From push notification pings to persistent marketing emails, brands are looking to break down online barriers to connect with customers. But can a human hologram be enough? The founder of York-based tech company 2mee seems to think so.
2mee, a direct hologram messaging platform, works with brands and agencies to drive visitor engagement in the world of augmented truth (AR).
“How to break the lock screen of a phone or website?We’ve had 25 years of marketing email, websites, text messaging, demo ads, and social algorithms bombarding us,” James Riley, CEO and co-founder of 2mee, told Prolific. North.
As it becomes difficult to “be heard in an incredibly noisy world” in the evolving virtual landscape, he said this is where 2mee intends to step in.
Already running with Racing TV, Betfred and Queens Park Rangers football club, the company’s proprietary generation is designed to allow corporations to send human hologram messages to customers, to attach them on a “human level. “
“Sending other people as messages to create and have interaction with the audience and stakeholders is incredibly powerful,” he said. “We’ve all evolved for this face-to-face communication, we’re looking for a face, we’re locating a face, and we’re interacting with a face. “
Originally from Birmingham, Riley has experience in Internet development. He first studied at the University of Huddersfield and then in Italy to create a website for the European University Institute.
He then spent 4 1/2 years in Vienna working on the launch of a European e-learning platform, before returning to the UK to set up his own virtual company: Ten54.
It was there that he stumbled upon the concept of augmented truth in 2012, which “is starting to flourish but is still in its infancy. “
“We thought, ‘What if we can message other people to interact with the public using augmented reality?’
After moving to Catalyst Business Park, an incubator at the University of York, he established the company in 2012 to realize his vision.
“Trying to locate a market for hologram and augmented truth products that is scalable has been very difficult. We did a lot of other tests and projects, but we thought, ‘What if you can log in and spread like a hologram?”
With a team that grew to eight other people with an additional office in Australia, the company began operating with the global generation company IBM, founded in the same building, to create a “scalable and manageable platform. “
While the era of “Star Wars laser beams” feels like a fantasy, he explained that fashion editing of the truly augmented hologram is now “the grafting of a symbol from one environment to another. “
“The good looks of our generation is that you take a phone, register and in the background transmit the hologram to a central platform where it can be immediately distributed to a user or millions of people,” he said.
2mee has developed algorithms for platshape to segment a user from their environment and transmit the symbol in augmented reality, either for an application, in the form of a hologram message.
Showing me how the platform works, he turned around to record a hologram of himself with his phone claiming to be offering betting recommendations to consumers on Betfred. In a few moments, his hologram appeared on the screen.
“There is an author app where the visitor has symptoms and can send the author app to their employees, footballers, etc. There’s a platform in the middle and there’s a software progression kit (SDK) on the other aspect that’s in the company. warranty, such as the Betfred app.
“What we do is leverage the hardware of an iPhone to create the hologram, the facial identification, the intensity sensors, our proprietary app. This hologram is then uploaded to the platform and sent to customers’ online page or app via iOS and android,” he said.
A live human push notification can then be generated to encourage visitor engagement or act as a steering tool, he explained, such as making a logo look like an ambassador with a discount code to a visitor on a retail site.
The company recently wrapped up a £500,000 investment round, which it plans to use to paint out its expansion plans, as well as to liven up its sales and marketing activities.
“This is exciting for the company,” he said, “it’s about accelerating and evolving the product with a sales and marketing team and bringing it to market.
“To me, we are one of Yorkshire’s kept secrets. What we do and what we have, now is the time to show it to the world,” he said.
Working with gaming websites and football clubs, he said the platform is recently being tested with broadcaster RacingTV and is running with Queens Park Rangers as a “fan engagement tool”.
Through logo ambassadors or just “get your hero to communicate with you” because a hologram can encourage fan engagement, make a profit and drive traffic to e-commerce and other sites, he noted.
The ability to “deliver to the public on a large scale” means that potential lopass ambassadors don’t want to move to a green screen studio to film the content of a lopass; they can film the hologram from the comfort of their own home.
Recent partnerships with Barndoor, a logo ambassador platform, will leverage the platform in an organization of athletes who can paint for logos and organizations to provide holograms.
Although 2mee lately works in the sports and gaming industry, he would like to point out that he can work in a variety of sectors such as global marketing with teams like Omnicom Group.
“We’re just starting to build relationships with marketing agencies and advertising agencies because we’re here to provide their brands with this emotional connectivity technology,” he said.
“We are at the beginning of the journey. “
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