Virtual reality (VR) simulates and recreates the environment around us by allowing us to interact or immerse ourselves in a new and generally realized 3D context whereas augmented reality ( AR ) provides virtual elements that are superimposed on the real world, enriching our sensory perception through information that would not be perceivable to the naked eye.
Both seek to offer a new experience to the user.
What are their goals?
Entertainment:
Influencers and children use AR as a pastime or entertainment, more than once it happened to journalists to become the viral internet news they hoped to write because they accidentally started their reports with funny AR filters personifying the shoes of clowns or various fantasy characters.
Business:
Many companies are using AR to do brand awareness and increase sales with the new shopping AR, some examples:
- Gucci's snapchat lenses will allow you to try on different models of shoes ( food tracking ) in augmented reality and make purchases; before long it will be possible to try AR with body tracking, therefore, using the whole body to interact with the components with which the snap lenses were built. Hopefully, shopping will expand toward this avenue so that clothing will be able to be connected to snap shopping and maybe we will be able to see it in the next fashion week in Milan.
- With StarBucks' instagram or facebook filters, for example, made by Chris Price, you will be able to try the coffee company's cups in a Christmas version. Shopping is not yet implemented on Mark Zuckerberg's social, but its arrival has already been announced after ads in AR.
- With pinterest's cosmetic lenses you can test the colors and brand of your favorite lipstick before buying it, if you are curious here are some names to try them: Sephora, bareMinerals and Neutrogena all belonging to l'oreal.
- In theory, tiktok also designed a platform for creating filters for freelancers or simple hobbyists, but, unfortunately, I have to admit that from AR Creator is a pending project, in fact to date tiktok allows them to be created only by their internal AR teams.
- Obviously these new technologies can be programmed for proprietary applications published on the ios and android play stores.
All that glitters is not gold, services in AR and VR applied to social media if they have been built in a cheesy way and if they are not implemented in an effective marketing strategy, they will not help you in sales or in approaching your niche. In fact, they may cause you to lose followers on instagram and facebook if the filters are recognized as shoddy by users.
Virtual reality "VR" will soon be in all of our homes, today you can find it along with video game consoles, Oculus or Project Morpheus, which allows children to be part of fantastic worlds based on the game they choose. VR is also associated with services of companies to train employees and provide a preview of apartments to be built.
You may have heard of Pokemon Go, a nintendo video game that has depopulated worldwide. Well, this is a clear example of how augmented reality is making its way into
starting with play activities and then pushing the target audience to purchases and more complex services.
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Damiano Mansi
Augmented Reality Specialist