Jack’s op-ed said it better than I did. I think this problem is something the big old industries have to get used to that content-is-king and selling the medium is so 2006.

New toys are bright and shiny though, so I think we’ll see a couple of rounds of this type of stuff before people move onto to more useful adaptations of the technology.

Tom

I could not agree more that this is a gimmick that will not ‘reinvent’ or save the print industry. Furthermore, if you look at the actual steps you have to take to view the actual video (buy mag, download software, launch webcam) I would actually argue that this will do more damage than good for Esquire’s brand. This is a horrible user experience and I don’t think most of the people talking about it have actually gone through the steps to view it.

We had an op-ed a few weeks ago on Agencyspy (written by Jack Benoff) outlining the the problems with this execution and how they could have made this a utility based application. Link – http://weareorganizedchaos.com/index.php/2009/11/02/augmented-reality-the-buzzword-du-jour/

My main problem with all the gimmicky AR getting press right now is that advertising/marketing budgets are going towards AR development. But like most early technologies used in advertising and marketing, it’s being used the wrong way and advertisers/marketers will stop funding AR initiatives once they see little to no ROI against their budget.

Companies that focus on utility based AR will win out but its frustrating watching all the gimmicks get the attention right now…

Matt

This post was mentioned on Twitter by thomaskcarpente: Interview with Esquire about November AR Issue http://tinyurl.com/yb4lll5 #ar #augmented…