Daqri combines QR Codes with Augmented Reality - Ads and PR Minority Report Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

On this hapless Earth

There’s small sincerity of mirth,

And laughter oft is but an art

To drown the outcry of the heart

Hartley Coleridge, Address to Certain Gold-Fishes

On Monday July 4^th 2011AD I got the shock of my life when I went to do an interview in Kingston off Devon Road. The company, CES (Computer Environmental Solutions), a company specializing in Liebert UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supplies) and Server Room Installation had on offer a position as an “Engineer”. So imagine my shock when I was told that the salary was less than JA$1 million per annum…for an Engineer?

Say what? Yu Serious rasta!

Needles to say, I suggested to the HR Manager, quite pointedly, that the position should be then renamed “Technician” and re-advertised, as the job title is misleading and does not match the salary. Professional Engineers are looking salaries of JA$1.3 to JA$2.6 million and upwards, even if they offer specialized training, as I was skeptical anyone driving in a vehicle would leave previous job to fix UPS for less than JA$1 million per annum

I just high-tailed it out of there on foot (‘cause I don’t drive my 2005 Nissan Sunny from Clarendon just for a mere interview!) reflective as I trotted home along Waterloo Road and arrive home, tired and depressed, as it was all my mind could think about.

Has it gotten that bad in Jamaica for Engineering? Electronics and Telecoms Engineering down in the dumps?

After all, I reasoned, if I was still getting interviews, then all was not lost since my fame in 2009AD, as I suspect it may have been televised. This based on the congratulations fellow Seventh day Adventists have told me as to the clever idea that has effectively changed Jamaica.

So hope bubbles anew, as I prepare for a storm of more interviews, having gotten about five (5) in total since Prime Minister of Jamaica, Bruce Golding announced that the Jamaica economy is experience growth as stated in the article “Economic growth at last!”, published Thursday, May 26, 2011, Editorial, The Jamaica Observer.

More on this later!

Maybe what I need, gentle people, is a Daqri.

Not the drinking kind, but the AR (Augmented Reality) kind anchored with a QR Code as stated in the article “Daqri connects QR codes to augmented reality”, published FEBRUARY 23, 2011 10:02 PM PST by Rafe Needleman, CNET News - Rafe's Radar. In case you missed, here is the video below:

This would especially be a hit in Jamaica, now so much in love with BlackBerry thanks to their durability as stated in my Geezam blog article entitled “Android smartphones may be king in 2015AD, but RIM Blackberry quality shines”.

I start my long ditty with a recent development that is now emerging out of the ”Nobody Canna Cross It" Twanging (Refix Video) - Dj Powa: the coming of Social Media Marketing as chronicled in my Geezam blog article entitled “Social Media Marketing – Advertising and Marketing in Ja on a Shoe-String”.

In case you missed the video (people, seriously, as Audia Granston would say!), it is included below:

It is also heralds the birth of Social Media Parties, such as ReTweet as stated in the article “Social media party to integrate FourSquare”, published Wednesday, May 18, 2011, The Jamaica Observer. Thus, companies are better off developing a plan-of-action to utilize Social Networking for Marketing and Advertising that actively involves its employees by virtue of getting everyone in the company to write personal blogs or even as simple as maintaining a Facebook page.

Benefits abound, as exemplified by Island Grill success with Social Networking, which has seen them add on new customers with very little input, using only their Facebook page as their form of Public Relations as stated in the article “Social Media - To block or not to block”, published Sunday June 26 2011, by Wayne Marsh, The Jamaica Observer.

Social Media Marketing, as my blog article asserts, is basically viral videos, effectively marketing based on actual popularity of an advertisement, as opposed to just “putting it on television” and hoping that it will catch on.

Many may argue that what I am implying is the eventual death of Advertising and PR (Public Relations), which is not really the case. Rather, I am simply pointing out that as the Internet’s reach in Jamaica expands with the increase in Internet access, it may become the main form of advertising in the future, as it is a lot cheaper.

Advertising and PR, in the future, may be reduced to a one-person show in front of a computer, as I had envisioned when I gave away the ideas for ConnectU [which became Facebook] and CreditU [which became Telecom Provider Digicel’s most popular Prepaid Credit Sharing Platform] during a Redundancy Interview at C&W Jamaica Ltd with Nurse Gunning back in the Fourth Quarter of 2003AD.

Thus making it possible to do Advertising and Public Relations with a website ONLY, very much possible as if the Senior Management of most companies catch wind of this development, they would be on it like white on rice.

