Dave's Little Blog

A few months ago we wrote about how big-name companies are starting to talk about the Internet of Things - a term for the network formed by real-world objects connected to the Internet - indicating that the idea is picking up speed.

Today Chief Futurist for Cisco Systems Dave Evans appeared on the company's netcast, Talk2Cisco, to answer questions about the next 50 years and beyond via email and Twitter. Turns out one of the world's biggest technology companies is betting the Internet of Things is going to be big.

The Internet of Things is what will drive computing over the next 10 years. We are in very early days, but remember these words.

Yesterday, President Barack Obama visited the Tastee Sub Shop in Edison, New Jersey. Since Edison is my hometown and I remember fondly many visits to Tastee back in the ’80s when I went to school nearby, I took a particular interest in the visit. I tweeted about the event and updated my facebook status regularly throughout the day as the President arrived in Newark, flew by helicopter to Piscataway, and then was driven by motorcade through the streets of Edison to his destination at Route 27 and Plainfield Avenue.

This is neither a current events blog nor a journal of my personal life or sandwich mania. It’s a blog about Tagwhat, our technology product. So, what does this have to do with Tagwhat, location-based services, or augmented reality?

Twitter and Facebook are great ways to update your friends on what’s happening in your world. But Tagwhat allows President Obama to be at Tastee Sub for visitors to see forever. By tagging the spot with his photo, as I did here http://www.tagwhat.com/dave/4561 I have created a digital monument to the President’s visit that will be viewable on-line in the Tagwhat map but more importantly via mobile at that spot as people walk by. What does this mean? It means that in 20 years when a school kid, not yet born today, walks by the Tastee Sub Shop in Edison, New Jersey, she will be able to see that photo, at that spot hovering in digital space. Imagine if you could look at the Delaware and see George Washington crossing? Or if you could see Martin Luther King, Jr. standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as he gave his “I have a Dream” speech? It would simply be amazing.

In less than a minute I was able to place President Obama’s photo and a description at Tastee. This monument I’ve created has the potential to be there forever. I actually do this all the time with photos I find particularly notable.

Let’s say you’re not into history. How is this useful to you? Well, I know that when I take a picture of my kids at their favorite playground and tag that spot with the photo and a description in Tagwhat, I have created a digital, location-based monument to that day. I look forward to returning to these spots when my kids are grown and have families of their own to relive these memories in a more active way than we can today.

Lots more to come on this front.

Filmed in beautiful Portland, Oregon.

Tagwhat for travel is fantastic. I use it. ;-)

Our Youtube Channel.

Tagwhat, we're it.

I’m a huge fan of the augmented reality (AR) concept and the potential it provides.  With devices becoming more powerful and the technology in place to make it a reality, AR is at the forefront of mobile possibilities.

A shining example of which is a new startup called “Tagwhat,” which made its public debut today to offer what’s its calling “a new augmented reality (AR) experience that fuses the very best of mobile, augmented reality, and location-based social networking services for everyday use and appeal.”

At it’s core, Tagwhat is a fully functional social network, layered on top of the physical world and accessed by “tags” through an innovative augmented reality experience.  By simply holding up the camera view of a mobile device (iPhone or Android), geo-contextual tags from pre-selected friends and community members become visible.

For example, just walking down the street Tagwhat reveals a wealth of relevant information, discussions, and deals — such as a coupon for a nearby establishment, a discussion thread for a meet-up with friends, or a restaurant review about a sushi place around the corner.

The concept of bridging the gap between mobile social networking and physical world engagement is a powerful combination, and one that signifies the future.  Tagwhat has done so using a patent-pending augmented reality technology that lets users leave behind digital crumbs (tags) for any location, place or thing, anywhere in the world for friends and followers to discover.  Each marker is an interactive social object, and can include direct action links to email, phone, SMS, photos, URL’s, cross-posting to Twitter, Facebook, and more.  As a result, friends are able to easily interact and share information with one another with the added benefit of location and AR.

