Recently I wrote about augmented reality and its business-changing potential (“Augmented Reality is Coming, and It Will Change Your Business” and “Postscript: Augmented Reality Now, on Your I-Phone).

Last week, BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) and Junaio rolled out a free i-phone app that lets users find stations, check train schedules in real time, and even leave “digital breadcrumbs” for friends and family… your own augmented reality annotations about nearby places that you, the user, find interesting  or useful.

Check it out:

There’s a school of thought that holds that everything we know as “reality” is a form of consensus: that we’ve all “agreed” to see and understand the world in a certain way. And guess what, folks! Consensus reality just got stronger.

When we’re all wandering around immersed in the equivalent of multimedia docent tours of the world that surrounds us, when we’re all busy following and adding to the global stock of digital breadcrumbs… what happens to all the stuff that doesn’t make it into the corporate or collective consciousness because it’s too… odd, different, scary, troubling, ugly or boring? You know, all that implacable stuff we’re alluding to when we use the term “reality”!

Will we be living in a Facebook world?

Opinions welcome.

When I wrote about augmented reality the other day, I was assuming that AR was still a short way in the future. I was wrong! “Collaborative annotation of the physical world.” That’s what Marshall Kirkpatrick describes in his October 2 NY Times blog. And it’s here, today, right now—if you own an iPhone 3GS.

Several augmented reality iPhone apps have been released:

DA Transit, for finding rail, light rail, and subway information in the U.S. The company notes that the information is available via various interfaces: superimposed on the video screen above stops, on a map, or as a listing.

Cyclopedia (web link)(iTunes link), an app which selects any of the 65,000 Wikipedia entries that have been geotagged (encoded with locational data), and then uses your own location, a compass orientation, and a range setting to superimpose this information onto your iPhone screen.

Wikitude uses location information from Wikipedia, from the international review site Qype, and from Wikitude’s own info entry interface at Wikitude.me. These bits of information, including your own and others’ notes on a place, appear in “bubbles” on your iPhone screen as you look at nearby objects.

Another app, from Layar, has just been submitted to Apple for review. It’s currently available on Google’s Android phone, but is not, in Kirkpatrick’s words, “mindblowing.”

And a side note. Here’s one forecast I didn’t make the other day: will the new immediacy of user reviews bring back customer service? If every business has to, in effect, post a placard in their window listing customers’ reviews and reactions, perhaps a new era of caring and service will commence. We can hope!

Further note: for very good ongoing coverage of trends in augmented reality, check out the “Augmented Reality” category on the blog ReadWriteWeb.com.

Imagine that instead of looking at an online street map, you’re looking at “real reality” through a special high-tech set of glasses. As you look at the objects around you, you see pieces of information visually super-imposed upon their images. Look at a building, and you suddenly see, in print that appears in your visual field, when the structure was built, who owns it, how many units it has, whether it’s for sale, its latest property tax assessment. Look at a person, and the device displays what social networks she or he belongs to to, their CV, publications, workplace, position, etc. Focus on a print publication, and your visual display might automatically pull up photos, videos, maps and wikipedia entries directly related to the topic. And, you can “click” any of these informational displays to dig deeper.

Can you imagine living 24/7 in this kind of “total information awareness,” where the real world is not just hard, unyielding and impenetrable—instead, it’s laden with hidden dimensions and information? It would feel like having ESP, or X-ray vision, or a perpetual personal research assistant.

Think this sounds a bit futuristic? Not by much.  Check in out here, http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2009/09/20/three-videos-of-augmented-reality-for-business/.

How Will Augmented Reality Change Your Business?

Usually, successful early innovators become rich. Who will they be? Think about it. Who is poised to combine the most online data with the most advanced and ubiquitous geographic database around? If you’re saying “Google,” I’m with you. So, number one, we all might consider buying stock in the Big G. And creative entrepreneurs and programmers who know how Google works, and are able to use it, will have a huge opportunity to become very innovative.

Secondly, if your business web site is “googleized” now (Google Sites, Google Analytics, Google Toolbar, etc.), you can bet that any data they have on you will be deployed via… what shall we call it, Google Reality? I have a hunch we’ll all want to be much more careful about managing our business information.

Third, remember those thick old things called phone books? If we haven’t already tossed ‘em, we might as well. Imagine layers of geographically keyed business information that is visually accessible merely by “looking” at a storefront or street. This info may be offered by different, competing networks to start with. Who will your business pay, and how much, to be listed?

Does your business have a storefront? Is it urban, rural, in a mall? It’s easy to imagine lesser-trafficked and rural areas being informational backwaters. But will parts of cities be “off the information grid” because they’re commercially dead? The disincentives for locating a business in an “information ghetto” might shift entire trajectories of urban growth and development.

What about businesses that are mostly virtual already? Right now, your business is probably turning to Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, etc. These networks currently have rudimentary communications and connections among them. Imagine total integration and ready accessibility. What information about our business do we put out there, and how much control do we have over it? How much personal information do we want visible, and will we have any control over that? What information already is online, and will be mined and displayed to all comers, with no digging necessary? This issue isn’t going away, and it’s going to get worse.

And finally, certain occupations could become totally transformed. Buying, selling, and developing real estate. Web design. Advertising. Information sciences. Teaching. Probably your own occupation, once you start thinking about it.

The Uh-Oh Factor

On the minus side, it’s all too easy to imagine everyone being implanted with a readable chip containing personal information, financial data, medical history, current location… so, walk down the street, and any anyone with appropriate access or equipment can “see” who you are and what your info is. Medical emergency? The EMTs “see” your previous medical issues—and even your current vitals—as they visually assess you. Credit check? A bank merely obtains clearance to read your chip.

