The End of Form / The Beginning of Form

Apr 19, 2009

People like to know what they're buying.

It should be no surprise that online advertising revolves around standard unit sizes: full banner; half banner; leaderboard; or half skyscrapers to name but a few. The off-line world already contains a mass of advertising standards: billboards; 30 sheet posters; bus and taxi displays; the list goes on.

But what happens when today's advertising hoardings, can be overlaid by all and sundry with advertising, or indeed other content of their own choosing? One popular assumption is some form of head mounted display, and whilst today's design's are clunky enough to raise a yo-a-geek smirk, miniaturization will rapidly push form factors to are-they-or-aren't-they sized glasses.

Why anyone would want wear 'data-glasses' only to have their view of the world overlaid with advertising? For the same reason that we listen to advertising supported radio, watch TV with 'limited commercial interruptions' - it enables us to obtain something of value for 'free'. That Google/Yahoo/Microsoft/Nokia layer of data that you use to augment your world? All for the price of the occasional commercial interruption.

The world around us contains many computationally easy-to-recognize, known-location, pre-defined shapes waiting to be augmented - street signs, street furniture, and yes, advertising hoardings - which is where the fun begins. That ad-space put up there and lovingly maintained by JCDecaux? There for the taking - for the company with the right augmentable-ad-platform, the right amount of consumer pull.

Just as the battle for 'control of the internet' centered (for a while) on the consumer's means of access - the web browser, so the battle for our ear-drums and eye-balls will hone in on the source. The company that provides the primary filter through which you view and experience the world will have incredible amount of power (and if you're wondering about the stickiness of one brand of filter over another the conversation eventually leads to sensory implants).

But is there sufficient pull for mainstream consumer's to turn to some form of nearly-always-worn data glasses? Imagine knowing the tax-bracket of everyone around you - drawing on publicly available tax records and the means to identify an individual in near to real time. Imagine this from the point of view of a would-be lover, a salesman, a charity worker. Extrapolate with mash-ups with Facebook profile, knowledge about your last vacation; previous convictions. Now imagine the advantages you get from access or subscriptions to 'premium channels' - data only available to the select few: from the realtime cop feed; to the wolfpack view of the city; to real-time, real-space casual encounters.

A generation hooked on real-time data so compelling that heading out on a friday night just ain't the same without the buzz of a good feed. It'll never happen? How many times a day do you check your email? Facebook? Your phone? Your twitter stream? People addicted to data? Of course not - it'll never happen.

How will this change our urban landscape? Advertising hoardings, entire buildings, indeed entire cities that are computationally more or less desirable to augment. It might be the end of form as we know it.

It might very well be the beginning.

Yeah, yeah - I know - the unimagination that goes into the term 'Data glasses': Head Mounted Displays; Near to Eye Displays; filters; layers; lenses; et cetera.

Photos: Urumqi, obviously.