The company has been providing content management solutions for Layar since launching a beta test of its Layarserver in August of 2009. This project, however, is new in that it provides a tidy user-friendly GUI for adding myriad AR data instantly to Layar. For a more detailed look at how the Augmentation Web app works, watch the video embedded below.

As more tools like Augmentation lower the bar of entry for augmented reality, a flood of AR data will begin to fill platforms like Layar, junaio and Wikitude. This progression is not unlike that of the Web with the widespread popularity of blogs. With the Web, however, powerful search engines make finding relevant content much easier and Websites are (for the most part) browser agnostic.

This is not the case with mobile AR, where content is limited to the browser it is built for. Efforts for standardization in AR will help ease this problem, but what is really needed is a new open mobile AR browser that can aggregate content from the other platforms. Looking forward, solutions like these will benefit the overall proliferation of AR, instead of fragmenting and limiting it.

Hoppala's Augmentation tool is a great next step for AR content creation, as it lets users focus on creating great content, not on the complex technical aspects of AR. That said, it signals the beginning of a new era for AR as content creation is as easy as hosting a blog. As augmented reality matures, the platforms through which we use it must mature as well.

The user placed objects will feature the ability to interact, connect, communicate and play with each other. Animated digital objects, which Layar is dubbing "Floaticons," can be placed in virtual space and fed with "health" to keep it around - increasing the likelihood of user interaction. Image recognition - a highly requested feature that could help bring desktop style AR to the mobile phone - is being developed in collaboration with Kooaba, a leading developer of the technology.

Matt Miesnieks, in charge of distribution at Layar, announced that LG, one of the world's largest makers of handsets, would be pre-loading Layar onto all of its upcoming Android devices. A few weeks ago, LG announced it would be stepping up its Android game with plans to release 20 new handsets worldwide by year's end. Layar has previously partnered with other manufacturers, like Samsung, and with this LG partnership the company will be on 1 in 3 new Android smartphones shipped this year.

Layar also announced some additional features that will soon be available on the browser, including background actions and flexible refresh rates for more dynamic layers and moving points of interest (POI). Additionally, developers will be able to fully customize their layer's AR experience by deciding what items to show and what to do when users click on objects. Finally, Layar will also now support animations and textures on 3D objects within layers.

Also of note, Layar has formed its first major brand partnership with the sandwich franchise Quiznos - a brand known for fun and edgy marketing. Users of Layar will be able to find restaurant locations through the AR browser, as well as view promotional 3D objects at various U.S. landmarks like the New York Stock Exchange bull, and the Hollywood sign.

Eventually, Quiznos hopes to allow for more functionality on Layar, possibly including ordering capabilities and location-based coupons. The partnership will benefit both companies, as Quiznos can extend its brand into AR and emerging social technologies, and Layar will likely benefit from further exposure via the Quiznos brand.

Another important partnership announced today is with National Geographic, which will be using Layar to create AR travel guides. The first one will launch in Washington D.C. and will let users see photos, 3D objects and other items to help them discover interesting facts about the city as they travel through it.

These announcements are encouraging to the greater augmented reality community as Layar makes progress not only within itself but with partnerships with brands and handset makers. According to Layar, it has 716,000 active users and will soon surpass 1,000 layers on its platform. Competition within the mobile AR browser space is heating up, which will drive innovation forward in the coming months and years.

Bruno Uzzan - Standards Pave the Way

By far the most frequent topic of discussion at ARE 2010 was the idea that standards need to be set to help AR break-out of its emerging-tech shell and blossom into a fully functioning industry. In his opening keynote at the conference, AR evangelist Bruce Sterling suggested the industry is at "9 a.m.", a play on his earlier speech a year ago - "At the Dawn of the Augmented Reality Industry." As he then added, perhaps AR "needs some caffeine."

If Bruno Uzzan has anything to say about it (and he certainly does), the caffeine the industry needs is standardization. During his keynote at the event, Uzzan introduced what he calls "a good first step" towards the introduction and adoption of industry-wide standards - a standardized black-and-white packaging logo that communicates to customers if devices or experiences are "AR ready."

