Daydreaming About Augmented Reality

Often after talks I’m asked about future trends in social media in the short and long term.  Obviously some answers change dramatically based on the industries and audiences we’re focusing on, but there are some common themes such as many turning inward and becoming more private (for the benefit of close-knit groups of friends or like-interests).  One common distruptor we can always count on is the pace of certain technologies.  In a single day you can blow the mind of your average consumer (and your average blogger) with a single introduced technology.  While the debut of a life-changing software application was relatively rare ten years back, now new abilities for personal and business use seem to pop up once a month, and many of them really do change how we operate.

Take “augmented reality” (or “AR” for short) and what it could mean for any number of industries.  An example of AR would be using your iPhone’s camera to view the world around you, with the iPhone displaying graphics overlayed on the “real” view of your surroundings.  A Parisian subway application gives us a hint of what such a capability could offer (see the Fast Company article).  In an industry like healthcare perhaps you could have distances to facilities and services mapped out before you.  For higher education and hospitals, virtual tours could provide all sorts of hotspots.  And obviously any history buff can envision a walking tour where content appeared based on your position and offer a view from another era.  Fast Company further points out it’s not just about smartphones, but kiosks as well such as in this Lego example. 

 AR is just one example of something with tremendous potential that could destroy predictions if it soars quickly. It could potentially make massive changes in the social spheres online—imagine an AR app that “shows” you the locations of virtual stores, complete with hanging-in-mid-air Tweeted reviews from moments before; or a series of AR “mirrors” that are just monitors with cameras, but allow you to “collect” items in a store for an outfit so you can see what it would look like on you without trying on a thing- and then send to friends on Facebook for instant feedback with a poke in the air of a logo.

Daydreaming about AR may be a geek’s passion, but the tools are in hands now and the avalanche of technology is coming. Keeping one eye on what audiences are doing and could be doing is exactly where this geek likes to be.

UPDATE: Think this is far off? Read this: Yelp just snuck in the first U.S. iPhone app with AR with their "Monocle" feature...

-Dean

Facebook: The Generational Floodgates Open

“Still think social media is just for young people?”

That’s the line I often use before I show a particular example or two in my recent presentation on new media and generational differences. When I speak to healthcare audiences, typically that statement is followed by a dive into Sermo, the social network for physicians. However, if I’ve done my job, by the time I’ve gotten to that question there isn’t any question in anyone’s mind that social media, like it or not, is not the exclusive domain of young people.

In fact, in services like Twitter, it’s the older demographics that actually dominate, especially from a content creation standpoint.

Facebook has a stigma that many older demographics have trouble shaking. For many in the last few years, they only joined to keep tabs on kids or because younger and/or more savvy friends finally pushed them over the edge to join. In the last six months a pretty significant sea change has occurred behind Facebook walls, even if it hasn’t been terribly public. The interesting element to Facebook’s “walled garden” model is that little contextual worlds grow on their own, often without much overlap or notice. Sure you might occasionally see the Mom of a friend of yours up in the “suggested friends” corner, but even if you add them you can relegate them to the see-no-evil Friends List that makes your association with them as harmless as you aimed for in high school. Contrary to the popular belief of 2008 and prior (in many older demographics’ eyes) Facebook is increasingly becoming about privacy and careful associations, not as much Wild West as it may seem on the surface. Consider how many Gen X’ers now require their parents to have a Facebook account so they can see photos of the grandkids.

So today’s report in some ways is of no surprise on its face, but still makes for a very stark reality that would shock many people who don’t partake of social media. In short: there are more grandparents than grandkids. “There are more Facebook users over 55 years old today than there are high school students using the site.”

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Slow News Days, R.I.P.?

I'm beginning to think that the very notion of the Slow News Day was due to the limitations (real or imagined) set by our then-current media. Certainly something newsworthy isn't always happening in your neck of the woods, but quite frankly I identify with lots of forests now.  So much so that when even the most major of U.S. news networks have spats between politicians and late-night comedians as a constantly-running headline story, what happens a world away can take over our day despite our media's best efforts to be fair-to-middling.

