioter, general manager and business head of point and find at Nokia. “There is a lot of different technology out there and we try to stay technology-agnostic.

“You want to educate the user and this is a place where you can point on those things,” he said. “It’s funny how devices have evolved over time. Most of our handsets [now] have a camera.”

Fellow panelist Bruno Uzzan, CEO of Total Immersion, worked with “Avatar” director James Cameron to create an augmented reality product for consumers.

Mattel released a line of action figures based on the characters from the movie, which Mr. Uzzan claims are the first retail toys to incorporate augmented reality technology.

Each toy included a 3D Web tag, called an i-Tag. When users scanned the tag, it revealed special content related to the film.

“New technology always starts with cool stuff,” Mr. Uzzan said. “We are currently working on some medical applications, which can help a surgeon. Mobility will have a lot of impact in the application.

“Devices and hardware are making a ton of progress,” he said. “I told Mr. Cameron thank you because now every brand is going to be doing augmented reality.

“I think brands are really searching how to change passive consumers into active performers.”

Reality games

Maribeth Gandy, who works at the augmented environment lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has developed several entertainment games that include augmented reality.

One game features a tracker and involves a physical map which is laid out on the table. The object of the game is to kill zombies who are on the run. Consumers can use their mobile device to play the game by tracking where the zombies are on the map with the help of augmented reality technology.

“We’re doing a project where you can use regular technology to create and deploy augmented reality applications,” Ms. Gandy said. “Ten years from now, there’s going to be crazy apps that change our culture.

“We want to figure out how to create those same sorts of experiences with video games,” she said. “Even though they can be co-located, they can be social. There’s not a lot of back and forth, talking or gestures.”

Mobile advancement

Working with Black Eyed Peas artist on a project, Nokia's Mr. Schioter said that the singer was scared because he wanted to build a brand as a musician and did not want people to forget him.

For Will.I.Am , it was all about building a relationship with his fans and not just having them listen to his song and move on.

“You have to ask yourself if this a way to engage your audience in a compelling way,” Mr. Schioter said.

The panelists did question whether or not the augmented reality technology was just more hype in the mobile industry.

There is much new consumer-friendly technology slapped onto devices. Many brands, too, are jumping into augmented reality, with a lot more campaigns that feature the technology in the near future.

“It’s definitely cool,” said Laura Diaz, senior manager at Navteq Network for Developers. “The proof is being able to present that it adds value to the user.

“We’ll start to see that more,” she said. “Anything that is a neat technology is going to have a lot of hype. The more uses of it, which will make money, that’s when we’ll start to see people incorporating augmented reality in the world."

"
My Dilemma is why Advertisers in Europe wait to move in this domain.  Are they scared about Augmented Reality? Hope not, I invited Advertisers for the 1st European Augmented Reality Conference and Developer Camp in Berlin on 23-24.04 http://www.arbcon.eu/

My day started with a coffee on Startbucks together with Carsten Frien the CEO and founder of Madvertise, a very young and dynamic mobile advertising network from Berlin. After this interesting meeting I was on the way to the ITB, to the Social Media Lounge. Today with a very interesting program:

First Brian Porter from Site ForceAG - The next bubble or a future trend,with a very interesting presentation. The most interesting slot was from Tourismuszukunft. Jens Oellrich CEO, with very interesting points on Augmented Reality Browser, like Wikitude or Layar.

After this was Volker Martens, Director at FAKTOR 3 AG with very interesting aproach of the social channel on travel. Attention is the silver bullet, the Myth is growing!

Jens best tired to clear how to be clever with on Community Management - I think was better Tribal Management and Community Moderation and Leading ;-), or Jens?

Stay tuned, the day will continue...

”Commons are institutional spaces in which we are free.” 
– Yochai Benkler 

Today I have decided to visit the ITB in Berlin. I was very inspired because on Hall 7.1c you can have direct contact with Mobile Travel Services. I was working with Travel Industry for more like 2,5 years fom 2005 - 2007 :-). Was a time of pioneering, working with Windows CE and Symbian first editions.
Now you have company like Netbiscuits, Clanmo, hotel.de, YOC and in special HRS ( they implemented a layer on Layar, Travel Augmented Reality).

Mister Tobias Ragge the visionary Leader and Manager of HRS.de surprise every year with new innovation in the travel booking, "Real Time Augmented Reality Reservations" are the new patterns on Mobile Booking Systems. HRS will present on 12.03 their Mobile Hotel and Instant Search based on Layar browser.

Coming back to today, Christoph Schotter from Tourias Mobile presented the ITB Mobile. I remember for 10 years ago at the Cebit we had the GeoBrowser - based on ARCView from ESRI and a SMS reservation solution :-). After 10 years now in entering everything in the Mobile Business Mainstream. Why had to wait 10 years to become true?

Joachim Bader from CLANMO taked the next steps on mCommerce with The Mobile phone as a distribution Tool - how cool it was to have a Augmented Reality use case, huhu...

Netbiscuits and Hotel.de have made the next step on search and booking, interesting that nobody speak how is the real acceptance on mobile. I am interested to see more relevant statistics comparative with search and booking adoption on web, patterns etc.

Use your Phone like a key :-), for your room, from Micros Fidelio and Openways. For this type of vertical application the security level from today is good enough. In closed spaces work very well this model.

YOC with Heiko Kasper had a very interesting position about activating target groups, must to come contextual and directional marketing ( with the accelerators today is possible). I remark that YOC had made a good job - now they can atract very good people :-) and scale their mobile marketing processes. I was impressed about thier direction in Mobile Marketing - Permission Marketing. They have recognized what I have talk for 5 years, Permission Marketing is the Key in Marketing.
Now I have evoluate this Idea to protecting our Social Synthetic Proximity Ambient with a Non Interruptive Permission & Privacy Framework, #Augmented Reality show that this is one of the sustainable way to do marketing in Augmented Reality Spaces. This will inhibit inclusions, sensorweb identity phishing etc.

”Commons are institutional spaces in which we are free.” 
– Yochai Benkler 

After the succcesfully ARDevCamp we were on the way to the University, a prestigious building in the Zürich City. I was impressed about the fine espalanda where we started to present the Apps. The participation was very strong, more like 200 people, very promised work from Christine Perey http://www.perey.com/ and Claude Florin "Le President" of Mobile Monday Swiss http://www.mobilemonday.ch . 

10 Mobile Air Demo's  were available, wearing gold sashes, to demonstrate the latest Augmented Reality applications on mobile devices. Sometimes it was difficult to see much on the small mobile device screen, but people were patient and waited their turns to see the demos.

I was impressed from Kooaba, their solution was presented from Herbert Bay and Marc Steffen http://www.kooaba.com/ , their strong engagement behind their work.

Claude Florin is looking for good speakers on LIFT - I recommend the Augmented Citizen - will be a very interesting subject for the LIFT. I will take a look at my next conferences and I am sure we can find the right people.

At the After Party I had the gracefully ocassion to talk with Heather Saers president of Mobile Synergies. She was travelling all the way from Boston to be present to our ARDevCamp in Zürich. A very intelligent and pragmatic manager, I can say with a good vision of the next mobile future.