The migration of these two environments is scheduled for September. On the 16th of September we will organize a webinar to talk you through this new environment and explain you all the basics. After the webinar there will be room for questions. So don’t miss this one!

Webinar – New publishing/developers environment

Date: Thursday, September 16, 2010
Time: 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM CEST

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

The second wave of Augmented Reality Experiences
Augmented Reality on the mobile has started with lots of point of interest applications. “Where is a house for sale (and how much)” and “where is a restaurant (and is it any good)” are well known examples. The second wave for mobile Augmented Reality is an immersive one and will will be an addition to the first wave. With immersive AR people step into a different world, either by playing a game like Conquar which is a risk like strategy game on Layar or by experiencing how the Berlin wall looked like. This is made possible by adding interactivity and more graphical elements like 3D models and animation. This is what the Layar Publishing platform can enable for brands, publishers and agencies.

Tablet devices like the Galaxy TAB with their big screens and high resolution displays will ensure that this next wave of immersive Augmented Reality experiences will look even better then on a phone.

At Layar we feel honored to be part of this list and look forward to the two big WEF events in Tjanjin and Davos.

The WEF says the following about why Layar is named a Technology Pioneer (more in this PDF, page 21)

“Why the company is a Technology Pioneer
Layar is pioneering the new medium of augmented reality which could become the mobile sector’s killer application. This new medium is still in the early stages of development but is already being viewed as an essential component of the next generation of entertainment and advertising.”

Condé Nast Digital created this layer for Samsung. Could you tell us something about the whole creation of this game from concept to execution?
The idea was really a collaboration with Samsung’s agency, Starcom, Samsung, Condé  Nast Digital Creative Services and the WIRED.com sales and marketing team. Starcom came to us early on expressing a desire to do something with a scavenger hunt to help promote Samsung devices running Android. The initial shell of an idea incorporating Layar into a scavenger hunt was developed by WIRED.com marketing following this request. After some refining with Creative Services who explored the platform in greater detail and provided a better peek into the capabilities of Layar, the idea was refined into, what we thought at the time, would be a national hunt in various cities around the US.  Discussion with Samsung progressed and as the program gained momentum with both the client and agency, the scavenger hunt grew from an American-only opportunity to the fully realized global program it is today running in 5 cities around the world (with a sixth coming soon). At least a dozen people from WIRED.com sales and marketing and Condé  Nast Digital Creative Services contributed to the program. That does not include additional input from Starcom or Samsung.

This is the first time your company used our platform to create a branded augmented reality experience. Did our platform meet your expectations?
The Layar platform met and in many cases surpassed our expectations.  We especially relied on the API documentation and developer map tool as well as troubleshooting with other members of the Google Group. We are excited to see the Layar platform improve and expand. It’s clear that Layar has a core of passionate developers and as the platform and API continues to grow, the community will only get stronger.  We’re excited to see the next level of Layar applications and hopefully be a part of the next wave of technology.

What could be the added value of Augmented Reality to your clients?
For lack of a better term, we’re probably only seeing the very tip of the AR iceberg. There are so many potential solutions the medium provides that will allow clients to tell their brand stories in new and creative ways. Whereas we were once just limited to stationary screens and magazine pages, we now have the ability to be wherever a user happens to find him/herself and augment daily activities and experiences with organic, fun, creative and relevant data and messaging.  As the products that are able to harness this medium become more and more ubiquitous (and powerful), I think we’ll see smart brands folding incredibly targeted, visually dynamic messages into places and situations that consumers will actually welcome.  That’s the biggest benefit ­ users see this sort of thing as cool and fun, something they want to embrace, not just another sales pitch.

What are the future plans of Condé  Nast Digital when it comes to layer development?
We are constantly encouraging our clients to engage with the latest technologies and tools, especially innovative platforms such as Layar. We are excited to continue working with Layar.

Michal Shapira, Executive Director of Creative Services:

“We are thrilled to be partnering with Layar on this engaging, innovative game for Samsung. As we continue to craft new and exciting opportunities for our advertisers that push the envelope, we will always be interested in tapping into new technologies. We look forward to integrating Layar into future campaigns in unique and creative ways.”

The Galaxy Hunter can be played in 5 cities and you can win $2.000 in prizes.

• New York
• Paris
• London
• Amsterdam
• Berlin

To play the Galaxy Hunter you just have to open the Layar Reality Browser in one of these cities, go to featured apps and tap on the Galaxy Hunter layer, and you’re on your way to winning  $2.000 in prizes. More cities to follow.

In order to make a smooth transition we recommend you to create a publishers account – if you still don’t have one. How to create a publishers account can be found here. On this page you can also find an overview of the basics of our publishers environment. If you already have a publisher account you won’t have to take any actions!