In terms of privacy, “identity theft” might not be a metaphor anymore. Can you imagine it? “Oh my god, I’ve been hacked!”

I can easily visualize a whole generation of folks slipping ever-deeper into this seductive information soup, swimming in it comfortably and competently…  and in the process unknowingly, or uncaringly, sacrificing yet another layer of that quaint old right called privacy.

What’s Next?

Have you been left in the dust by technology already? Have you missed being an “early adopter” of the last “big thing” that came along and transformed the business landscape? This might be your chance to make up for it. New business and social models will arise that we can’t even imagine today. Which is why now is the time to start imagining them.

Want to see what augmented reality might look like? Take a look at these three short videos:

Augmented Reality in Education

Augmented Reality in Business—Social Data

Read more about augmented reality here:

Augmented Reality for BART Users in San Francisco
Augmented Reality Now, on Your I-Phone
Augmented Reality is Coming… And It Will Change Your Business

Share what you think about where this could go.

I just read a speculative article on Mashable.com about Apple’s rumored tablet computer … a light, slim, Kindle-like standalone screen that could be drawing tablet, computer, internet browser and e-reader rolled into one. Maybe phone, camera, videocam, ipod and bread-slicer as well. It’s exciting as hell, but also maddening, isn’t it? Trying to keep up with new technology, I mean.

There’s the coolness factor, of course. (I tell myself frequently that this should be a minor consideration.) Closely related to coolness, for me anyway, is the little-kid-loves-colored-lights phenomenon. And then there’s the money thing. Can this gadget/software/etc. help you make more money? As a businessperson, does it help untether you from the many demands of running your own show? Make your life easier? Allow you to do things you never did before?

Some technologies entirely transform the way business is done. The web itself, for example, back in the early ’90s. People who figured out how to use it, early and well, made a ton of money. Remember Netscape? Ebay? Paypal? Google’s IPO? The founders of these now-giants cleaned up. And many of the early adopters, like the ones who figured out how to sell things on eBay while the rest of us were barely cranking up our copies of Netscape 1.0, also made fortunes.

This is still going on today—the revolutionaries and the early adopters reap amazing benefits. Then the rest of us straggle along trying to imitate their success. And eventually, that early success turns into a formula which others try to sell. Take blogging, for example. We’re not all Chris Garrett, or Darren Rowse. But how many of us have bought e-book after e-book, trying to make our blogs as successful and profitable as theirs?

I call this the Magic Ticket Syndrome. I would love to find a Magic Ticket to instant fortune and prosperity. Wouldn’t you? Innumerable folks find their own Magic Ticket by selling what purports to be your Magic Ticket to a profitable online business or blog—getting rich through publicizing your business/product/site/self, or being on national TV, or writing killer landing pages, etc. etc. I’ve got at least a dozen of these things in a “to read” folder on my desktop. I’ll bet you do too.

And then sometimes a technology comes along that really can help your business. For example, a client of mine manages vacation rental properties. Yet she herself could never travel, particularly during the summer, because of the logistics of collecting rents and deposits from renters and potential renters. A typical web-based shopping cart wouldn’t work for her, because her payment amounts always varied according to which property was being rented, for how long, in what season, how many people, etc.

Solution? I researched online invoicing software and services, and after extensive testing, suggested an online invoicing software called FreshBooks. Now, my client and her potential renters come to an agreement on dates and location, she emails a link to a custom invoice, and the renter pays online via credit card before arrival. No more checks, no more hassles with foreign exchange. And for her, no more being stuck in the office.

After seeing how smoothly FreshBooks worked for my client, I gave it a whirl in my web development business. I used to hate invoicing. Hate it. I’d procrastinate weeks before sending out my old MS Word invoice template. This handy little tool, however, makes invoicing—dare I say it? Not only easy, but almost pleasurable. And, it offers value-added statistics that I used to have to track in a separate Excel spreadsheet. So now my invoices get sent out on time and my cash flow has improved. Simple, huh? (In fact, in the interests of full disclosure, FreshBooks’ proven track record, speed, reliability, and responsive support have met all my stiff affiliate criteria. So yes, I am a FreshBooks affiliate and will make a minuscule amount of money if you click these links and decide to become a paying customer.)

I came across another business using this technology in a different way. WPhelpcenter.com offers technical problem-solving services for WordPress site developers. You describe your WordPress issue or glitch over the phone, they ask some questions, then give you an estimate. If you decide to have them do the work, an email with a FreshBooks invoice link appears in your inbox a few minutes later. As soon as you’ve paid, the guys at wphelpcenter are ready to start working. Again, simple.

Is this bit of technology a Magic Ticket? Nope. But does it enable business owners to be happier and more productive? Yes and yes, for my property manager client and for me. Does it elegantly facilitate a web-based business model that might otherwise be unfeasible? In the case of WPhelpcenter.com, yes.

Invoicing software isn’t exactly super-cool. Nor does it totally revolutionize the way business is done. But it’s useful. And it’s just one of dozens or hundreds of such products that appear with astounding regularity these days. How can we possibly keep track of them all, let alone figure out which ones will truly be helpful, let alone transformative, in our particular business?

March 2010 postscript: I’ve started a free weekly tips sheet to–one usable, bottom-line-enhancing tech tip per week. Sign up here: http://creatingwebsuccess.com/free-stuff/

And if you’d like to go one better, and give your business and your bottom line a shot in the arm of motivation, inspiration, and practical steps you can take right now to jumpstart your business, check out my new product, 99 Ways to Use Social Media and the Web to Grow Your Business, Reach More Clients, Sell More Products and Services, Make More Money, Make Your Life Easier, and Change The World!

So let’s forget the coolness factor for the moment. Is there a new piece of software or technology that helps your business work better, differently, more easily? I’d love to hear about it.