But as Uzzan said, a logo is just a solid first-step on the road to standardization. The other steps he pictures helping the industry reach this point include interoperability and quality control. While most AR vendors are working on their own proprietary platforms, they are all pretty similar, so Uzzan suggests the various vendors sit down together and talk about better communication between these platforms.

Some have suggested the introduction of a standard augmented reality markup language (ARML), which would make platform compatibility as simple as browser compatibility. Uzzan believes this to be a lofty goal, however, since these platforms have been under development for some time now and getting everyone to switch to a new language would be difficult.

Instead, says Uzzan, quality control should emerge as the result of standardizing the various technologies embedded into AR experiences. From image recognition technology, to marker and markerless tracking, and to computer vision, user experience and product quality will benefit from the standardization of these technologies. AR is mature enough, says Uzzan, and the time for standards is now if these small firms want to survive against larger players when they inevitably enter the game.

Peter Meier - Reaching Consumers is Key

Peter Meier largely agrees with Uzzan on the issues surrounding standardization, and says his company, metaio, will participate in helping to establish these standards. But Meier has a bit of a different approach beyond standards to how AR can continue to succeed in the future. He compares AR to the invention of the motion picture and says the industry is at the point right now where the novelty of simply showing anything is wearing off.

"The first movies that ran could show anything, like an elephant in the zoo," Meier said. "100 years ago it wasn't about the elephant, it was 'that thing is moving!' Eventually it became more about the content, and AR is headed the same way. AR is successful when you start creating great content and making content that is special."

One way Meier and metaio are attempting to create special content for consumers is by focusing on current customer habits and aiming their products to be used where people are already spending their time. At the start of the conference, metaio launched a new initiative that it calls Glue, which introduced the first image-tracking technology to a mobile AR browser. Now when a user accesses special channels on the company's junaio browser, pointing their device at special real-world triggers will launch 3D interactive experiences that are "glued" to the trigger.

The interesting part about Glue is not the technology itself - experiences like these have existed on desktop platforms and on mobile devices in the past. What makes Glue unique is that it's a mobile experience meant to be used indoors. Meier says this is a deliberate attempt to reach users where they spend the majority of their time.

"AR is super cool but not enough to change peoples habits - people aren't gonna go outdoors more," says Meier. "Brand experiences are where the money is - sitting on a couch in a warm living room where no one is watching you hold your phone up."

Meier says he hopes one day kids eating breakfast will beg their moms to let them use the phone to see that day's interactive cartoon message from the colorful characters on their favorite box of cereal. Why cereal? Because people sit down to eat breakfast every single day, and they don't have to go out of their way and break with routine in order to enjoy a fun AR experience. Reaching the customer where they already spend their time is a main goal of metaio going forward, says Meier.

What to Watch For

As AR matures into its young-adulthood, users should expect to see more practical applications of the technology and less eye-grabbing gimmicky experiences. The tone around the sessions at ARE 2010 was one that seemed highly in favor of weeding out the gimmicks and finding the truly unique and innovative uses of augmented reality. We have highlighted some of them recently, and plan to talk about more in the near future.

I would also expect to see much more competition heat up in the mobile AR browser space as large players like Layar, junaio and Wikitude battle for features. Meier says junaio will soon launch its own store for buying and selling AR experiences, much like the one launched recently by Layar. Maarten Lens-Fitzgerald, co-founder of Layar, says the company is preparing another large announcement at their anniversary event later this month.

According to Boeing, the Block IIF series of satellites include a host of enhanced features and functionality that will improve GPS signal strength, quality and accuracy. Boeing says the new satellites will have "two times greater predicted signal accuracy" than the previous ones, as well as improved signals for aviation and military use. Additionally, this new fleet of satellites should improve the overall accuracy of GPS signals from the rough estimates of 20 feet to a tighter radius of between two and three feet.