The migration of these two environments is scheduled for September. On the 16th of September we will organize a webinar to talk you through this new environment and explain you all the basics. After the webinar there will be room for questions. So don’t miss this one!

Webinar – New publishing/developers environment

Date: Thursday, September 16, 2010
Time: 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM CEST

Like the NYC version, the SFO visit was aimed at getting new dedicated Layar developers in, to bridge the gap between the huge demand from the US (in Layar users and in Big Brands wanting a layer on Layar) and the limited amount of dedicated Layar developers in the US compared to Europe. We are often being approached by Big Brands (Fortune 500 companies, major advertisers and publishers) who would like to have a layer but we now have to recommend good European developers to them – as there are too little good US developers to choose from in our Layar Partner Network (LPN).

Layar event at Adaptive Path
Highlight of our SFO visit was the Layar event, which took place at the premises of Adaptive Path. Thanks so much Kate and team for being a fantastic host!
We felt sparked by a very energetic crowd, which was highly motivated and knowledgeable. The audience consisted of many developers, agencies, some publishers, advertisers, investors, fans and friends. The ladies from Metaio were also there – I managed to get them promote Layar It was fun meeting you, Noora and Liza!

We’ll be able to sign up multiple new members of the LPN of which 2 game companies and an agency specialized in AR development, who previously did mainly marker-based AR  but who will now also focus on layar. The new members will be announced in the list once all formalities are done.

In separate meetings we signed up a global Ad agency. We expected 2 people at meeting but as much as 30 people from the company had shown up, all extremely interested and full of amazing AR ideas which they will implement and execute for their fortune 500 advertisers in the coming period.

We love San Francisco
For some of us, it was our first visit to SFO. We were struck by the amazing atmosphere – everybody is willing to help, from people introducing us to their large community, wanting us to speak at their events or meetups, connecting us to important decision makers, wanting to guide us around etc. A very energetic yet laid back environment!

We didn’t have much time for sightseeing now but did a quick Tour of South Bay. We made a quick visit to the Golden Gate bridge – it was covered in clouds, but we could totally see how beautiful it must be when the sun is shining. Probably the worst part was that I didn’t have the chance to eat at (or better said: experience) In ‘n Out.

All in all many reasons to come back soon. Our first step towards building up a Layar presence in the US couldn’t have been better. Look forward to coming back!

Claire

What is the Sziget layer about and what does it offer?
The Sziget layer provides all necessary information for visitors of Sziget 2010, one of the 10 largest festivals of the world. It is a useful tool for the visitors to get the most out of the festival.

People can find the different stages and its’ programs. Using the reality view beside the stage one can see the band currently on stage with the band’s picture, the upcoming bands and the exact time when the next band will start playing. Clicking on a band you will be guided to the bands profile page and you can get all information about the band. There are two more action buttons. “Get me there” which is very useful considering the size of the venue and the large number of programs. The other action button is the “program” which brings you to the full weekly program of the given stage. From the program item list you can again click further to the profile pages of the bands (over 300 bands are playing during the festival).

The different types of information groups are represented with different icons to make it easier for the users to navigate in the reality and the map views. There is also a filtering function that helps to screen out the most relevant pieces from the large database.

Why did you want to create such a layer?
Soda Team is a long term partner of Vodafone in Hungary. When Vodafone became the main sponsor of the Sziget festival this year, the company started to boost up the venue with innovative offers and solutions. We learned about AR technology 1,5 years ago, and followed Layar as our choice of solution provider ever since. We already made plans for other companies highlighting the possible advantages of using Layar and AR, but the possibilities of the technology where best fitting the needs of such a venue, and an innovative company as Vodafone.

What are the advantages for creating festival layers?
The advantages for users are obvious: Everybody carries his phone on the festival, but who likes the mass of paper that one needs for navigating from one stage to another. Having a complex layer, like the “Sziget Compass” makes all conventional tools of navigation look out of date.

What did you learn about creating festival layers?
One of the most important insights we learned, is that you have to make a POI (point of intrest) something complex, informative and sexy to become a real alternative for usual program guides and maps. Therefore we attached programs to the POIs and band profiles to the programs. The differentiation of the POIs by icons is unavoidable when having such a large amount of data.

The Layer Developer
The technical realization of the layer was done by mCRUMBS, run by Martin Adam. They are an “Augmented Reality Server Provider” with 15 Augmented Reality Channels Running on their servers.

We at Layar are highly committed to serving our biggest market in the best possible way. This trip is the first step towards building a local US presence, to learn about local needs and insights and to enable motivated existing and potential Layar developers and agencies in serving their clients in the best possible way.

