During SXSW, we will be helping sponsor Mobile Monday Austin on March 15th. It will take place at the International Center of Austin, where we look forward to meeting fellow enthusiasts in the mobile space.

The event will take place from 5pm to 6:30pm. Barbara Ballard of Little Springs Design will discuss mobile design and and user experience, followed by a panel moderated by Carlo Longino of MobHappy.

The panel consists of:

Jason Grigsby – CloudFour

Harry Heyman – Foursquare

Matt Galligan –  SimpleGeo

Joel Hull – Frog Design

Chris Moisan –   Taptu

Peter Vesterbacka –  Finnish Mobile Association

If you’re in Austin, feel free to stop by and say hello. For more information on the event and to RSVP click here.

In order to further our understanding of the behaviors developing around mobile technology, we have been reaching out to experts across the globe for their unique insights. By doing this, we are able to escape ourselves and become exposed to new perspectives.

Amber Case is a cyborg anthropologist and tech consultant based out of Portland, Oregon. Previously, she was involved with PR and digital strategy at Wieden + Kennedy and has blogged for the Discovery Channel. She founded CyborgCamp, a conference on the future of humans and computers.

With all the hype surrounding augmented reality, we asked Amber to clear things up and help us put the technology into perspective.

Amber: In a way, augmented reality has been hyped for years. It’s been used for military and corporate purposes, and it’s been quite expensive. But augmented reality really started as virtual reality. It was a little too early for its time. For one thing, the idea of the interface was not stable yet. The idea of wearing a heavy helmet on one’s head is not socially, economically, or physically feasible.

Now that mobile devices and webcams are available to enough people to make augmented reality a more common occurrence, AR speculation has blossomed once again. iPhones and other mobile platforms now contain locative technologies, accelerometers and ongoing connectivity. They’ve become a common and affordable interface, allowing augmented reality to finally have more than a few common platforms to stand on.

Virtual Reality is often defined as an opaque experience that is separate from the real world. But mobile devices are melting into our reality instead of taking us away from it. We are using information to connect us to people and to plan the experiences of our future self and those around us. We are using personal mobile devices as video game controllers for the world around us. Virtual Reality has dissolved into actual reality.

We are gaming animals. All throughout history, games were substitutes and simulations of war. Now our wars are fun. They’re soft wars. The race to get the most followers and most views on a website. The race to share. They’re still very evolutionary, we’re just playing the game on a different platform that doesn’t involve us physically as much as mentally and strategically. We’ve become emperors of our own empires, sending out robotic troops to scrape websites, gather RSS feeds and plot trajectories on digital maps. We have robots that grab and tell us our stats. We count our troops. We have Facebook walls that, when printed out, would span the length of Egyptian temples. They’d also contain as just as much history.

The first augmented reality was spice, and that was a heavy market for the Europeans, who had a quite a lot of bland food. Augmented reality is hyped a little like that. Marketers find it tasty, and business writers like to sprinkle it onto a lot of the passages they write. It makes the tech go down faster, so to speak. For more on that, I’d watch Bruce Sterling’s keynote at Layar.

Stay tuned for more of Amber’s thoughts on the topics of location based services, the internet of things, slow data, and more.

Today, news broke that Facebook will be giving users the ability to share location. The move was expected by many, the company stated that they have been experimenting with it for the past year. With privacy such a huge concern, they wanted to wait until it was perfect before releasing it to the mainstream.

Facebook details two aspects of the new feature, one will be the straight forward option for users to share location with their social network. The second is a little more interesting. Facebook is providing APIs to developers so that they can offer their own location based services.

With Facebook’s enormous audience, mobile offering, and successful gaming ecosystem, this could be huge. Location aware apps could be developed for a multitude of use cases and audiences, but coordinates would all be sent back through Facebook HQ, identity and demographic information attached.

When this is activated, every other startup trying to develop a platform for location (SimpleGeo, Twitter, Google, Foursquare, etc.) will need to welcome a monstrous new contender. 50% of the network’s 400 million users log into the site at least once a day, and 100 million from mobile devices.

That being said, people familiar with the project stated that Facebook is “not trying to beat the smaller location-based social networks” but rather stepping up to compete with Google for small-business advertising dollars. We don’t know if this will be a Foursquare-killer, but it is obvious that in 2010 the distinction between the digital and physical worlds will continue to blur.

[via bits]

Stickybits is a new platform that will officially launch this week at SXSW. Using the stickybits app, users can read or annotate any barcode. Attach and view videos, photos, music, texts, pdfs, and zips. The company calls it “a fun and social way to attach digital content to real world objects.”

Also interesting is the ability to be notified when a barcode is scanned, changes location, and is tagged with new information. stickybits has teamed up with RedLaser and SimpleGeo to make this possible.

This is an exciting development, as it provides anyone with easy entry to mobile experimentation. Not only can users scan and tag barcodes, but the company is providing packs of 20 vinyl barcode stickers for $10 a pop. Attach a video to a birthday card, resume to your business card, or even photos to what you’re selling on a flyer.

