AR 101 in 2020 — Social AR Reigns Supreme but Web AR is Here

Augmented Reality (AR) is an immersive visual interface in our real-world environment. In the real world, you see and communicate with digital images and objects. This is often done by viewing the camera on your mobile phone or by superimposing the lens of a pair of goggles you’re looking through.

AR used to need an app for a premium experience for the customer. Many people don’t want to add another app, though. You can now use any of the popular Social apps on the market (all social apps have AR capabilities and business channels are available) or use AR-enabled web pages. Yes, Web AR is here! My company www.GrooveJones.com is a leader in the AR space. We work with some of the most recognized brands in the world — AT&T, 7-Eleven, ExxonMobile, Toyota, Verizon, Warner Bros., Slim Jim, Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets, Western Union, and Modelo. We are sharing our insight and knowledge with you, to help everyone benefit from or experience working in the space.

What is Social AR?

Social AR is shown through various social applications, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, to increase interaction with users. It includes a set of camera filters that are interesting, engaging, and can provide a customer-to-brand or retailer transaction. Other social platforms have AR capabilities, but I will concentrate on top 3-Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. (Please note; TikTok is starting to experiment with AR but has not opened up the platform to develop for.)

What is Web AR?

Web AR allows your to display AR content through a mobile web page that is given access to your camera. Web AR is fairly new, however it is promising and is evolving quickly. We anticipate a huge boom in Web AR content in 2020. Web AR isn’t as easy as what the Social platforms have put together. There are two major Web AR development platforms — 8th Wall and Zappar. Groove Jones has evaluated both. There a subtle differences, but we have been using Zappar for the past 6 months with great success.

There are major differences between Social AR and Web AR. I will tackle that in a minute.

Who is Engaging with AR

According to its earnings report in May 2019, Facebook has more than 2.7 billion users across its app network, and more than 1 billion of them use AR experiences. Facebook’s AR may not be as central to the app as it is to Snapchat, but it’s available on Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and the home hardware camera system-Portal.

There are 500 million active daily users for Instagram, with 88 percent of those users outside of the U.S. 71 percent of Instagram users around the globe being under 35 years of age. There are no published data on their use of AR.

Snapchat announced in Q1 of 2019 that it crosses 190 million active daily users. It istargeted at a younger audience as Snapchat hits 90% of all 13–24-year-olds and 75% of all 13–34-year-olds in the U.S. Total time spent on Snapchat: around 25–30 minutes a day. They viewed their AR lenses 35 billion times!

Further brand awareness: people become your brands evangelist.

In other words, if you create amazing AR experiences for your audience, people will want to share the results with their audience-this is amazing news for brands and marketers as it is basically word-of-mouth and UGC (user content generated) on steroids.

Camera Effects and Lenses — What’s the difference?

They’re the same thing. Nevertheless, a different approach has been taken by different social networks to what they call them. For example, Snapchat calls their AR camera effects “Lenses,” whereas they are called “Effects” by Facebook and Instagram. Web AR platfroms do not care.

I will use the word Filters for this article.

The level of brand interaction increases through users exploring, playing, and social media, creating increased awareness.

Face Filters

Face Filters allow the user to express themselves by applying computer-generated effects to their faces in a unique and creative way. Face tracking technology allows the camera in a three-dimensional space to monitor a wide range of facial features (eyes, mouth, eyebrows) in real time with a mobile camera. It provides a wide range of fun and exciting immersive and visual experiences.

Platform Scorecard — AR Face Filters Capable
How do the different platforms compare?
• Snapchat — Yes
• Facebook — Yes
• Instagram — Yes
• Web AR— Yes

AR — Objects or World Mapping

AR Objects (or World Mapping) is a wide range of topics. It often looks like an image or an animated object / character in the world. The “3d objects” look like they are fixed on the floor or tabletop, as if they know their place in their environment.

They appear to be actual. Often this is SLAM technology. For simultaneous position and visualization, SLAM is short. The camera uses SLAM technology to create a transparent map of the world and correctly align a 3D object in real time in the map.

So I can put a dinosaur in front of me and it seems like it’s conscious the land it’s going on when it walks around.

Or it can be combined with Image Recognition technology, and it can be anchored to an actual real-world physical item. This is similar to the Dirk Nowitzki AR experience we created for the Dallas Mavericks, where we used the season ticket for Dirk’s final game where he announced his retirement. Game-goers could then scan the ticket using Facebook or Snapchat to activate an AR experience that turned the ticket into the Dallas Mavs basketball court with an oversized 3d jumbotron which played a highlight video of Dirk’s career. See the case study — https://www.groovejones.com/dallas_mavericks_dirk_nowitzki_ar/

Platform Scorecard — AR Objects
How do the different platforms compare?
• Snapchat — Yes
• Facebook — Yes
• Instagram — Yes
• Web AR — Yes

AR — Games (AR Face Games)

AR games usually are simple and casual immersive experiences where users play a game with gesture controls to communicate through AR. Games are a great way to get an audience to engage with your brand.

We have created numerous AR Face games. Recently we work with DJ Marshmello on an AR Face Game for Instagram. Within weeks, the game had generated over 10,000,000 impressions. Check out the case study here on our site — https://www.groovejones.com/marshmello_instagram/

Platform Scorecard — AR Games
How do the different platforms compare?
• Snapchat — Yes
• Facebook — Yes
• Instagram — Yes
• Web AR — Yes

AR — Murals, AR Billboards, and AR Posters

We launched the biggest AR mural on Facebook for Dallas Mavericks last year and it won awards for the OOH (Out Of Home) advertising industry. The AR Mural is an experience that allows people to use their mobile devices to use a conventional printed format like the mural, billboards or posters. The AR Filter defines the printed media object with pictures and triggers a bigger advertising than life.