The team visiting consists of Claire (co-founder),  Matt who’s running the commercial department, Community manager Maurice and Marc from Hoppala – a Layar developer representing the Layar Partner Network.

In this travel report you can read along to what has been keeping us busy on our first stop: New York!

Amazing content in NYC
Apart from Matt, who is a New York and SFO veteran, the other three including me had never been to NYC. We stayed in a very nice place in SoHo, the perfect place to try out my recently bought camera for some cool pictures and Layar screenshots from my window on the 15th floor!

What immediately struck me was the high density of local layers and the literally endless Stream of objects nearby. There were over 25 layers to be found in the local tab and the first 20 or so results in my Layar Stream were never more than 200 meters away, showing restaurants, Tweepsaround, apartments for rent etc etc.
Being a member of the Yellow Team on the Layar game Conquar, I didn’t find much to conquer as somebody from the Yellow team had already taken over the Greater New York area Next time I’ll challenge the audience to make my Conquar life a bit more interesting…

Even though we didn’t have much time for sightseeing, I HAD to visit Ground Zero. There is a layer showing the Twin Towers in 3D, exactly where they used to be and I just had to see it there.

Let me first tell you that Ground Zero is simply impressive. It literally is an open wound and even though construction works are ongoing and the signs are showing the designs of what will arise, it is a strange open place in the dense forest of high rise buildings.

But experiencing the Twin Towers in Augmented Reality was truly impressive and even an emotional experience. I tweeted the screenshots and received some emotional reactions. Some guy asked me what I was doing and I gave him my phone – He was amazed. We’ll put up a video soon.

Layar event
The Layar event on Tuesday evening was a great success. We hoped to have a dedicated audience of (potential) Layar creators rather than big audience of only vaguely interested people and got everything we wanted. People drove and flew in from as far as Philadelphia, Connecticut and even Seattle only to come and see us.

I showed some of the coolest Layar cases and gave a general introduction to the platform, Matt shared the latest usage statistics and the different platforms and handsets to which Layar is being distributed. Maurice provided background info on how Layar facilitates content creation and Marc gave a step by step explanation of the technical side of Layar and how you can even create layers if you can’t code using Hoppala Augmentation. Presentations will soon be online (as soon as we have decent wifi).

The audience was very active in terms of questions and sharing ideas. Some already had experience building layers or other AR experiences, others were from an ad agency interested in adding Layar to their portfolio and some even planning to set up an agency focusing also on Layar development and there were some influential AR bloggers in the audience such as Chris Grayson and Tish Shute.

I interviewed some of them on background and their AR dream – will post these videos with interesting thoughts when I’m back in the Netherlands.

Fire Fighters
The event took place in the New York Fire Museum. This was arranged by Richard Jansen, a Dutch fire fighter who sees huge potential in using Layar to better understand the context when there’s a fire or rescue operation. When there’s 8 minutes to judge, you want to have a good understanding of the building you’re about to enter, hazardous materials, explosives, water depth etc. Here’s a presentation he made on how he believes Layar can help in bringing all this information into the hands of the fire fighters, without having to invest in expensive hardware solutions.

Over the weekend, Richard also created a 9/11 fire fighter memorial layer. Screenshots soon to online.

New members of the LPN
We had great one on one meetings with agencies and brands in NYC. We signed up one new member of the Layar Partner Network. A huge media agency and publisher working on a fantastic Layar campaign for a major global brand . The campaign will start next week so we’ll tell you more when it’s live.

All in all a very fruitful first short visit to New York. A next time, I would like to do a ‘10 agencies in 3 days’ round, so if you’re an (advertising or web development) agency in New York and interested to see me personally, please let me know.

Next stop: SFO
I’m writing this article on board of the flight to San Francisco, where we will have more interesting meetings as well as another Layar event, Thursday the 12th, 6PM at the Adaptive Path offices! Please join us – here’s more info and where you can RSVP

Claire

During this trip we will visit New York and San Francisco and in both cities Layar will host an event. The events will give you more insights on the conceptual, commercial and technical possibilities of the Layar platform, distribution, plans for the future and anything else you always wanted to know. Target audience are brands, agencies and developers who are already now or plan to be active on the Layar platform.

We’re still looking for venues but reserve these dates.

• 10th of August, New York
  Location: New York Fire Museum, view this location on the map
• 12th of August, San Francisco
  Location: Adaptive Path, view this location on the map

Do you want to learn more about Layar. RSVP on our meetup for one of the two events.

>> RSVP for the New York event
>> RSVP for the San Francisco event