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2.7 Emerging EC Platforms: Augmented Reality and Crowdsourcing 55

SECTION 2.6 REVIEW QUESTIONS augmented-reality- shopping-windows, customers at the
company’s physical store can point the mobile device camera
1. Define virtual communities and describe their charac- at a clothing display (e.g., in the stores or store windows), and
teristics. see a 360 degree view of the clothes. They also can see pre-
2. List the major types of virtual communities. sentations at fashion shows, price, availability, and other rel-
3. Define social network. evant information. Furthermore, the window shoppers can
4. Describe mobile social commerce. immediately buy the clothing online using their mobile device
5. List some major social network sites. (for the download, see itunes.apple.com/ne/app/net-a-por-
6. Describe the global nature of social networks. ter/id318597939?mt=8).
7. Describe social networking.
8. Describe mobile social networking and commerce. Example 2: IKEA
IKEA uses AR to show how its furniture can fit in your
house. For details on this mobile devices app, see Truong
2.7 EMERGING EC PLATFORMS: (2013) and watch the video “Place IKEA Furniture in Your
AUGMENTED REALITY Home with Augmented Reality” at youtube.com/
AND CROWDSOURCING watch?v=vDNzTasuYEw. The technology used is made by
Snapshop, a free app for iOS systems.
Several technologies are used as platforms that enable inno-
vative EC applications. Here we present two. Applications in Social Gaming
AR is already used in several applications. According to
t-immersion.com/augmented-reality/use-cases/social-
Augmented Reality augmented- reality-games, social AR gaming is a superb
tool for generating marketing leads and brand recognition
An increasing number of business applications use the technol- because of the huge number of players engaged in games
ogy of augmented reality (AR). See Malik (2016) for more connected with a product.
details. The term AR has several definitions depending on its
field of applications. According to Wikipedia, augmented Virtual Reality (VR)
reality is “a live or indirect view of a physical, real- world envi-
ronment whose elements are augmented (or supplemented) by Often confused with augmented reality is virtual reality. Virtual
computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graph- reality is a computer-generated simulation of a real- life environ-
ics or GPS data” (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_ ment in which users can be immersed. People feel like they are
reality). Such an arrangement helps people enhance the inside the environment and they can manipulate it (e.g., see
sensory perception of reality. The computerized layer can be Parisi 2016). To experience VR, user must wear special glasses
seen through an application on mobile devices such as smart- and handsets. The technology has been around for decades but
phones, webcams, or 3D glasses (including 3D TV). Google was used mainly for computer games. Lately, however, VR is
developed Augmented Reality (AR) glasses called “Google moving to be an EC element (e.g., see Williams 2016). An exam-
Glass” (other companies have similar glasses; see Chapter 6). ple is Facebook’s Oculus, which is experimenting with commer-
cial applications. This is an example of combining social
Applications in E-Commerce commerce and virtual reality. For details, see Meola (2016).

The major applications in e-commerce are in the areas of Comparing AR and VR
advertising and marketing (for details, see Corpuz 2015), as According to McKalin (2015), both technologies are similar
will be described in Chapter 9. An application in real estate is in their goal of immersing the users. But they do it in differ-
described in Chapter 3. There are potentially many other ent ways and for different purpose. For details, see McKalin
areas of applications. For example, Corpuz (2015) describes (2015), Boyajian (2015), and Aukstakalnis (2016).
several business applications. Google’s AR is being used by
several companies. For example, Walgreens is using AR for
improving customer loyalty (see Kaye 2014). Finally, Crowdsourcing
Wikipedia lists many e-commerce related applications of AR.
Another platform for e-commerce is crowdsourcing. Crowd-
Example 1: Net-a-Porter sourcing is a platform for collective intelligence in e-com-
This innovative company (Chapter 1) is using an iPhone/iPad merce and social commerce (see the industry website
app to view an AR “shopping window.” As can be seen in the crowdsourcing.org). Here we present the essentials of the
video “Net-A-Porter Augmented Reality Shopping Windows” technology. In Chapter 8 we present some applications that
(1:37 min) available at digitalbuzzblog.com/net-a-porter- are based on this technology.