Augmented reality advertising on Brightkite

Brightkite is a mobile service that lets you keeps in touch with friends and colleagues - almost like a geo-location twitter, with pictures. I have to declare a slight interest because I used to work with two of the founders, Rob Lawson and Jonathan Linner, and I'm very proud of their work.

Their latest feature is to offer Augmented Reality advertising on their iPhone and Android apps, using the Layar browser.


From their blog:

"Now, not only can you see posts and photos that you and your friends have left, we’ve added local businesses with special offers for you.

Our first partner has been one of the US’s biggest electronics retailers, who have been piloting the service throughout December – you can see their nearest store and click through to see what local offers they have in-store. We will add merchants slowly and increase the targeting criteria, to make sure that they are relevant and in the right balance to the content left by your friends."

The picture shows how it appears on the screen, with an ad for BestBuy on the bottom.

Good work! As one of my colleagues has pointed out, now you can buy oudoor advertising like posters, but in real time, through mobile.