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On Bonnaroo, Healthcare, Trust & Facebook Connect

I Trust Bonnaroo & Facebook Connect – maybe more than I should.

Last week, while Danny and I were speaking at CPM’s Client Symposium, the schedule for this year’s Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival was released. Sure, on it’s face the two things don’t have much connection (except for an over-excited concert-go’er and new media speaker like myself) but a few tricks Bonnaroo employed made me think about how healthcare could apply them. Bonnaroo’s schedule was available for browsing in its plainest form, but there was also the option for using Facebook Connect.

Facebook Connect, for the uninitiated, is a way for sites outside of Facebook to let you use your Facebook account to quickly log in and interface with a website. Think of the blog where you don’t have to fill out a lengthy registration process just to leave a comment, but rather just click a couple of times and link your Facebook account. Even more helpful and potentially cool, Facebook Connect can use some interesting integration with your friends and such.

How did Bonnaroo use Facebook Connect and what does it have to do with healthcare? When you chose to log in with Facebook Connect to plan your schedule, it sped you past any registration screens and Bonnaroo quickly gave you the option of telling all your friends via Facebook or Twitter that you were planning your schedule. Even better, the schedule was part of a dynamic interface showing you a grid or even a map view of where you’ll be when. Your Facebook friend’s profile pictures gathered at the bottom of the screen, indicating that they too were planning their Bonnaroo experience. One click let you browse their schedules and it was cool to see others as excited as I was about our impending vacation. There were only about 7 of my friends in that list, but hey- it was only the first two hours since the scheduled had been released.

A few minutes later I was sitting in a presentation about health screenings and I thought about how potent the peer and family influence is on medical decisions. What if your health screening registration system used Facebook Connect? What if you could encourage your peers to attend screenings with just a click? Or at the very least inform them that you were taking that step. Aside from screenings you could track walk-a-thon’s, promotions, class registrations… maybe in similar ways to what you already do, but all within the peer bubble of Facebook. A place many hospitals find themselves having a difficult time getting into.

What else was pretty cool?

When the hotly anticipated (by fans) schedule came out, Bonnaroo.com promoted it in one clear way: the use of a widget they developed to help you plan your Bonnaroo experience. It was based off the old carnival fortune-teller machines – think the movie “BIG”- and called “Zoltaroo”). This simple widget, combined with a contest for those who publicly share their schedule, had hundreds of people on Twitter and Facebook telling all of their friends they were excited about the upcoming festival.

The map feature is great too – as both an interactive map and as something that interacted with my schedule. Imagine interacting with a health fair map and where your various screenings, freebies and info sessions are… or a recruitment fair?

Point being, Facebook Connect can be used incredibly slyly, and help dovetail neatly into other initiatives. It gives a clue that you’re in the networks they are in and that you’re interested in saving time in helping them connect to you and interact with content (all the while helping you connect with them in a way that doesn’t have the sometimes high-brand barrier of being a “fan” of a hospital or healthcare entity). And be sure to add this to your Generation Authentic quiver, who won't bat an eye at being able to register and connect their social world(s) quickly.

More on Bonnaroo, I’m sure, later this summer. It’s my one time of year where I unplug from my job and yet it’s also a heavy new media experience. And hey, check out my schedule!

-Dean

Boomers, Beer, Hospitals and Priests: tales of new media

Attention Southwest Virginians:

Next Wednesday, April 15th at 5:30pm at 202 Market (upstairs) in Roanoke, VA I'll be giving an unusual combo talk entitled: "Boomers, Beer, Hospitals and Priests: tales of new media" hosted by AD2 where we'll look at a few different ideas, industries and generations.  It's free for AD2 members and only $3 for everyone else.

The event on Facebook...

-Dean