We discussed the importance of Augmented Reality in Publishing several times, stressing the attention on the shift in preferences towards digital content from the readers worldwide, however we never cease to be amazed when a new product joins the AR club and starts offering Augmented Reality content to its readers, in order to provide a more satisfying experience.
Sports magazines, books and other print products, being related to sport events and performances, often fall short in the attempt to provide an engaging storytelling about them, since in many cases, using just pictures, is a constraint that readers tend to overcome by consulting additional multimedia sources, like social media and digital media, that offer video content. This constraint can be finally left over by providing an augmented reading experience.
Another sports magazine joins the Augmented Reality club
The editorial staff started adding AR content to selected pages inside the Correre magazine in order to provide additional in-depth content like interviews, highlights, training tips and more. Such content can be enjoyed by means of a mobile App that the readers can download from the iOS and Android app stores at no additional cost!
By pointing the smartphone’s camera to those pages with the AR icon, readers can download and enable videos, animations, 360 content and other media files that bring the pages to life.
Using the “Correre AR” app
More and more publishers are choosing AR-media
One of the key elements of the increasing diffusion of AR books and magazines is the accessibility of the authoring tools. The easier it is to create Augmented Reality experiences for print media, the higher is the chance of having more products like these in the publishing market.
One of such tools is AR-media, Inglobe Technologies’ Zero Coding Augmented Reality platform, a visual and easy to use tool for creators willing to quickly and effectively produce immersive content for a variety of audiences and use cases, including publishing.
Starting from issue #336 of February 2021, the Italian sports magazine “Il Nuovo Calcio” embraces AR in order to offer additional content in conjunction with the printed magazine.
To celebrate the magazine’s 30th anniversary, the editorial board decided to release a brand new mobile application, named “Il Nuovo Calcio AR” for iOS and Android devices, providing exclusive access to interesting and updated multimedia content that would not be possible to deliver on paper.
With this move, Il Nuovo Calcio is the first Italian sports magazine to embed AR multimedia files into its product, confirming the trend, already underway by the major publishers, to offer a hybrid product that integrates both the traditional logic of publishing with the digital ones. The final aim is to offer a renewed and more appealing reading experience.
As we discussed before, the publishing industry is undergoing great changes, mainly due to the rise of interest of readers towards digital products and channels, which is part of a general shift of information towards digital media. One of the ways to strengthen paper products’ appeal is by providing a mix between digital and traditional, which is a type of support to which people are still very attached to.
What an AR sports magazine can offer?
With the introduction of its application, Il Nuovo Calcio will be able to offer content that will enrich the reading experience, by making pages more interactive and more entertaining.
It is easy to imagine how much a sports magazine can benefit from AR content like video interviews, highlights, tactical animations, gallery of photos and even 3D models of stadiums or other sport facilities.
Before this hybrid model was even possible, readers used to read paper products and then they explored the topic more in depth using the internet. Often publishers themselves provide indications and website references where a topic can be studied in depth, when they haven’t the chance to embed it directly into the product.
Finally with AR and VR, publishers have more tools to deliver their content and to provide a truly fulfilling experience.
One of such tools is AR-media, Inglobe Technologies’ Zero Coding Augmented Reality platform, a visual and easy to use tool for creators willing to quickly and effectively produce immersive content for a variety of audiences and use cases, including publishing.
The publishing industry has undergone a massive transformation in the last decade, with mobile and portable devices opening the door to digital content that wasn’t as easily and freely available before. E-books, online magazines and other multimedia content now abund and seriously challenge the supremacy that traditional and paper based products had before.
Not only digital media challenged traditional media in the adoption rate, but it is also becoming increasingly attractive for advertisers that are shifting their budgets towards digital channels year over year.
One of the reasons behind this shift is that not only digital media attract more users, but it also allows advertisers to target their message to a better profiled audience.
In some countries digital advertising revenues already surpassed traditional advertising and where it didn’t happen yet, it is set to happen in 2021.
The solution to changing preferences in the Publishing Industry
Most of the major consulting companies agree that publishers and editors should reposition their products and start mixing innovative and engaging experiences into their traditional offer.
A lot of people are still attached to paper products and rather than completely replacing them, they’ve started making it complementary with digital products.
Digital and Paper can live together as they offer profoundly different user experiences. So why not contaminate paper products with engaging content that readers typically expect to experience only on digital products? To us that is the key to rejuvenate the image of paper products and making them more attractive. There are plenty of options to achieve this goal and we believe that Augmented Reality plays a crucial role in this process.
Augmented Reality Books
There are certain book genres that would benefit a lot from an integration of multimedia content enjoyed in Augmented Reality. Just think about technical and scientific books with a lot of images, schemes and illustrations, they may be complemented by videos, animations, infographics and 3D models, making the reading and learning process much more effective.
