With this new tee shirt you don’t need to have a friend to play rock paper scissors. Just stand in front of your webcam and go play.

Combining our two favorite new technologies: AR and Twitter. This is what you get:

Other cool AR posts:

Cool new AR

Best Buy with AR

Wow, its been a year already since we last had a forecast/mission statement for the 2009 year.

First off, I want to thank our clients for making 2009 a stellar year for Plus Factory, especially with a recession going on. We thank you for your business, partnerships and trust with us.

I will follow up with a mission statement post for 2010 shortly but I wanted to in the meanwhile give a preview of things to come from the Plus Factory in the upcoming months.

1. New Website. So we are going to totally revamp the website, with a hybrid HTML and Flash module site. The site will also include a more in-depth portfolio section, that will showcase all sorts of work the Factory has ‘churned’ out over the years. From banners, widgets to E-Commerce and CMS websites, we got it all.

Here is a early look at the new look and feel of the website:

2. New products for our Clients. So I talked about it earlier in the year but we have a product that we think would be ‘killer’ for our clients. We had it alpha stage but still need to fine-tune it for beta. Product development is hard as heck but we should have it ready by 2010 (crossing my fingers). As soon as its ready, we will talk about it here.

3. New offices, growth. Plus Factory isn’t planning to slow down for 2010. With Tom K (Dir of Flash) in Minneapolis, MN, with our other US-based Flash Developer, we are looking to establish a presence in Minneapolis for 2010 and service the region there. But we are also planning a new off-shore office as well (besides our Beijing Office), and are in initial plans of setting it up. The words are expansion and growth for us in 2010.

4. Social Media with a force. We are in the game and are investing time and resources to provide our Clients with the most up-2-date technologies, products and services with Social Media. From widgets to Facebook Apps to plug-ins, we have done research, built them, launched them, all in the name of what our Clients want – Social Media (or “hey can I put a twitter/facebook/something something onto this project”)

5. Emerging Technologies. We keep our ears and eyes on the latest cool stuff going on in the digital marketing world and ready to pounce once we feel its a workable solution for our clients. From ‘Augmented Reality’, mobile apps, mobile solutions, and state of the art QR codes, we are keeping our eyes out for you. Many times we write about it in our newsletter and blog posts….so stayed tuned.

AR is really catching on with marketing projects. It is growing steadily because it is fairly inexpensive, it can fit on a website and it is new.

From a marketing perspective what is not to love? It is a an opportunity to get clients involved and excited. It creates an emotional connection to a product that no one can fake.

This sort of relationship between people and a brand allows them to experience it or its benefits in a brand-new way. People are becoming more comfortable with this technology and that means they are engaging in it more often. Marketers see this and have responded with more AR based initiatives.

One place with a lot of growth is in kid’s toys and games. For instance Nestle in France released a cereal box that that when held up to a web cam becomes a game console with a motion sensor just like Wii. Their video explains pretty well this unbelievable technology. Check it out:

For more cool examples of AR check out this article in Bussinessweek.

So Best Buy is getting a little hipper with this new augmented reality ad they released on Sunday. Using the latest in Augmented Reality Technology (think of the 1st down lines you see on the field during a televised Football game, the lines are only viewable on TV, but not in real life). They printed an ad that can be viewed in 3D on a PC. You hold the printed page up to a webcam to view a representation of the product and you can move it around and really see it. We were a bit surprised this came from Best Buy and even more surprised at how well it worked. Being able to interact with these realistic representations is something that could really change e-commerce. Take a look at our video and to see how it works.

To do it yourself, got to the website. Pretty hot stuff.