Leading AR Developers in Manchester create an augmented reality app to bring Jesus into your iphone.
According to the Pastor Harold Camping, the Rapture (the second coming of Jesus Christ) was to happen without a doubt on May 21st at 6pm precisely. The Doomsday message from 89-year-old Camping was a non-event which has become a thing of myths and legends especially in the online social community.
The doomsday “event” piqued a huge interest on twitter and other social networks. Social media analytics company *Crimson, analyzed tweets related to the rapture and determined that most people (67%) were joking about the “event,” some (10%) were criticizing Camping for his prophesies and some (9%) even preparing an end-of-the-world party. In response to the Rapture’s non arrival a mere 10 days ago – creative AR developer’s and mobile marketing agency goAugmented has released an application giving those who access it the chance to pop an apologetic mock Jesus in your favourite places around the globe.
Looking on in earnest to the skies on the 21st of May, were Dan Sodergren and his team of earthbound AR (augmented reality) developers in Manchester, England. ‘I was rather shocked to hear about the Rapture on the same day as it was reported to occur, and felt our subsequent business planning therefore seemed more than a little redundant – so we decided to do something more creative.’
By the end of that afternoon, the team had brainstormed a few ideas, discussed whether the final idea aligned with their brands values of fun and innovation and had decided that even though a little close to the bone that augmented reality on your iPhone to overlay a picture of a man dressed up as Jesus in a series of comic poses, changing every day, from looking at his watch to different signs saying “The end was nigh” wasn’t too sacrilegious.
“We just thought what might happen if Jesus had simply misheard – and he thought the Rapture was the 31st of May rather than the 21st.Would he come down and apologise, would he look sheepish, would / could he use modern technology to get the word out” wondered Nadeem Rashid operations manager for the company.
‘We didn’t ask my father who is a retired Church of England vicar, so this app is in no way official or condoned by the Church’ says marketing manager Dan Sodergren, ‘But we did ask him about the Rapture to gauge the Christian sentiment in the UK and he thought not too many people took it seriously. He had planned to come for dinner the day after. So we guessed he didn’t believe in it’.
So goAugmented decided to not take it too seriously either and created a Junaio Channel, people can access the fun by simply downloading the Junaio app, for free from the Appstore, and then searching for goReturn.
Once done you can take pictures by pointing your camera in the right direction (Hint see the radar dot in the bottom right hand side) and into the right place for your shot.
The app will be updated daily with different shots of Jesus in different poses – which you can post to Facebook or save to your iPhone.
There were even plans to run a competition of the best photograph but the team thought perhaps this was a step too far.
‘We had thought about calling it goRapture and having a competition’ says operational manager Nadeem Rashid, ‘But we thought that might be a bit too naughty. The whole point is to create a tongue in cheek moment to show your friends rather than too offend’.
If the Rapture really does happen in 5 months time this is one company that wants to be on the right hand side of the Lord.
Editor’s notes:
• goAugmented Are Manchester’s leading AR developers for iphone and Junaio.
• Dan Sodergren is available for comment on dan@goaugmented.com
• Pictures of the App in Action are available on the flickr channel for goAugmented: http://www.flickr.com/photos/goaugmented/sets/72157626725684311
References:
• *Crimson Hexagon – http://www.crimsonhexagon.com
• **http://mashable.com/2011/05/24/twitter-rapture/
• Download Junaio and then goReturn from – http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/junaio-augmented-reality-browser/id337415615?mt=8&uo=4
