It’s a bird, it’s a plane, no, it’s flying iPhones, swung randomly in the air in search of virtual objects. If you witnessed this scene while visiting Rockefeller Plaza in New York City over the holidays and thought you were going crazy, don’t worry, you just found yourself in the midst of a new, augmented reality, courtesy of NBC’s Today Show and an app, of course.
The top-rated morning show took advantage of its long-running #1 status, and prime location next to the famous Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, to try out an experiment with GoldRun, an iPhone app that lets you track down and collect virtual objects.
iPhone users with the GoldRun app were instructed to hold up their iPhones and search for seven objects hidden throughout Rockefeller Plaza. Willing participants not ashamed to be seen wildly waving their iPhones to find all seven were rewarded with a “special offer” at the nearby NBC Experience Store.
“So why are we doing this? Because we can? Because it’s buzzy? Well, yes, but we also want to engage our viewers in new ways and wherever they are,” explained Bonnie Optekman, VP News Technology at NBC News. “And while this is still a little bit bleeding edge, it appears to be a growing one. So we decided to do a soft launch experiment to see how much people like it.”
Continues at: Today Show Experiments with a New Reality.
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