For mobile location-based applications, these improvements could be monumental. Not only would location apps as we know them today be greatly improved, but increased power and accuracy could create entirely new breeds of applications. By boosting the signal, the possibility of having GPS function in large indoor facilities, like malls or convention centers, is significantly increased. Mobile apps could be developed to help stranded cave divers, rock climbers or even victims of landslides and earthquakes be located by rescue personnel. In fact, NASA already has plans to continually improve on the GPS satellites for the purpose of creating a better search and rescue system.

Mobile augmented reality, a field that relies heavily on GPS data, would also see large improvements with increased accuracy. With the current limited accuracy of GPS, mobile AR apps can only give users a rough estimate of where locations are relative to their position; these new satellites could make it much easier for an app like Layar or Wikitude to point users directly to the nearest ATM or subway entrance. Combine this with enhanced visual recognition technology and AR could quickly evolve to recognize our surroundings and help us navigate the world.

But what about privacy? With increased accuracy, users' homes could be identified by their location data, not just what area of town they are in. Location-based applications may need to implement privacy controls that limit the amount of data shared with other users. I wouldn't mind if an app used as much data as it needed to find me and provide relevant information, but once that is complete, I should have the option of what level of location to share with other users.

The Block IIF satellites are the first step in creating a highly accurate GPS network for consumers. The second step is creating smaller, more capable GPS chips for mobile devices, and the third is updating databases of location data to reflect more accurate results. It's not good enough anymore to just know the address of an establishment, especially if it is in a mall or shopping center. In the near future, our GPS devices won't simply drop us off at the block a business is on, they will walk us right through the front door.

Image from Boeing.

Layar CEO Raimo van der Klein says Layar Stream, which the company calls an "augmented reality content discovery engine," is the "necessary building block to make Augmented Reality part of every day life. There is a whole augmented world out there that needs to be discovered."

I had the opportunity to chat briefly with van der Klein Thursday via email about Layar Stream and the future of augmented reality in general. The following are some of the key questions and answers that emerged from our conversation.

ReadWriteWeb: How do you think this will affect the way developers create AR content on the Layar platform?

van der Klein: On the short term I don't expect any change on the content creation side. I do expect that developers will start to understand our algorithm and know how to get a higher ranking in Layar Stream. Something like Stream Engine Optimization. The biggest impact for publishers on our platform is that it will drive traffic to their layers.

ReadWriteWeb: Do you think AR is still too new to most people where the awkwardness of holding your phone up is a hurdle these applications have to overcome?

van der Klein: Augmented reality is a great interface to "consume" experiences that have a relation with the physical world. It is not the best way to understand or browse through large quantities of data. Therefore we chose to focus in the discovery phase on a list interface and handover to Augmented Reality when you have found something of your interest. I guess you can compare it with a TV guide (paper) as a way to find the TV programs you would like to watch.

van der Klein: Layar Stream is a great place of "screen real-estate" where we can offer our publishers a way to promote their layers. The coming months we will try out various solutions in specific test markets to find out how we can add these messages in a way that it actually makes sense for the user and the publisher.

ReadWriteWeb: You mention wanting to make AR more a part of everyday life. Are there any other ways Layar is trying to tackle this issue?

van der Klein: A crucial part are experiences that only work in Augmented Reality. Experiences that can not be ported to a map or a website. A great example is the Berlin Wall layer. Visitors of Berlin can now see the wall on the same spot where it used to be. The impact of such an experience cannot be transferred to a map. It is these kinds of experiences that validate this medium. Further we have learned from the web that people want to use the web to express themselves and connect to others. We now call this Social Media. We foresee that people will also use Augmented Reality for social purposes.

Layar has announced plans to expand beyond Android and iPhone onto Symbian devices in the near future. They are also currently in talks with handset manufacturers to bring their AR browser to other mobile platforms. Over 1.6 million people are already using Layar, and a community of 3,000 developers has created over 500 layers with reportedly 2,000 more currently in development.

The company also recently launched their AR content marketplace that allows developers to charge users a one-time fee to browse their content.

Previously, these various content layers have been entirely free to use, but now with the implementation of a content marketplace business can create branded AR experiences and sell them through Layar. The application uses PayPal to process the transactions, and right now the buying of layers is only available in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.

