Glyphs: The Latest in Offline to Online Interactivity

You may have noticed a lot of glyphs popping up lately. OOORRRR, you may not even know what a glyph is. Here’s an image of a glyph I took out of the latest copy of INC. magazine:

This particular glyph was created for an advertisement for hotels.com. I have no affiliation with hotels.com, nor do I particularly favor them over expedia, travelocity or any of the other sites (although I do like William Shatner for some unexplainable reason) so this is no plug for travel sites.

ANYWAY, glyphs are generally used with augmented reality apps, as a sort of key; taking a symbol of some sort in it’s analog form (offline) and converting it via webcam to a digital “key” which then allows the use to interact with the software online.

Here is a GE video showing you how augmented reality can work:

It’s still a bit early to tell now consumers will react to the glyph concept, but next time you see a cryptic black and white symbol, try taking a picture of it with your iPhone, Droid, or other smart phone if you have augmented reality capabilities. You could print out the image i took above and go to virtualvacay.com and follow the instructions there. I tried it out and it was pretty cheesy, but the idea of where it could go is definitely interesting. You can print out the glyph once you get to the site also.

There are other augmented reality sites which use the horizon, your position and some other factors to show you nearby restaurants, bars, shopping, even other people on Twitter and such. These augmented reality apps often do not require a glyph and are pretty sweet. The app Layar (which is available for both the iPhone and Droid) is an example of this technology which, if nothing else, can certainly be entertaining.

What do you think of augmented reality? You can always tweet me your thoughts to @rbrianforrester