Augmented Reality is for Real

Consumers can even reach inside of an image, Fenton continues. “You’ve got a tablet and you’re holding it in front of a piece of printed material. You hold your hand in between the table and the printed piece and you can actually interact with the character. That’s what augmented reality is all about.”

AR, Posey feels, is “sort of back on its heels right now because no one has been able to find a use for it apart from a gimmick mechanic. It’s a lot of work to ask someone to turn on their computer, open a site, and then use their webcam and the business card you gave them just to experience that. It needs to move beyond the markers, and it has in some of the more expensive solutions.”

Posey’s advice? “Go mobile. Go markerless. What I did is yesterday’s news. It might sound harsh, but if you're looking to do what I did in mid-2009, you’re behind the curve.” In an event, he continues, the experience has to be “seamless and effortless for your target audience. Look at companies like Bully Entertainment who are using the String Augmented Reality toolkit and the Unity engine on iOS devices to make more immersive experiences on the sides of buildings and on coffee cups. They saw the niche I saw a few years ago and aligned their company to fill it.”

“If you can creatively find a need or a pain point that a customer has and fulfill it with something like augmented reality, QR codes, or PURLs, then I think it can be something else to help you build your business with,” Fenton concludes. “It could help differentiate you. It could help increase your profitability. It could help you tostay alive.”