Some of the paid content layers launching with the platform include tour guides, home buying guides and augmented greeting creators. One layer, which sells for $1.95, displays recent criminal activity from SpotCrime.com in over 300 U.S. cities, and another provides an augmented park map for Disneyland and Disney World at a price of $3.45.

One of the more unique layers available on the platform allows music fans to discover the actual geographic locations where some of the most famous album covers were photographed. Perhaps this layer will help fans of the growing "sleeveface" photography meme take their creations to the next level.

Layar is taking a cut of each sale - 40% to be exact, which is actually higher than the 30% Apple takes from purchases made in the AppStore. The company sited "the costs for the platform, legal, administration, banking and others" in Wednesday's press release as the reasons for the 60/40 deal with developers.

The introduction of a marketplace into the mobile AR space could be an enormous boon to the community as it will incentivize companies to create layers. The possible influx of content into the Layar store could work wonders for expanding the AR user base, but the company's 40% cut off the top could also prevent some developers from using the platform.

Either way, Layar's content store is a big leap forward for mobile AR developers who have been searching for better ways to monetize their products. Desktop AR is years ahead of mobile in terms of revenues, but as more computing moves more onto portable devices, stores like Layar's could lead the way toward reversing that trend.

Subway maps have been one of the more popular implementations of AR on mobile phones, especially with Paris-based developers Presselite and their popular, award-winning Metro Paris Subway application. With this latest release, junaio is taking advantage of the API provided by BART to not only place locations of nearby stations in a user's field of vision, but also estimated arrival time of trains at each station displayed live in real-time in the AR point-of-view.

The AR community needs more partnerships like this to be formed; it is practical applications like this that will push AR into the mainstream. There are a dozen different ways to find the nearest pizza place via an AR app on mobile devices, and frankly, that's getting a little old. It's not enough to just point me toward something, and I don't think that will be enough to convince enough of the general public to embrace the technology.

Desktop-based webcam AR is way ahead of mobile AR in terms of providing practical applications. Examples include the USPS virtual box that helps customers determine which size box to use for shipping; the virtual mirror technology which helps customers try on sunglasses, hairstyles, clothing, makeup, shoes, etc.; and more recently, Samsung's TV sizer AR experience that lets users see what a new TV might look like mounted on their wall (see video below).

These are the kinds of applications that are helping AR kick the reputation of being a gimmicky novelty technology and instead build one of practicality and usefulness. If mobile AR solutions are going to continue to gain corporate ads and sponsorships, they will need to find innovative ways other than pointing things out to survive in the long run.

Unfortunately, Fletcher merely skims the surface of AR in his 10 part article published Monday, and in doing so he unintentionally labels players in the mobile AR space as "gimmicky." I can see how it would be easy for someone investigating AR iPhone apps to be overwhelmed at the plethora of apps that let you shoot things in an augmented first-person perspective, but it is still disappointing that he failed to notice the quality apps in the space.

But hey, it's still great for us augmented reality fans to see our beloved emerging technology receive national notoriety in a publication such as Time, so we'll take what we can get. AR snagged the #4 position on Time's list, but when you look at some of the other trends listed, you notice that AR is already taking advantage of most, if not all of them.

Time's #1 tech trend for 2010 is location, and it points out the growing popularity of services like Foursquare and Gowalla. Mobile AR applications have been taking advantage of location data since day one and it continues to play a crucial role. After location comes "building platforms, not websites," which Layar has been developing with their third-party POI data-sets and their upcoming layer marketplace. Good thing "frictionless payments" is another trend to watch for in 2010, otherwise Layar's marketplace would be ahead of its time.

Also on Time's list is social gaming, and social objects, immediately reminding me of Tonchidot's Sekai Camera app which lets users leave AR objects in physical space for people to interact with through the application. One could argue that AR uses all of the other nine technologies featured on Time's list with the exception of the iPad, which unfortunately has no camera with which to augment our realities.