For the Dallas Mavs, we created a series of AR experiences that were activated initially through Facebook and then later through Snapchat. — https://www.groovejones.com/dallas_mavericks_luka_ar/

Not to be outdone by Social AR, we recently launched the 2019–2020 season for the Dallas Mavericks with a Web AR mural. The experience also has a game within it — https://www.groovejones.com/nba-dallas-mavericks-web-ar-mural-featuring-kristaps-porzingis/

We also built a beautiful Web AR Mural for Modelo Especial to brings a Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration to life. Here is the case study — https://www.groovejones.com/modelo_ar_dia_de_los_muertos/

Platform Scorecard — AR Murals, AR Billboards, and AR Posters
How do the different platforms compare?
• Snapchat — Yes
• Facebook — Yes
• Instagram — Yes
• Web AR — Yes

AR — Portals

The AR portals are 360 ° spaces which can be viewed via the app of the user. Through a wireless gateway, people engage with portals.

The person who holds his mobile device / camera positions doorways. With SLAM technology, the door is anchored to the floor.

You can stand inside an area of 360 ° as you move through the door and view the area with your phone.

Platform Scorecard — AR Objects
How do the different platforms compare?
• Snapchat — Yes
• Facebook — Yes
• Instagram — Yes
• Web AR — Yes

AR — Voice Filters

Voice filters can be used either to alter or improve your voice or they can be used as an interaction or impact trigger. So a voice can be used inside the filter as a control. Snapchat has an AI portion, so some terms are understood.

Though small, this shows that filters are becoming smarter and a much wider library can be understood.

Platform Scorecard — AR Voice Filters Capable
How do the different platforms compare?
• Snapchat — Yes
• Facebook — Yes
• Instagram — Yes
• Web AR — No

AR — Animal Face Filters

Snapchat added the animals in 2018 to the opportunity to advertise AR camera effects. The effects originally worked for dogs, but now tracking cats has been updated.

Platform Scorecard — AR Animal Face Filters Capable
How do the different platforms compare?
• Snapchat — Yes
• Facebook — No
• Instagram — No
• Web AR — No

AR — Hand and Body Filters

As part of the ability to create interaction with users, Social AR platforms are now evolving to track your hands and body. (This took a while as facial tracking has been around for years.) This allows the camera to track your hands and body (to an extent). So now you can create experiences where the user can video themselves interacting with AR using their hands.

Platform Scorecard — AR Hand and Body Filters
How do the different platforms compare?
• Snapchat — Yes
• Facebook — Yes
• Instagram — Yes
• Web AR — No

Social AR — Landmarks and Places

Snap has recently released a new toolkit that enables developers to increase renowned landmarks so that users can take fun AR videos with some familiar buildings. Just imagine using the Face Filter for Rainbow Vomit while working on the Eifel Tower.

Social Platform Scorecard — AR Landmarks or AR Places
How do the different platforms compare?
• Snapchat — Yes
• Facebook — No
• Instagram — No
• Web AR — No

Social AR — Shopping

Retailers are seeking to use AR to show their goods via AR to their customers, and this is well known to both Snapchat and Facebook. AR is a tool to maximize the shopping trip for customers. From awareness > to interest > to reflection > to intention > to assessment > to acquisition. In the test phase of that path, several AR technologies break. By enabling 100% of consumers to view their product or their living room, retailers can increase the metrics to encourage consumers to make that decision.

Platform Scorecard — AR Shopping
How do the different platforms compare?
• Snapchat — Yes
• Facebook — Yes
• Instagram —Yes
• Web AR —Yes

What Are the Differences

Each of the social platforms have AR features, but they are all different. Each has their own development platform as well. Lens Studio is used in Snapchat and Spark AR Studio uses Facebook / Instagram.

Web AR has Zappar and 8th Wall SDKs that developers can work with.

Here are a few of the general production differences.

Files Size?

For instance, all the platforms have different file size constraint’s, and while they all can record and share, they all have different lengths of time that you can record and capture.

File Size Limits

• Snapchat — 3MB
• Facebook — 2MB
• Instagram — 4MB
• Web AR — No limit

Record and Share Video Capabilities?

All the social platforms allow users unlimited time to interact and play with the AR filters. However, they have different limitations to Record and Share the videos that users make.

Video Recording Time

• Snapchat — 3:00 minutes (or unlimited as we have never tested the limits past 3 minutes)
• Facebook — 25 seconds
• Instagram — 25 seconds
• Web AR — No video capability

Let Us Build One for You.

Groove Jones is a creative technology company that produces next-generation experiences for world-class brands. We are also an excellent agency partner, helping bring creative ideas to life. We are best known for our award-winning work in AR (Augmented Reality), VR (Virtual Reality), ML (Machine Learning), and AI (Artificial Intelligence) Application development.

We work with some of the most recognized brands in the world — Amazon.com, AT&T, Comcast, Ford, HP, IBM, Intel, Lexus, Mastercard, McDonald’s, Nestle, Samsung, State Farm, Toyota and Under Armour.

Reach out to us — whois@groovejones.com

For more information, reach out and contact us anytime.

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