The boundaries between the virtual world and the physical world are growing thin. Thanks to technologies like Augmented Reality(AR) and Virtual Reality(VR). By using VR, we can experience the wonders of the world like never before without moving out of your couch.
This post is to discuss an Innovative use case of AR for the newspapers.
The Newspaper is a part of breakfast...
Though we all are going digital in a big way, there are many things that are favorite in their physical form. The Newspaper one such thing (I guess so) and it is an integral part of our lives. For many people, breakfast is incomplete without the newspaper. I am one of them. I spend some time going through the newspaper in the morning with my breakfast.
While I am taking my daily dose of news, I often feel like sharing certain articles on my social networks. For example, this article is super interesting. It is about a man who still receives postcards. Around 150 postcards delivered every day at his doorsteps. Isn't that an interesting read?Aren't you inclined to know more about this man?
I thought my followers on Twitter would love reading this. My friends on Facebook will enjoy this. And my colleagues on LinkedIn will appreciate that everything old is not dead. The Whatsapp, Snapchat, Facebook Messenger generation will find this article amusing.
But there was no way I could share it directly. I had to take the pain of unlocking my phone, type the headline in Google search, go to the link and then share it.
What is an Interactive newspaper? Create a link between the physical and virtual world.
I thought there should be a better way of doing this. The aim is to create a link between the physical and the digital world. The need is to design a simple and innovative mechanism to share articles being read in the physical newspaper in the virtual world.
For me, this is a strong case for Augmented reality. The Augmented reality adds the interactivity.
A QR-code can be the link between physical and virtual world. It will be simplest yet effective solution here.
Let's say with every article, there is a QR code. Anybody who wants to share the article just needs to the scan the QR code. He will be taken to the article link and whoohoo...you do whatever you want to. The QR codes are small and so will not consume much of the costly ad space.
Business case for Interactive newspaper
Now that we have a problem and a solution, let us try and build a business case for the Interactive newspaper
Let us say 100 people use this technology to share the article in the digital world. Each of this 100 people has 100 followers/friends on their social networks. Say 50% of the followers were not aware of the article as
- they are not subscribed to the newspaper or
- they are yet to read this or
- they didn’t notice it.
And now they have read it because it has been shared by their friend.
As a result of the sharing mechanism, the article has got additional traffic. Thus, the newspaper has got more visitors and so increased opportunities of revenue generation. Are the publishing houses listening?
Have you felt the need to share the news from the newspaper on your social network? Do you believe the Interactive Newspaper will be effective? What more features should be added?
Do you use the comments section to make this post interactive...