On a related note, Layar co-founder Claire Boonstra was named to Laptop Magazine's list of the most influential women in technology. Alongside Boonstra was Google's Marissa Mayer, Caterina Fake of Flickr and Hunch fame, and Melinda Gates. This, as well as Time's inclusion of AR on their tech trends list, is great exposure for augmented reality.

If you'd like to learn more about how companies are using augmented reality for marketing in both desktop and mobile-based experiences, be sure to check out our latest premium report on the subject which was released earlier this week.

Don't miss the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit on May 7th in Mountain View, California! We're at a key point in the history of mobile computing right now - we hope you'll join us, and a group of the most innovative leaders in the mobile industry, to discuss it.

Users can use the Layar AR viewfinder to find nearby Foursquare locations and by linking the app to their account can check in without leaving Layar. There is also a feature in each layer to view entries on a map, or in list view. The map is especially handy for Foursquare integration because Foursquare's own app disappointingly doesn't support a map view. An equally interesting layer to investigate is the Recovery.org layer which shows you which U.S. organizations in your area received funding (and the amount they received) from the Recovery Act.

"The new Layar Reality Browser has a re-engineered engine under the hood. This new engine makes the application light, stable and very quick," the company said on its blog. "It is ready to handle all the current layers and it is a good base to realize all of our exciting future plans."

Layar's return to the iPhone platform comes just in time for the company's new layer marketplace which will allow developers to charge users for their content; in other words, an App Store for mobile AR. If Subway wants to create a layer with all of their locations and charge $.99 for it's use, they or any other company will easily be able to do that. One could assume that Layar will make use of Apple's in-app purchase functionality on the iPhone, but it would be sad to see Layar lose a percentage of their cut on the purchases to Apple. If anything, that could raise prices on the layers themselves, but that's a whole other argument.

This could be a huge step forward for the mobile AR space. As these applications become more useful, more refined and more popular, companies will be excited to participate in providing branded content in an AR experience. Expect an announcement from Layar in the next few weeks about the launch of this exciting new platform, but in the meantime, iPhone users (3GS only) can go snag Layar's free app (iTunes link) in the App Store.

This new verison of Wikitude also marks the browser's first commercial entries as users can find the nearest Startbucks, Walmart, Harley Davidson or BestBuy locations using the various World filters found on the applications new "Overview" home screen. Some of the Worlds, such as Last.fm events, Meetup Events and Outside.in content, are unique to Wikitude and are innovative inclusions for AR browsing.

First released for Android phones in October of 2008, Wikitude was the very first mobile augmented reality browser to hit the market. Since then Layar, acrossair and hundreds of other mobile AR apps have upped the ante in the mobile AR space, and the latest iteration of Wikitude is in direct response to this competition.

Wikitude's updated features follow a continuing trend in mobile AR to consolidate a group of applications into a single AR browser-like experience. Mobilizy previously produced the AR application C2 YouTube for the iPhone, but has moved that functionality into Wikitude.

Additionally, acrossair's AR browser now includes features like Twitter and Wikipedia entries, which were previously features in their own independent applications. French iPhone app development house Presselite, which made waves with its Metro Paris Subway app, and other transit applications, has since rolled its applications together into the Bionic Eye application. It's only a matter of time before these companies begin rolling games and entertainment, a growing AR sector, into their browsers for one-stop augmented reality experiences.

Mobilizy, Layar, acrossair, and Presselite now have comparable AR browsing applications with Tonchidot not far behind with its more social app, Sekai Camera, the most popular AR app in Japan. Competition is certainly a good thing when it comes to mobile AR, and the deal-breaker in the coming months and years for most users will likely be the commercial content found on the applications.

Which mobile AR application do you like best? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Layar has quickly become of the most popular mobile AR browsing applications across the globe thanks to its impressive set of features, but the company's choice to provide an open API may have been the decision which fueled them to success. Companies that wish to jump on the augmented reality bandwagon have several choices for getting their content on Layar quickly and easily. Layar provides documentation on its website for how to use and interpret their API, but those looking for an easier method of geo-data input can use any of a number of third party tools. Thanks in no small part to tools like buildAR, Muzar and Winvolve, Layar's database of geo-data has rapidly expanded to include over 300 content layers including anything from restaurants to Twitter results, to even the locations of nearby heart defibrillators.