Choose your mobile path and presence, the stickybits wiki is already flowing with ideas. Connecting objects to the web opens up all sorts of possibilites. A few include: multimedia real estate signs, geocaching, and assembly instructions.

We see this platform creeping up alongside startups like Bump, Shazam, and ShopSavvy, all creating new ways for mobile users to interact and draw data from the world around them.

]]> http://www.mobilebehavior.com/2010/03/09/barcodes-stickybits-is-a-platform-for-annotated-connected-objects/feed/ 0 http://www.mobilebehavior.com/2010/03/09/barcodes-collect-friends-at-sxsw-using-mobile-qr-reader-apps/ http://www.mobilebehavior.com/2010/03/09/barcodes-collect-friends-at-sxsw-using-mobile-qr-reader-apps/#comments Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:35:30 +0000 Caleb http://www.mobilebehavior.com/?p=11501

For SXSW, event organizers have developed a trendy new way for attendees to network and exchange information using bar codes. By including a QR code on attendee badges, people will be walking around with an interactive “follow me” button.

When you meet someone at an event, let them scan your badge with their smart phone, and they will automatically be following you on my.SXSW, where they can message you or access your contact information.

This is good for the environment. It also makes following up with contacts a whole lot easier. After the event users will be able to download all of their new friends from their my.SXSW address book.

SXSW has also supplied a list of recommended bar code scanning apps and instructions on how to use them.

In order to further our understanding of the behaviors developing around mobile technology, we have been reaching out to experts across the globe for their unique insights. By doing this, we are able to escape ourselves and become exposed to new perspectives.

Ross Popoff-Walker is a senior interaction designer in the Mobile and Emerging platforms group at R/GA. The group is tasked with spreading mobile and social design thinking across the agency’s many teams and accounts. Previously he was at Modernista! in Boston, focused on bringing digital to the agency. Before that, writing for Forrester Research, covering young consumer strategy. He has a Masters from Carnegie Mellon in Entertainment Technology, a hybrid of interactive and game design.

You’ve spent time at Forrester observing consumer behavior, how has this research mindset affected the way you plan mobile strategy?

Spending time with Forrester’s data and research methodologies helped paint a broad picture of consumer behavior. Agency mindsets often take an early adopter world-view, and assume that buzz in the mobile space is widely shared by end users.

But not everyone is frequently downloading branded apps on their iPhones – quite the opposite. The mobile landscape is highly varied, and I think the best approach is a diversified one, such as Facebook has coupled their multi-platform app with a simple SMS system.

Mobile is exploding, every day we see numbers pour in about industry growth over the next several years. While it is optimistic, what roadblocks do you see for brands? What opportunities for creative strategy?

I think the biggest creative challenge for any brand is digging deep to find what meaningful interactions will augment their customer experience. Mobile devices are such a personal technology. Yet most brands will try to prioritize their business goals above basic consumer desires, like contextual information and utility. There needs to be a nudge towards user-centricity for brands to succeed in the mobile medium.

Do you notice industries with more potential for mobile marketing?

I don’t think any industry could *not* benefit from some from of mobile marketing, as long as the marketing tactic pairs well with the brand and audience. Brands with a physical retail presence, especial large shops like Target or Best Buy, have a huge opportunity for enhancing the in-store shopping experience, from way-finding to check out — but so can digital brands, too. ZipCar’s app completely simplifies their customer experience.

Are there any technologies that you are excited about? Have you been following any specific developments in mobile culture or user behavior?

Sure! It’s fascinating how important mobile devices have become to the developing and unbanked world. Of course in Japan, but even in Kenya people are using basic SMS services like MPESA to exchange funds. It’s amazes me how the networked world knows no bounds, and where there is a cultural shift, technology provides a solution.

Google Shopper and Layar on Android have both helped blur the lines between the physical/digital divide, and I think augmented reality will especially find more practical applications soon. Personally I’ve developed an obsession for iPhone photo apps — TiltShift Gen and Hipstimatic are two faves.

Any predictions?

I’d bet my monopoly money on the global mobile landscape leveling out. Ubiquitous smartphone ownership will change things radically. Niche behaviors like location check-in will become accepted by the mainstream.

Mobile app design is going to alter the design of everything else. Simplified navigation, reduced clutter, personalization, context-aware, and communications-focused – all of that makes for a good mobile experience. When everyone is walking around with those design paradigms in their pocket, they’ll start to expect it from every medium.

What are your top three mobile marketing efforts and why?

In the brand space Nike Plus has a special place for me. It’s the reason I came to R/GA, and still remains my favorite example of a successful marketing effort combining products with a digital service and community. Unrelated, Tumblr is another service that I always come back to as simple, effective design, and I hope it shifts to mobile lifestreaming more.

But still in the forefront of my mind is the outpouring of SMS donations during the aftermath of Haiti. The uniqueness of that tragedy itself prompted such support, but it was the first time the mobile channel was mature enough as a consumer behavior to be so effective, and inspiring to see the potential of this channel as a positive force.