Snap Inc., after some trouble in its advertising business, is focusing on an area it sees major growth potential: augmented reality.
(Bloomberg) — Snap Inc., after some trouble in its advertising business, is focusing on an area it sees major growth potential: augmented reality.
Snap, which recently launched a way for business customers to use AR to sell items, is introducing a full-length “Mirror” product that will allow retailers’ customers to virtually try on clothes in their stores, the company said. Users will be able to preview how clothes look on their bodies via the screen, before deciding what to either try on in a dressing room or buy online if a store doesn’t have their size.
The company is also working with partners beyond clothing. Its augmented reality tech will be used by Coca-Cola for soda machines with interactive screens. Live Nation Entertainment Inc., the concert company, will use Snap’s in-person AR features at 16 music festivals, including Governors Ball in New York.
“We’ve been investing heavily in augmented reality for the past eight or nine years, and we’re now finding lots of ways that that technology can be really useful to businesses,” Snap Chief Executive Officer Evan Spiegel said in an interview.
The news, announced at the company’s annual partner summit in its hometown of Santa Monica, California, comes at an urgent time for Snap, as challenges to its advertising business have dragged on revenue. The company last year cut projects that didn’t contribute to growing sales or users, or its AR technology.
The same video filters that give Snapchat’s app users virtual puppy dog ears in messages to their friends can translate to products that business customers find valuable.
“When we think about, you know, creating a revenue opportunity, our core focus early on is always around engagement,” Spiegel said. “We really started with new ways for people to express themselves and then that helped us to invest further in the technology and unlock all sorts of new experiences.”
Snap’s has a spotted history when it comes to selling hardware. It abandoned work on its Pixy flying drone camera, a five-year project that was culled just months after it launched. The company also narrowed the scope of development for its Spectacles camera glasses last year.
For the new AR Mirror, Spiegel says the company is “responding to requests from our partners to make mirrors more available. There’s still very small volume at this time and usually for partners that we already have a large relationship with, but we’ll see how it goes.”
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