On the opposite end the spectrum, the accrossair browser, a similar mobile AR browser available on the iPhone, has decided to keep its API private and helps with the input of geo-data themselves for companies that wish to participate on their platform. Instead of allowing anyone to upload location data onto their platform, acrossair has reached out to corporations like McDonalds and FedEx to provide them with their own POIs in their browser. The one disadvantage this places on their product is a significantly lower number of POI sets that a user can access. With just over a dozen different options, acrossair has a fraction of the curated POI sets that Layar does. Founder Chetan Damani says that while their closed API certainly limits the amount of data on their browser, it enhances the overall stability of the browser - a factor which may play heavily for the company as they expand beyond the iPhone to Android and Symbian devices.

"We are keeping [the API] closed right now because we will be in a period of evolution and multiple iteration," Damani told ReadWriteWeb. "We want to move to Android, and we want to make sure that the APIs are the right APIs and that they won't limit our development. We only get one opportunity to get this right."

Damani and acrossair are playing it safe until they are able to expand their presence to more platforms before opening their API - a step Damani says they do plan on taking. When acrossair moves their browser to Android, Symbian and possibly even Windows Mobile devices, having a closed API will make the transition much smoother. Opening the API after they set up shop on each mobile OS will be a lot easier without loads of independently developed geo-data on their system.

So is it better to limit one's API early on for the sake of stability while simultaneously hampering the possible reach of one's product? The acrossair browser seems to be taking that chance, while Layar, on the other hand, is welcoming third party developers with open arms. However, acrossair has one thing going for them that Layar currently doesn't - a working iPhone application.

How much of a role Layar's open API played in the demise of their iPhone application is unknown, but all that could be moot when Layar relaunches on the iPhone "by the end of February". However, if augmented reality is the supposed "future of web browsing" as some believe it to be, having closed browsing platforms is not a viable long-term solution.

Augmented reality is a technology that allows 2D and 3D objects to be placed onto a live video feed, creating unique user experiences. AR applications entered the mainstream with a few advertisements and installations for automobiles in 2008. Since then the technology has found its way onto our home computers with things like the GE Smart Grid campaign, and onto our cell phones with mobile AR browsers like Layar and Wikitude.

Augmented reality has already gained traction on the iPhone and Android platforms with dozens of AR apps available for download today. Mark Billinghurst, one of AR's "founding fathers" and a leading AR researcher since 1994, reached out to me yesterday to express his feelings about the iPad - a device with which he says Apple has missed an opportunity.

"The form factor, CPU and graphics capability make it an ideal platform for a handheld AR experience," said Billinghurst. "A camera on the back of the iPad would have enabled the development of vision based AR applications and created a whole new class of AR
applications on the App store."

Billinghurst also points out that his company ARToolworks has already provided over 100 iPhone app developers with their ARToolKit SDK, a clear sign of the growing interest in mobile AR. However, one hurdle in the way of these developers is Apple's reluctance to open the video API on the iPhone to real-time image processing - an impedance which AR proponents have gone as far to petition Apple to overturn.

Right now, applications can grab a few frames every couple of seconds to process, but the kind of accuracy needed for AR applications requires real-time frame-by-frame processing of the video feed. This would allow applications to track objects and motion seen through the camera's lens, greatly increasing the chances for accurate placement of 2D and 3D objects as well as the interpretation of real-world items.

In the grand scheme of things, augmented reality represents a drop in the ocean of iPhone app development, and Apple would need more than some petitions and disappointed developers to add a camera or change their API. However, hope may be on the horizon, as MacRumors.com reported this morning on the discovery of the option to take photos in the iPad simulator.

