This is a little off topic as it concerns the ‘product’ rather than the app marketing aspects of building and selling mobile apps – yes, we are talking about augmented reality. We just came across this article, which states that, according to Juniper, in 2014 augmented reality services will be a 732 Million US-Dollar market. Impressive, although we’ll have to wait through 2010, in which augmented reality services are projected to reach a tiny 2 million in market size (would be great for one single company).

The size of the market implies, as also stated on this blog before, that we are really just at the beginning of a huge mobile wave. Maybe it shouldn’t even be called mobile. Mobile is what enables these augmented reality services just like the internet and location do with mobile services we are seing right now. But really, augmented reality takes mobile a step further. It adds a digital component to an individual’s reality, thus not only taking the immedeate reality (location, surroundings) into account but actually changing the way individuals perceive their environment – at least this is the vision.

In the end, this might not be that much off topic: the article also mentions the great possibilities for brand and retail marketing and the potential to charge higher CPMs, CPCs and the like due to the increased relevance of any given advertisement. So we will probably see some augmented reality component be added to the majority of apps, just as is the case with location right now. Bottom line, although it will take time, this is a huge chance for app (traffic) monetization. So to those of you relying on advertising for app monetisation: hang in there, we’re on the way up