Management may be seeking to maximize on the six hundred thousand strong (600,000) Facebook subscription in Jamaica state in the article “Facebook soars past 600,000 users in Jamaica”, published Sunday, June 26, 2011 By Julian Richardson Assistant Business Co-ordinator, The Jamaica Observer as a potential growing advertising based with minimum capital investment .

Even now, Advertising and Public Relations is effectively being replaced by Social Networking websites Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) Style, an unforeseen use for Social Networking that I had not envisioned, as I mainly saw Facebook as a form of advertising! 

This in itself is a very bold statement.

But then again, one would have never believed that the Internet and IPTV streaming would be a challenge to Cable TV, yet it is, as my blog article entitled “FLOW, IPTV and the coming of Net2Vu - Johnny Mnemonic”, but it is happening.

First sign: NetFlix, a streaming IPTV Platform, now accounts for 29.7% of streaming internet traffic online, inclusive of downloading, surpassing even the venerable video pirates (such as your truly!) on BitTorrent as stated in the article “Netflix Traffic Now Bigger Than BitTorrent. Has Hollywood Won?”, published May 17, 2011, 8:58am PT by Ryan Lawler, GigaOM.

So everyone in Jamaica now aware of the potential of Social Networking, especially as the Dr. Hopeton Dunn-led Survey from the Mona School of Business (MSB) at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, involving two thousand two hundred (2200) participant households, indicates:

1. 71.7% of Jamaicans use Facebook and Twitter
2. 25% of the Jamaicans have a computer
3. 15% have Internet access
4. 38% of the population goes online at least once a day

This as stated my Geezam blog article entitled “Jamaica’s Low Net Penetration – Broadband Internet A Universal Right”.

So what about other forms of Social Networking?

LBS (Location Based Services) could be utilized by the now interested Senior Management to offer discounts as note in my blog article entitled “AT&T and Shop Alerts - Confessions of a Geo-Location Shopaholic” with my other article on the Geezam Blog entitled “AT&T ShopAlerts and BB for Everyone”.

Its potential is even more deeply explained in the rise of FourSquare, a LBS service, now hitting its stride with ten million (10,000,000) customers served and their largest partnership with AmeX (American Express), signaling the brick-and-mortar company's confidence in the upstart company’s future potential to broaden the scope of its business as stated in my blog article entitled “FourSquare's American Express Discount - Geo-Location Fast Five 10 million Strong”.

Then there is QR Codes tied in with AR (Augmented Reality). As usual, we are the last to catch wind of this phenomenon that has already swept Japan and most of Asia as stated in the article “Revolutionary Marketing - Creative ways to use QR Codes in business”, published Sunday, July 03, 2011, The Jamaica Observer.

These squared versions of Bar Codes pack more data, as they combine both axis on the sheet, allowing data to be encoded both vertical and horizontally. Nothing new there, as far as Telecoms people are concerned!

However, it is the idea, again contrived while I was traveling back in April 2009AD with a group of Shurpower Engineers as it relates to Augmented Reality being combined with Bar Codes, such as QR Codes that has many Telecoms and IT people excited in Silicon Valley.

Specifically App Developers such as Daqri, who developed this very same concept as stated in the article “Daqri connects QR codes to augmented reality”, published FEBRUARY 23, 2011 10:02 PM PST by Rafe Needleman, CNET News - Rafe's Radar.

Especially as now 50% of American have a smartphone as Google Android advances as stated in my blog article entitled “Nokia + Microsoft, Tablet and smartphone Prospects by 2015 - Three Software Musketeers”.

AR may already be in the works for a Proximity Geo-Location Augmented Reality Photo Sharing Social Network (wow!) called Color as stated in my blog article entitled “Color Social Network & Valpak Virtual Coupons - Augmented View's True Colours”.

The rise of Google News, which may have some element of AR from Color in its mix as stated in my blog article entitled “Geo-Location Rise and Google News - Vybz Kartel's News Minority Report Color-ing Book”.

Both ideas that I remember Audia Granston would like, as she was indeed fond of taking pictures and Adverting slanted imagery.

So albeit Daqri is not new, it is possibly and readily the most easily implementable form of Social Media Marketing in Jamaica based on anecdotal information based on the current proliferation of Blackberry. After all, I had mention in prior article that AR was the future of even Apple as stated in my blog article entitled “Apple and Augmented View - The Future is now”.

Smartphone penetration may also be on the rise in Jamaica by 2015AD as stated in my blog article entitled “Nokia + Microsoft, Tablet and smartphone Prospects by 2015 - Three Software Musketeers”, following worldwide trends. Thus my article on Daqri is a worthwhile Minority Report (2002) for Advertising and PR, whose jobs may soon be under threat when the Internet is accessible everywhere!!!!