Credits: Eosliber by Ripensarte
Augmented Reality Magazines
Today we have quite a few examples of magazines that have embraced Augmented Reality as a part of their content offering. Telling a fact or a news with the aid of interactive media provides the reader with an experience that is a hybrid between the traditional and the digital ones.
Just here in Italy we have quite a few examples of magazines that are offering AR content to the readers with Focus by Mondadori being the most popular one, with over 100.000 readers having downloaded the AR app to enjoy the multimedia content.
Augmented Reality Newspapers
Newspapers are probably the category that lost more ground in sales because of the shift of many users to digital channels to stay informed. Paper newspapers have to be printed every night and distributed in the whole country in a matter of hours, making it a continuous challenge.
Editorial offices have to work very quickly to get the work done in time and sometimes, as the newspapers are being printed, they are already out of date because something else happened.
Augmented Reality could help editors to provide newspapers with up to date information, since the AR content can be prepared and/or updated, even once the newspapers are out.
Credits: AdvisionPlay
Augmented Reality School Books
Just like technical and scientific books, school books are often full of images, illustrations, infographics, that serve the purpose of helping students to understand more effectively what’s being taught in that book.
Imagine students studying the solar system while pointing a device to their book and watching the animation of the planets moving around the sun in 3D, or also studying history by watching small clips taken from documentaries that provide appropriate in depth information related to those facts.
Credits: Visible Bodies
How AR-media can support Publishers in the transition
Augmented Reality can support publisher transition to a hybrid model of traditional and digital media, offering paper products with additional multimedia content attached to a certain number of pages.
With this approach readers can continue to enjoy a product they are attached to, while benefiting from the innovation of digital content like videos, 3D models, 360 photos and videos and so on.
Moreover, with the aid of data analytics and push notifications, publishers can build and nurture a relationship with their readers and have a better understanding of their preference in terms of types of content, by analyzing which pages have been scanned the most and how long the reader spent on each one of them, that are typical tools available to online publishers.
In this scenario AR-media is the ideal tool to build and publish Augmented Reality projects for Publishers, as it requires no coding skills and allows the user to create AR content with a visual, simple workflow. Get a free AR-media account and start creating, you can rely on detailed tutorials and documentation available in the support section.
On december the 20th 2016 issue #291 of Focus was released on newsstands, the historical magazine published by Mondadori which explores topical themes such as science, innovation, behavior and culture, which is also the most read magazine in Italy. The novelty is that starting from this issue, Focus is enriched with immersive content with augmented reality, making the reading experience even more engaging and exciting.
How does the Augmented Reality magazine works
Focus readers with a smartphone or tablet can download from the stores the app Focus Realt? Aumentata for Android and iOS, which enables content in AR by simply framing the pages of the magazine to which are associated ?augmented? contents. The cover of issue #291 of Focus and several inside pages of the Augmented Reality magazine come to life by showing the reader immersive multimedia experiences related to the contents.
We are talking about 3D animations, 360? videos, thematic tests, mini games and panoramic photos that add information and understanding to the text and images available to the reader, which is not limited to view only, but can interact with and activate a series of additional content according to her curiosity.
Inglobe Technologies innovation in the solution for Mondadori
The Augmented Reality technology is provided by Inglobe Technologies, which for ten years has been involved in the development of pioneering AR solutions. Back in 2007, when the advent of smartphones had not yet occurred, Inglobe had launched the idea of an AR book on the solar system. A few years later, in 2011, Inglobe has released a whitepaper on innovation in publishing through Augmented Reality.
Today, almost 10 years later, thanks to the advent of the mobile and AR technologies into the mainstream, Focus Mondadori has embarked on a path of high-impact product innovation. In this context, Inglobe oversaw the entire development of the apps for Android and iOS working on contents edited by Mondadori.
The technical features of the project include the recognition of planar images -the pages that trigger AR experiences-, gamification experiences, which allow readers to interact with contents, 360? photos and videos and a range of interactive and 3D tests.
Augmented Reality in Publishing and the future issues of Focus
The path taken by Mondadori with the introduction of Augmented Reality in one of its leading editorial products highlights?two trends in the publishing industry: the first one concerns the strong need to give new life to this medium that always suffers more competition from new media and new ways of information fruition; the second one concerns the possibility of offering highly engaging content to readers thanks to the opportunities made available by the Mixed Reality. The?leading players in Publishing?are likely to move towards this direction if they want to keep an updated and attractive product for readers.
Issue #291 of Focus’s Augmented Reality magazine is not a random experiment, but a path that will continue in the future with the regular publication of monthly issues enriched by augmented reality experiences, providing for the adoption of a technological solution specially designed for the publishing industry. We look forward to the next issue #292, to be published at the end of January.
