Mobile social media / Augmented reality

I normally try to avoid the phrase “social media” but since thats what is used to describe the current crop of popular web apps, I’ll make an exception and use it in the title of this post. This article @computerworld describes the concept of “SoMo” or rather “Social Mobile Media”. Social mobile media encompasses funtionality that web apps such as brightkite and radar offer. The main theme of SoMo is being able to do the things you do with web applications on your laptop or desktop on mobile devices. With the ability to create social networks on the go and connect to your friends in the same area as you, serendipity(one of the more pleasant surprises in life) will occur more often in our lives. In the article the author mentions that…

“How we experience the real world will increasingly be augmented and enhanced through the screen of a mobile phone.”

then links to a service I had never heard of before called ‘Layar’. The theme here is ‘augmented reality’. If you are wondering what that is, this Nokia research video shows whats up with it…

Widespread adoption of this technology will be very dependent on how its marketed and how current and future smartphones utilize it.  Speaking of which, heres what it looks like on a G1…

I think its safe to say that much of this is still in the R & D phase, but if you live in the Netherlands and you have a G1 or G2, you can check this out now.  According their website, Layar should be dropping in the states sometime this year.  In the meantime, G1 owners should check out Wikitude for a glimpse of what augmented reality is all about.

Photo by - epredator