The following blogpost is from Claire Boonstra, co-founder and head of BizDev at Layar.

Recently, Layar has set its focus squarely on making print interactive with digital content by activating the pages of magazines, newspapers, flyers and posters with videos, links to websites and the ability to share to social networks.

In case you are not yet familiar with the possibilities of interactive print, have a look at some of our recent campaigns with VPRO, LINDA., What’s Next and vtwonen.

Interactive print creates a new business opportunity for organizations that use the paper medium, such as publishers, advertisers, and brands with their own catalogues. As these organizations define the business case for interactive print, a new demand for detailed metrics is emerging.

We have crafted a whitepaper, titled Layar shows significant reach, conversion and click-through rates from paper to digital content. In it we include the key metrics defining the market potential for interactive paper, gathered from both external research agencies and our own internal metrics.

We provide figures for how many people are…

• able to use Layar - The number of people who have a smartphone capable of running Layar.
• using Layar now - The number of people who have installed and use Layar.
• using Layar with print - The number of people using Layar to view content on a print publication, or as we’re calling it, “conversion.”
• using Layar to click through - The number of people clicking through to the digital content from the paper, also known as “click-through rate” or “CTR.”

Highlights of our research include:

• Depending on the region, 8% - 38% of the global population currently owns a smartphone capable of running Layar. This is expected to grow to as high as 60% by 2016.
• The Layar application leads the market with over 20 million installations and between 2 and 3 million users who open the application each month (active users). Other AR apps see lower penetration figures on both Android and iPhone platforms.
• Magazine and newspaper campaigns see roughly 1% of total readers interacting with digital content via Layar.
• Of all digital content displayed in print, roughly 20% are clicked through to the underlying action (e.g., video, web-shop, mobile site, Facebook page, etc.).

To learn more, download the full report and dive into the numbers!

There aren’t a lot of publicly available statistics on the use of mobile augmented reality, let alone its use with interactive print. There has been a lot of hype around the subject and it’s time to just talk numbers.

With this document, we are aiming to kick-start a discussion about metrics and results achieved both with AR and with interactive print. We would love to hear your questions and remarks, so please leave us a comment below!

Click here to read the Dutch press release!

Layar is very proud to be a part of the 2011 De Tegel journalism awards. Each year the event honors various achievements in journalism - it’s basically the Dutch version of the Pulitzer Prize.

This year, De Tegel is using a unique, new newspaper design to announce the winners, and they’ve given it a digital twist with Layar.

Today in The Hague, De Tegel holds its annual awards event, where the new paper design, filled with info about the winners and nominees, will be passed out to attendees. The paper was specially designed with tabs, an invention by Koos Staal (Staal & Duiker) and Matin van Ee (BDU). The new design aims to be easier to handle and read while remaining attractive to advertisers.

Each nominee has a photo and description which have been augmented with digital content. Readers can scan the images to view videos, hear more information or read the nominated works.

Have a look at the example pages after the jump and scan them with Layar to check out the project!

Read more »

Today in the App Store and Android Play Store you’ll find our latest update: Layar 6.2!

You may not notice any changes right away, but there is one significant addition. In this version of Layar, we’re introducing what we’re calling AR Video.

Essentially, now items around you that are normally augmented with Layar Vision content (magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, brochures and other print media) can now come alive with video right on top of them!

Imagine reading the newspaper on your way to work and watching as the box scores on the sports page turn into video highlights to catch you up on the game! With Layar 6.2 and AR Video, this is now possible.

Developers making Layar Vision content can now easily add videos to these experiences quickly and easily. Check out the video below to see a quick demo of the power of AR Video!

Our friends over at Tribal DDB - a global digital advertising agency - recently employed the help of Layar Vision to enrich one of its projects. The project is a desk reference “calendar” that the company sends to prospective clients to inform them all about mobile.

It’s called “Mobile Engagement: A Guide to the Mobile World,” and now with Layar’s help, the calendar comes to life with augmented information within the pages. In the video above, we sat down with Joeri Kiekebosch, who worked on the project, to get an idea of how and why they chose Layar Vision.

“We had the feeling that a static desk reference was… static. And we’re a digital agency that does digital stuff, so we needed something that made it interactive,” Kiekebosch told us. “If you talk about mobile, you should be able to do something with your mobile. Why not scan the calendar with your mobile and see extra content on top of that?”

“There are a lot of big shots walking around here, and these people kind of like geekiness but are not geeks. AR is perfect for these people,” he adds. “Everybody has an iPhone, they were like ‘Oh this is cool, this is fun!’ They got it installed easily, they understood it. For these kinds of people it really worked.”

Take a look at our interview with Joeri to see the calendar in action!

For as long as Layar has been around, you’ve probably associated us with the layers of information which you can view over your world using the Layar Browser. Recently, we’ve introduced you to our new Layar Vision technology which allows you unlock interactive AR experiences by scanning images in things like magazines, posters and product packaging.

Now we’re taking things another step further.

For the last several months we’ve been working behind the scenes on a whole new project, completely separate from Layar as you know it. We’ve spent lots of time testing this idea with our private beta group, tweaking it until we felt it was just right and in the perfect state to release to the world.

Today, we are ready to show you what we’ve been working on. Introducing: Stiktu.

Stiktu is a whole new way of using augmented reality to be creative and express yourself on top of objects in the real world. It’s the app to leave your mark, share your favorite things, rate items you like and speak your mind.

With Stiktu, you can add text, images, stickers and sketches to objects around you by scanning them with your phone. Then anyone who scans that item will see your post directly on top of it, no matter where they are in the world. It works great with flat, well-lit items like posters, magazines and product packaging - the same items you see used with Layar Vision.

From the very start we always wanted to give this powerful technology to people so they could use it to their own benefit. With Stiktu we created an app that does exactly that. Now everybody can publish augmented reality content on anything they care about.

The app is now available to download in the iTunes App Store and Android Market. As we gradually roll out, the app is currently available only in Europe. To be specific, users in The Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece and France can download Stiktu right now.

We will have more to share about Stiktu in the coming weeks, and the rest of the world will be able to download the app very soon. Until then, we hope you take a moment to download Stiktu and check out what we’ve been working on.

To keep updated on all things Stiktu, you can find updates at the Stiktu blog, or follow Stiktu on Twitter and Facebook.