The World Changed This Week, Thanks To A Game For Children

Push Media

I'm sorry if I'm going to exhaust your tolerance for augmented reality this week, but the plain and simple fact is that when something goes from nothing to a ridiculous level of market penetration with this kind of speed, there's more going on than a summer fad.

Also, well, summer fads rarely monetize this well. Nintendo is rolling out ad-supported hotspots next, because why on Earth wouldn't they? Any business that benefits from walk-in traffic (which is to say, damn near every quick serve restaurant, convenience store and so on) should probably consider this, especially if they are in a part of the world with enough foot traffic, or if they are in a walkable neighborhood. (Frankly, I suspect that the game makers could also collect protection money from homeowners or associations who want their peace and quiet, but that probably says more about my sense of humor than the business model.)

Locally to me this summer, a transit agency had to take a third of its cars offline due to repair issues, in the height of a busy convention season. People are going in to work an hour early or late, enduring packed cars in heat, and so on. And if you gave that agency an ability to delight those in queue, they'd be crazy not to take it. (And yes, I know that the scale of game play hasn't quite extended that far yet, but give it a little more time, and a host of other games that use the same tech, but appeal to different demographics.)

You'd add in the game content at a managerial level, if only to lessen employee turnover from dealing with customers who are inconvenienced. We've been conditioned as digital consumers to search for Easter eggs in digital media for decades, and now the eggs are out in the world. This has all been a series of dominoes that have been set up over the past 15 to 20 years, and now that they are all in motion, the change in our society will be breathtaking.

It's not all a panacea, of course. The news has been filled with the unintended consequences of the game's impact this week, from small-time crime to the end of shaky romantic relationships, and a host of ill-considered attempts to cheat the system. Getting to a place where people are paying even more attention to their phones hardly seems like a positive development, especially when you add in the likelihood of distracted pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers.

But all of that is beyond the point now. The game changer to end all game changers in mobile has come, and it's only the first of many applications to take advantage of the platform and technology. We're not going to stop feeling the ramifications of this for a very long time.

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Augmented 2.0, Or After Pokemon Go

I Am The Trainer Who Pokes

On a daily basis, I walk my dog through my neighborhood for a couple of miles. It's almost always a solitary experience, which is fine; we can both use the exercise, and I do some of my best writing (well, pre-writing) at the other end of his leash.

But tonight, we had company... my two kids, locked into their phones from the most viral video game of their lifetimes, and having a grand old time while getting covert exercise.

As the miles passed and my kids utterly failed to notice sore feet, darkness that usually spooks them a bit, and the sudden and mildly dangerous phenomenon of other kids playing the game, but on bicycles, I thought about what happens next for this relentlessly viral hit. Over 1 out of every 20 Droid phones have the game now, in just a week of release, each one a conscious download, and it's hard to imagine that this is going to be the last manifestation of mobile phone with augmented reality. I can easily imagine, say, a zombie apocalypse game with similar movement needs, maybe a player vs. player first person shooter, hopefully with more comedic aspects than gore. The toothpaste is out of this tube, and all that's left is to see how many bogus "news" stories will spawn from it, or how long the fad will run. (My guess for this game? At least until Labor Day. After that, all bets are off.)

There's something cheery about the community here, though. Mobile technology has helped to stunt social skills, in my opinion, with people retreating to text their emotions in virtual safe spaces, rather than learning real-life conflict resolution. Now, at least, perfect strangers are interacting around a simple shared interest, making virtuous trades, maybe even making new friends. I'm told that peer versus peer gaming is soon on the horizon, which will likely spur more interactions, if not more friendships.

I suppose that, on some level, this is the kind of VR we should have expected. No special gear, no over-the-top age-inappropriate graphics or restrictions, and with faint whiffs of digital hoarding; it's as American as you can get, despite not being American at all. But just because this is first, and it might be the biggest one for a very long while... that doesn't mean it will be the last. Or that the concept won't soon infest every airport, waiting room, doctor's office, DMV and pharmacy where making people wait without getting annoyed about the waiting is well worth the cost of wifi.

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Selfie Drone Magic

Five Hundred Bucks And Falling

If you follow my Twitter or Facebook social media streams (sorry, LinkedIn, I don't hit you with everything), you saw a link to the UK selfie drone story, where there is a kickstarter with six to seven figures of funding and plenty of pre-orders. Fits in the palm of your hand, flies ten feet or so away from the user, controlled via a smartphone.

Sure, this might seem silly and frivolous... but as the selfie stick shows, and the Kickstarter confirms, there's money in it. And if there's money in the v1, how does the v2 manifest?

Well, I think it gets an avatar so it can be personalized. Also, perhaps more capable than just taking selfies. Imagine search and retrieval capabilities, or holographic projection. Sound in the unit could also help to produce intriguing possibilities, and having more than one might make for more interesting footage.

So imagine where it goes in a few steps, or when people who truly want to self-document to a disturbing degree wind up with clouds of selfie drones. Perhaps they'll be part of routine athletic training, used to monitor and improve on traffic conditions. There's a pretty clear use case for security enhancement, a step up from the dash cam footage. Give me a selfie drone that folds and puts away laundry, or loads and unloads the dishwasher, and you've made my waking hours a lot less compulsive.

But I'd like to get beyond the tactical and into the fanciful, if you'll indulge me for a moment. In the young adult trilogy series "His Dark Materials", the conceit is that the world in which it begins is like Earth, but with visible and tactile manifestations of a soul or spirit animal. Also, let's consider the rise of support animals for those who need them, and how a technological manifestation might be, well, less problematic. And how much a smartphone on some level functions as, well, a support animal.

All tech manifests as magic, if you can step back from it long enough to see how it might be perceived to folks with less experience with such things. Whether or not that magic is benevolent or malicious...

Well, you might see a company of angels at your beck and call, and the end to all sorts of bothersome activities. Others might see a hellish swarm of techno flies, turning every moment of the day into one that has active surveillance.

The story is left to the individual.

But the tech? That may be inevitable.

And if you can advertise on them?

One more vote for hellish flies...

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.