Monday, June 10, 2013

Augmented Reality fail.



When I first became excited about Augmented Reality, I saw it to be useful like the way Metaio was allowing you to interact objects in the real world in a different way. (video at the bottom)

Then popped out Foursquare. Who did nothing but clog up my twitter feed. Something that seemed like a cute social app, all of a sudden was annoying, and you just wanted those people stop telling me where they were. I don't care where you are all of the time. It's neurotic. Especially people I don't know just because I searched on a particular city feed for example. I'm not surprised at all that company is struggling.

Then I start seeing QR codes start pop up everywhere, only to be disappointed that these codes only took me to their websites. So, I never even download an app to read them because I have a smart phone. Have you ever tried to use one of these QR codes at a show like Maker Faire, or something with a lot of people? It will make you lose your mind. Everyone is hogging bandwidth. It's impossible enough that you usually give up.

So as you can imagine I started to have low expectations on the sector. Until I saw Metaio at AWE2013. I became excited again. I didn't think you guys were ever going to get adopted - I said to them. They responded by telling me they were in Lego stores now.

I thought to myself - how did I not know this? I still watch the sector regularly enough. So I asked them which stores. I wanted to finally go see the kiosk in person. They replied that all of the Lego stores have them, and there is one in Valley Faire Shopping center.

So.....guess what I did yesterday? I went to the Valley Fair Lego store in San Jose. No Kiosk. The kid working the store only vaguely knew what Mr S. was asking him about.






2 comments:

  1. Hi She_said,

    My name is Trak Lord, we may have spoken at the Metaio booth at AWE this past week.

    First, thank you so much for your consideration that you would actually go to the mall to check out the kiosk! Secondly, I am just as surprised to find out there isn't one as you were! I have personally been to that location to use the kiosk in the last year. I can't vouch for the LEGO store employee- maybe he was new? But I promise you there was a kiosk there, and recently.

    Maybe they took it out to update the content? at this point LEGO manages nearly the entirety of that campaign, while we still provide minor support and consulting when needed.

    I personally have been to LEGO stores all over the world, including locations in Dallas, San Jose, New York, Munich and more, all of which had kiosks. I applaud your dedication to find amazing AR experiences, but I think that if there were any "failure" here, it is that LEGO employee for not being educate about his company's digital activities :)

    Best,

    -Trak

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  2. Thank you for your interest in this post Trak.

    Who's fail this is - is between you and Lego. I can't speak to what "was" there, I only know what wasn't there when I arrived. It's a small store, and I looked around before I even asked the sales guy.

    All I want to do is see the product in action in a real world environment. I guess I will try one of the other Bay Area stores.



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