Years ago I walked into a large ballroom at the Biltmore Hotel in Montecito with a rep from CISCO. He handed me a little blue booklet. It was CISCO’s plan for commerce in the year we now inhabit – 2010!

Fast forward to this month and we have a fabulous rendition by Gary Hayes of what this book held + a summary by Barry O’Sullivan, SVP at CISCO, of predictions for this year. Mr. O’Sullivan’s 10th point on his list states:

“Customer Collaboration – organizations will continue to evolve the way they interact with their customers, responding to the ground swell of demand for consumer / vendor engagement in public arenas such as social networking sites and specialized forums. We expect to see early majority adoption of social customer care (what we call customer collaboration) solutions among larger organizations.” (Barry O’Sullivan’s full article here).

Mr. Hayes’ excellent video vision reflects Mr. O’Sullivan’s prediction and takes it several steps further, giving us an exciting preview of what is possible now! (Mr. Hayes’ video preview of Augmented Reality commerce here).

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Social networks have changed the face of what it means to be human. We are no longer bound by the confines of the physical realm. Human social networks are launching pads, entrance halls, to the fantastic and limitless realm of spirit…welcome to Forever, mankind. We are moments from a collectively-experienced “tasting” of once intangible concepts like Infinity, Forever and Eternity.

Virtual goods are the new economy. We are firmly caught in a river of thought that is carrying all of us into vicinities known by ancient peoples: places like Dreamtime AND Hyperborea. Our very dreams, the images that fill our minds, have a value to ourselves, our communities, our pareas, our World.

The nature of competition has changed forever. And the earth from which we now may mine gold IS firmly the Imagination.

Those who are primarily physically-oriented and adept in the realm of Density (not a negative or perjorative realm at all) are now being introduced to the Subtler realms – places well known by artists, poets, philosophers, meta-physicians and the like. They need only apply the same principles to the Invisible realm and their livings will be secure. The practioners of the subtle are now free to peddle their goods, their crafts and, most importantly, the fantastic realms of Within, a far vaster realm than Without. ~ Nathaniel Hansen

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Cool #1 – Social Shopping moves forward another step:

Jodi Bricker, Vice President of Digital for Levi’s® Americas said, “We’re creating a new social shopping experience that will change the way people shop online and, frankly, make buying jeans more fun. We’re excited to pioneer this new technology and help our loyal fans connect with our brand and share their favorite Levi’s® products with friends.” (http://bit.ly/cool_social_idea_1)

Cool #2 – digg Labs:

Nice way to check in on the latest: (http://bit.ly/cool_social_idea_2)

Cool #3 – Facebook Social Graph moves forward another few steps:

The new Graph API attempts to drastically simplify the way developers read and write data to Facebook. It presents a simple, consistent view of the Facebook social graph, uniformly representing objects in the graph (e.g., people, photos, events, and fan pages) and the connections between them (e.g., friend relationships, shared content, and photo tags). (http://bit.ly/cool_social_idea_3)

Cool #4 – An on-going GREAT social numbers counting project by Gary Hayes:

Gary Hayes Social Media Counts v1.8!!!

LARGE VIEW OF SOCIAL COUNT HERE!

Cool #5 – This is THE future:

Augmented Reality 1 – A 28 Second Movie on How it Works
AR 2 – Esquire’s Augmented Reality Issue
AR 3 – James Cameron’s Avatar Toys Augmented Reality Demo
AR 4 – Augmented Reality Business Models

…and the world’s first Commercial Augmented Reality Conference in SF is happening NOW: http://america.arconf.com/2010/

Cool #6 – Smart Clothing is sexy and truly amazing!:

Smart Fabric!

Smart Fabric Conference 2010: (http://bit.ly/smart_fabric_conference2010)

PING by Electric Foxy – Ping is a garment that connects to your Facebook account wirelessly and from anywhere. It allows you to stay connected to your friends and groups of friends simply by performing natural gestures that are built into the mechanics of the garments we wear. Lift up a hood, tie a bow, zip, button, and simply move, bend and swing to ping your friends naturally and automatically. No phone, no laptop, no hardware. Simply go about your day, look good and stay connected. (http://bit.ly/electricfoxy_PING)

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Seminal AR announced today that they are offering their new augmented reality app, Layar, for free on iTunes. There’s only one catch – users have to have a 3Gs iPhone.

Using the built-in location-based map, users choose a layer to overlay their “real time” view, allowing them to view varying data including nearby bars and restaurants, wikipedia entries about locations in close proximity and even nearby twitter users.

Mashable covered the article best, so read on for more information: Layar augmented reality app

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