Suddenly, “checking in” at a particular coffee shop, dropping pictures at several bar locations from last night’s pub crawl, or creating blog entries from personal favorite locations as they are discovered or re-visited, opens up a whole new realm of possibilities.  With a single click, users are able to easily let friends know where they’ll be in 5 minutes, then get turn-by-turn directions to the tagged destination, and flip through photos of a friends’ night out on the way over.

What’s interesting to me is the fact that Tagwhat incorporates the acts of “checking-in” by way of tagging and including digital content, as well as following businesses, friends, etc. in a Twitter-like fashion- effectively combining the attributes of Twitter and social networking startups like Foursquare and Gowalla, layered on top of a completely new physical world/AR/location-based experience.  It’s pretty impressive really.

Within the Tagwhat network, marker streams come alive with the digital crumbs and content a member chooses to follow from networks of friends, community members, and businesses.  In addition, for a more expansive experience users can reach beyond their existing network and search for specific content and users by keywords.  If your interested in discovering restaurants, for example, follow local culinary aficionados and merge their AR experience into yours.

Tagwhat’s technology represents a shift from the static “Web 1.0″ world of AR browsers to the participatory interaction of “Web 2.0.”  Tagwhat is ‘create-and-share’ mobile AR, and is the first mobile augmented reality distribution system where anyone, not just developers, can create their own AR content and share with their friends anywhere in the world, in seconds, for free.

To monetize, Tagwhat will undoubtedly utilize a hyper-local advertising model, similar to Foursquare, whereby local businesses can offer promotions, offers and deals to users who “follow” them or merge their AR experience with that of the businesses they like most.  Users can find their favorite stores and follow them for the latest deals and events.  Think of it as Foursquare on steroids.

I’m quite impressed by what Tagwhat has created, even after playing with it for only a short period of time.  Even though it’s just the beginning and a user-base is still evolving, I see the startup making huge waves in the near future.

Nice article.

According to the company, its mobile and web application represents a paradigm-shift in augmented reality.

Tagwhat also marks an important milestone in the evolutionary path of AR technology, representing a shift from the static Web 1.0 world of AR browsers to the participatory interaction of Web 2.0. Tagwhat is 'create-and-share' mobile AR, and is the first mobile augmented reality distribution system where anyone, not just developers, can create their own AR content and share with their friends anywhere in the world, in seconds, for free.

The app, which is currently available for Android and coming soon to the iPhone, offers integration with Twitter, Facebook and YouTube and allows users to create location-based content. This content is then viewable from within a Google Maps mashup on the website as well as from the video overlay browser.

The primary difference between Tagwhat and other AR browsers is the ability to create this location-based content from within the app. Layar and Wikitude deal with external content, such as nearby tweets, Wikipedia entries and Gowalla spots.

That's not to say that Tagwhat won't also have this content. At launch, Tagwhat will include "opt-in free and premium subscription channels and 'smart' advertising", including channels for restaurants, pubs and nightlife, Wikipedia articles, and a "fully functional implementation" of Foursquare.

The addition of creation is indeed an important shift in augmented reality, but we can't wait until it can be attached to content visually, rather than solely through GPS data. This is, of course, the next difficult step that we see being used in apps like oMoby, a visual search engine application. oMoby uses your smartphone's camera to take a picture of an object and then attempts to identify it. This sort of visual search technology would make it possible to tag your specific car, for example. Then, if someone using the same application were to view that car in the browser, they would be able to see your "tag" as well. Think Robocop or Terminator and you get the gist.

So while we like what Tagwhat is doing and hope to play with it when it comes out for the iPhone (the company says it has been submitted to the app store and should be available in the near future), it really does little more than integrate standard geo-tagging technologies with AR video overlays we see in existing AR browsers. The shift from simple location tagging to visual tagging is the next big step.

If you'd like to learn more about how companies are using augmented reality for marketing in both desktop and mobile-based experiences, be sure to check out our latest premium report on the subject, Augmented Reality for Marketers and Developers.

Leave the others behind. Thanks.

For you kids out there, Brit Hume used to be a respected White House correspondent for ABC News. Now, he's not.

Thanks.