The following is an update from Layar CEO Quintin Schevernels.

My first 100 days as CEO of Layar have been very exciting!

When I started we launched our online self service tool for the print industry; the Layar Creator. This gives the opportunity to companies from all over the world to make their print products interactive within 1 minute. Now they can add the power of the internet and mobile directly to their print products. They now can give the opportunity to their users to watch or read additional content, buy products, share articles and more - all on top of their print products, giving print a new dimension. 

In less than 100 days over 15,000 Creator accounts have been created, including companies from over 100 different countries, ranging from Japan to Argentina and from Sweden to South Africa. These companies are making their newspapers, in-store promotions, magazines, business cards, packaging or annual reports interactive with the Layar Creator.

Also we launched version 7.0 of the Layar App. This version is a big improvement. We made the app as easy and simple as possible and made Interactive Print the central focus. Based on initial feedback, the 7.0 launch has been a big success. We welcomed our 25th million download on the 17th of September, reaching a major milestone. And this number is growing every day with over 35.000 new downloads from all over the world. 24/7!

Big numbers. In a market that is emerging. This is just the beginning.

Over the last 100 days, I spent a lot of time with people involved with Layar. The founders, the management team, the Layar crew and of course our launching customers (just to name a few). We also did a lot of research. Research on the market, our users and our own statistics. Based on this it became clear that interest in Interactive Print is high. Therefore, Layar is ready to accelerate with Interactive Print.

Over the coming months we will focus on building best practices. We want to help customers in the print industry translate the possibilities of Interactive Print to their business objectives. We want to create a steep learning curve. This will create valuable insights that will help create the best possible products and the market to mature.

In order to take this next step, we will make a few changes:

• We will focus our product development on Interactive Print. Over the past years we have been exploring AR. This has been a very valuable journey. A journey that gave us a lot of insights and brought us to the strong position where we are today. However we are still a small company. We see a lot of opportunities in Interactive Print and we want to focus on these. One of the consequences is that we will stop the further development of Stiktu. Also we will strengthen our development team in Amsterdam and will be recruiting for developers.
• We want to lead innovation in Interactive Print. We believe that now is the time to add interactivity to print. With over 25 million downloads of the Layar App and the early adoption of the Layar Creator, we are in a very strong position for this. However, the possibilities of Interactive Print are for a lot of companies still a big unknown. Therefore we will do additional investments in marketing, business development and customer service to create awareness for Interactive Print and help customers get started. Amongst others, we recently decided to open an office in NYC (headed by Maarten) and we are recruiting for a V.P. of Marketing. Over the next months we will also be reinforcing our partner network.
• Last but not least, a maturing market and a changing strategy mean changing roles. Two of our founders and shareholders, Raimo and Claire, will soon have new roles. Together with co-founder Maarten, they brought Layar to where it is today and deserve tremendous respect for this. Now that they have brought the management in for the next phase, both Raimo and Claire feel comfortable to change their involvement. This means that from the 1st of January next year both Claire and Raimo will no longer be involved with Layar on a day-to-day basis. Raimo will of course continue to be a member of our Supervisory Board and keep on acting as sparring partner for our product strategy. Claire will stay involved as advisor to continue to represent our company around the world and show all the opportunities that AR and Layar have to offer.

My first 100 days at Layar have been very exciting. I have the strong feeling there is much more exciting times to come. We will keep you up to date!

Here at Layar we are invested in helping publishers create the best experience for their readers in the Layar Creator. Since the augmented reality field is relatively new to most, we’ve created a comprehensive best practices guide for creating engaging, high quality Layar Creator campaigns.

The following set of best practices encompasses the results of user tests, as well as statistics studies on a few Layar Creator campaigns. They are part of an ongoing learning process about user experience in the augmented reality field, with a focus on printed publications. You will find both general and specific recommendations, example images and useful links for more information.

Click here to download Layar’s Best Practices Guide for Layar Creator.

The guide includes:

• Insights on instructions pages (purpose, positioning, design and communication style, etc.).
• Calls to action in print (purpose, positioning, design, copy, the Layar logo, etc.).
• Suggestions regarding digital content (target market, content type, principle, etc.).

We will continue to update this document and warmly welcome your feedback. We are aware that some methods work better for some publications more than others, that is why we kindly ask you to share your experience with us. We would love to hear back from you!

To leave us feedback, contact Georgia Diaconescu at georgia@layar.com.

We recently released an update to the Layar Creator that makes it even easier to customize your Interactive Print. Now, the normal blue buttons can be whatever color you want them to be, allowing you to coordinate the color pallet of both your print materials and the interactive buttons you place on top of them.

You can use any of our pre-selected default colors, pick from the color wheel or enter in a hex color code to really choose the perfect color.

To see how you can use you own custom colors in the Layar Creator, check out this really quick tutorial video. 

On October 17th, Layar is hosting a seminar in Toronto, Canada for members of the media and publishing industries. This seminar will introduce the Layar Creator and interactive print, providing an opportunity for anyone interested in the Layar Creator to see an in-depth presentation and try it out themselves.

The event, presented in partnership with the Netherlands Embassy in Canada, is free and kicks off at 1:30pm at the Art Gallery of Ontario Weston Family Learning Centre. Check out more info below or click here to register right now!

Activate Print Toronto is a seminar for publishers, editors and media professionals who want to deliver more value to print readers and advertisers. At the seminar you will learn from Layar co-founder, Claire Boonstra, how easily you can combine digital with print, the added value it creates for readers and how it delivers more to advertisers. OMD, TBWA, Toronto Star and Postmedia Network will share their Layar Creator experiences and interactive lessons learned in print. Meet the experts and learn Layar Creator best practices alongside fellow professionals who have already begun to use Layar or are learning about it for the first time. The event is free, but there is limited space so register soon!

Have a laptop and a PDF of one of your latest printed pages so that during the seminar, guided by our experts, your print publication can be enriched.

Activate Print Toronto will be held at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Weston Family Learning Centre, 317 Dundas Street West, Toronto Ontario Canada M5T 1G4. Click here for directions.

Check out reactions from our previous seminar in Amsterdam, or watch the entire event here!

Earlier today, Layar surpassed a monumental milestone. Across all platforms, the Layar app has now been downloaded over 25 million times!

We’re thrilled to hit the 25M mark, and we wanted to take this opportunity to thank you, the users of the Layar app, who made this amazing feat possible. We now average 1 million downloads each month as more and more people choose Layar as their AR app of choice.

“We’re seeing that mobile augmented reality is really starting to hit the streets,” said Layar CEO Quintin Schevernels. “AR is going mainstream, and we’re leading the way thanks to our loyal user base.”

Layar is the global leader in mobile augmented reality. More people download and use the Layar app than any other AR application on the market. So thank you again for making Layar the best!