I just got back from Stream, an unconference event hosted by Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP Group, and Yossi Vardi. It was a very inspiring event, great atmosphere and with marvelous people, all very eager to learn about Augmented Reality. I went to introduce the attending brand and agency people to Augmented Reality, Layar’s platform and the partner network. Also I wanted to hear what they need in order to use more Augmented Reality in their respective businesses.

Presentation with more use cases
Below is the presentation I used in the workshop about Augmented Reality. It was a good session. We discussed lots of new campaign and service ideas. Main feedback was the need for more use cases and examples. People at the agencies and brands want to have repeatable examples about what can be done with Layar’s Augmented Reality. In the presentation below there is a good set already. Feel free to download and use yourself. More can be found in the Layer of the week category of the blog.

Layar in the Gadgethon final
The Gadgethon is where participants share their favorite gadget on stage, real or fake… Its in the evening and lots of fun. Over 20 gadgets where presented, a small selection: the the Galaxy Tab, light emitting earplugs, 3d video camera’s (fake?) and many more cool gadgets.

I didn’t show the regular Layar but the demo of the Shooter we made to showcase sensor fusion. It got a bit ‘warm’ onstage when it took a minute to get the game going. That’s the challenge of live demo’s using 3G or wifi. The minute made it only better because it built up the tension. People liked it. The Layar R&D Shooter lost to the Funk Machine… rightly so (who doesn’t want a tuba synthesizer with flashing lights…).

Cheers

Maarten

This is the last video of Layar’s one year anniversary event. CEO Raimo van der Klein talks product. He discusses the latest usage statistics, introduces the latest addition to the Layar experience called Floaticons and announces the partnership with Kooaba.

See the whole news round-up from the anniversary event here.

Layar’s usage shows growth and maturity with 700K active users
In the last 6 months 1.6 million people used Layar at least once. The active user base amounts to 716.000 people who used Layar in the past 30 days. The Layar Reality Browser is moving from a cool application to show friends to an application that is a service of value in daily life.

More layers are being discovered with the content discovery mechanism called Stream. The addition of Stream to the Layar Reality Browser resulted in 40% of the users opening at least 3 layers, compared to 23% in previous versions.

Graph: Average amount of Layers opened by users

Layar adds AR messaging with cool 3D Floaticons
Today we announced that our users will be able to express themselves by placing objects in the mass medium of Augmented Reality. The first “species” of objects that come alive in Layar are animated 3D objects called Floaticons. Users express themselves and leave messages using Floaticons.

There are several series, such as Floatos Locos, Robots 3000, Classic Monsters, Sparkle & Shine and a special World Cup series representing all participating countries. Hundreds of these Floaticons will be made available for all types of messages.

To ensure that only relevant messages remain visible over time, we gave each Floaticon a limited lifespan, indicated as “health”. The health of a Floaticon can be prolonged by feeding it a cookie.

Floaticons are Layar’s first step into the business of Digital Goods. Next week we will make a beta client available to our developers. We expect to launch Floaticons to the public in July.

Introducing Layar Floaticons

Messaging with Layar Floaticons

Layar Floaticon Series

Kooaba announced as partner in Image Recognition
Image Recognition is a key part of the Augmented Reality roadmap. Layar will integrate the world of geo-located AR and image recognition into one compelling service.

Kooaba, a leading company in visual search, based in Zurich, Switzerland, will provide the technology. This capabitity opens up a world of new possibilities, including indoor usage and launching AR from a billboard, video or product. Expected launch is scheduled for Q4 2010.

Announcement video Kooaba

Video of the presentation by Claire Boonstra, co-founder & head of content & community, at the Layar NEXT Event, June 18th 2010. She talks about the milestones the Layar community has reached and the news big content partners like National Geographic and Quiznos.

Layer Partner Network member TAB World Media also took the stage as well as DnL Productions to talk about their successful business using Layar.

Layar Platform grows to 1.000 layers published, covering every country in the world
This week Layar reached three major milestones: 1.000 layers published, 3.000 layers in testing and 4.000 active developers. The platform growth has now accelerated to over 20% per month. These layers bring augmented content to every country in the world.

The Layar Partner Network, consisting of companies fully dedicated to developing layers, has grown to 20 members across the globe. The newest member, Dongyub Lee of DnL Productions in South-Korea explained on stage why his company chose to be fully committed to Layar with 4 dedicated developers and 3D artists.

The latest brand to announce their commitment to use Layar’s AR is National Geographic. At the event, Katie Juhl, Manager of Mobile at National Geographic shared how they will use Layar to provide better learning and travel experiences for their audience.

Katie Juhl, Manager of Mobile at National Geographic on using Layar to provide better learning experiences

Dirk Groten, CTO of Layar shared current and new features to create immersive Augmented Reality using the Layar API. This third event video from the 1 year anniversary event is especially interesting for publishers and game designers who are gearing up to explore the emerging mass medium of augmented reality.

In this presentation Dirk also explained what effect the operator campaigns with Layar using TV ads during prime time shows in the US had on the servers.

Last week the first big Augmented Reality event took place at the Santa Clara Convention Center in the US. We were invited to speak in several slots. It was a great event organized by @comogard, @tishshute and @whurley. It was good to talk to all the others working hard to make the AR Mass medium emerge. Amazing to see what some are doing in the mapping and track field. The keynotes where inspiring. The one by Bruce Sterling is online as well as the one from Will Wright. Will Wright even mentions Layar in his Keynote (at minute 31). Hopefully the keynote by Jesse Schell will be online soon as that one was good and entertaining!

Here are the slides from the Layar ARE2010 main presentation, for the Business Model track, where we shared our vision on AR as a mass medium, our latest statistics, the 5 AR content categories we see emerging form the developer community, what types of product market fit we see developing and of course the latest release of the Layar Browser with Stream for real time location based search.