Tweeps Around Reality View
Earlier today Layar announced the next all new version of their Reality Browser Application for mobile devices (also known as Augmented Reality application).
This finally lifts the embargo on my work for this platform: Tweeps Around, which adds an overlay of what people on Twitter are saying, right here and now!
Update: I added a short FAQ for Tweeps Around, be sure to check it out for more detailed information.
Basic principle
Suppose you have the all new Layar 2.0 app installed on a supported device (Android, iPhone awaiting Apple’s aprovement). You open the application and search layers for tweeps around (or just tweeps). Activate the layer and look around on the phone’s screen. You’ll see circles popping up, each representing a Twitter user (Twitterers also known as a “Tweeps”, hence the name), selecting it gives you all the details of their message and links to relevant references.
The Layar promise
While the Layar app in itself is already quiet exciting, the most important promise lays in its tiered distribution approach. In fact, the Layar app is indeed a browser which does not contain, nor limit reality content to display. This way, responsibilities are distributed over various parties in the industry.
Some roles include:
- Content owners: make sure the content is marked up with accurate geolocation information.
- Independent developers (such as me): build a wrapping API to interface between content (e.g. a geo database) and the Layar service.
- Layar: negotiate distribution deals with platform owners (Apple, Google, …) and Mobile operators (to have Layar pre-installed on devices).
I strongly believe in this strategy, where domain knowledge, marketing + distribution and development each are in the hands of the respective experts.
Branding and monetization opportunities
Layar allows for a quiet some customization of graphic elements, e.g. company logo and banner on top, custom icons for points of interest (POI’s) and action links to call a phone number, send a text message or go to any conceivable web URL. Here are some opportunities for monetization as well, e.g. by inserting advertisements, call premium phone numbers of have users sign up for additional web services and revenue shares with destination sites.
The future
Of course, this is just the beginning. The beginning of Reality Overlays on mobile devices becoming ubiquitous. The beginning of Layar as platform for easy access of geo information. Many exciting new applications are around the corner to be discovered and become “best practice” in less than no time. Distribution and localization can be local as well as worldwide (e.g. Twitter is a global phenomenon, while your data may well be focused on a single city or country). Any type of data can be visualized, as long as it is somehow relevant to a specific location.
I’m ready to dive into this exciting world with lots and lots ideas waiting to be tested and implemented. The Twitter overlay serves as a test case which was in fact surprisingly easy to implement for the Layar platform.
Please let me know when you have geo data waiting to be explored as reality overlay and we will work something out!
Note that there is no sign up fee for Layar until the second half of September, 2009. After September 15th a one time sign up fee is required (depending on company turnover).
Open layar/tweepsaround
Use one of the barcode scanners from your Android phone to open the Tweeps Around layer in Layar: point your camera to this QR code (image to the right) and select “open in browser”.
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Jens de Smit are discussing. 
strongabs and 2 others are discussing. 
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Jens de Smit 09:35 on January 28, 2010 Permalink |
I think we’re disappointed because there’s nothing revolutionary new here. We’ve seen many a tablet computer fail and the iPad does not seem to have that “something extra” the iPhone had when it was released. Back then, iPods were hot, mobile phones had become a necessity and Apps were something we wanted even when we didn’t know they existed. The iPhone combined them all into a package too small and handsome for most people to imagine. The iPad on the other hand just looks like an overgrown iPhone with the ambition to take over your laptop’s function but without the technical specs to do so.
Still, we should not forget that the device that delivered Apple its current status, the iPod, was just as unrevolutionary. MP3 players in all sorts and sizes were a hot item in the eraly 2000′s, but manufacturers were struggling with the price of flash memory, the problem of user interfaces on tiny displays and the then still geeky image of downloading music of the internet. At the right time, when music downloading was becoming much more mainstream, Apple introduced an MP3 player with massive storage, a very good user interface and the right marketing. It wasn’t anything particularly new, just executed so well that it set the standard for portable music players for years to come. When more and more people get their hands on the iPad, we’ll see if Apple pulled off the same quality with the iPad.
Joe 10:11 on January 28, 2010 Permalink |
@Jens thanks for your comment! I do agree that the iPod was not a (technical) innovation at all, but the interface was revolutionary and caused me to expect that as a minimum. So when my iPod died and I was left with only my Sony Ericsson “walkman” phone, I just stopped listening to music and podcasts, just because the bad interface became prohibitive to use the device.
Now on Android the music player is just decent and even usable.
Maybe we’re already used to the whole concept of (multi-)touch interface on a small portable device to see the iPad as something revolutionary. Let’s see how this will fly and if Apple indeed keeps the lead here (I’m expecting big things from the Android powered netbooks, not in the least because of the more open ecosystem where third parties like Layar have much more possibilities to innovate).