While disappointed, AR fans are still optimistic about the iPad's future. Claire Boonstra and Maarten Lens-FitzGerald, co-founders of Layar, one of the most popular mobile AR applications to date, expressed their sentiments on Twitter Wednesday when they heard the news about the iPad. Boonstra noted that we may have to wait for version 2.0 to see Layar on the iPad, while Lens-FitzGerald added that they have plenty of mobile phones to work on for the time being.

Thomas Carpenter at Games Alfresco, the leading augmented reality news blog, may have said it best when he noted Wednesday that Steve Jobs didn't make the iPad for AR fans - he made it to give Amazon's Jeff Bezos nightmares.

Either way, for those of us eager to have our realities augmented, perhaps we will be pleasantly surprised next year when AR developers like Boonstra and Lens-FitzGerald are the ones on stage with Jobs showing off the next iteration of the iPad.

The best thing AR fans can do for now is create and promote amazing AR applications that will captivate the masses and launch AR further into the public eye. We can only hope that Steve Jobs is watching.

Be sure to keep your eye out in the next few weeks, as ReadWriteWeb will be presenting our next premium report focusing this time on the use of augmented reality in marketing.

Photo by Flickr user vlauria.

See also: ReadWriteWeb's complete coverage and analysis of the iPad on our iPad topic page.

The Brightkite ads appear to be just for electronics retailer BestBuy so far, and are displayed as unique markers in your field of view when pointed towards one of the stores.

These ads appear in all search results pages, whether they are relevant or not. For example, no one has posted on Brightkite about "pizza" within miles of me for the last three days, but a search for pizza displays a number of search results on my phone's radar. It turns out those are the BestBuys in my area. The same results appear in searches for "love" and "flatulence" - it's all BestBuy. If advertising proliferates on platforms like this then it's going to have to become contextual.

These are the early days in mobile Augmented Reality advertising, but the field is expected to be big. AR has been become increasingly common in recent months as a gimmick in print ads that can be held up to a webcam to display a 3D image, but we're unaware of previous experiments like what Brightkite is doing on Layar.

Is the advertising industry excited about mobile AR advertising? Blake Robinson, director of research and measurement at social media marketing firm Attention, says he is. "If the question is whether or not money will be pumped into mobile AR advertising," he says,"I'd say it's not a question of if, but when - and I'd say soon.

"For the first time in a long time local businesses could be given opportunities by advertisers to reach not just potential patrons but people who are literally at their doorsteps. There is a lot of potential for good here, a lot of potential for irritation too, but I'm more excited than daunted."

Will consumers find the ads more useful than invasive? That's an age-old question in the relationship between advertisers and consumers.

The field has been plagued with technical difficulties and disappointments so far, though. Layar wrote today on its blog that it doesn't know exactly where the problem with its app is but that it's a memory management issue that's been present since the app was built. Resolution will take weeks, not days, the company says.

The current crop of Augmented Reality apps - high-profile map overlays for smartphones like the iPhone - are criticized as lightweight and overhyped by many AR pros that have been working on more heavy-duty applications intended for more technical use. Many of those critics haven't shipped products, though, and Layar has done more than all but a few other companies to extend public awareness of the Augmented Reality concept.

Blake Callens, an AR software engineer at the company that created the Webcam Social Shopper, has been very critical of the crop of consumer smartphone AR apps popping up. He's called them "innacurate mobile browsers and web based eye candy". Callens' comments aren't directly aimed at Layar, but Layar does symbolize the most visible part of the AR market for many people.

"Seriously, hand me a 3D model and I can literally throw it in AR in 5 minutes. It's hardly a 'stunning' example at all," Callens writes "And yet, at least once a week, I see someone else pimping their new, 'totally awesome' AR app that's nothing more than a 3D model dancing around."

We like Layar, but as the most high-profile AR app on the market, it doesn't reflect well on the state of the industry for the company to have to pull its app from iTunes.

The easiest way to become a leading product in your industry is to meet a need better than anyone else. The following 10 have proven themselves with great features, substantial marketplace momentum and, most importantly, a game-changing approach to solving a problem.

Location-based Apps - Foursquare: Launched at SXSW, Foursquare is a location-based social application where users check in on their iPhone at various businesses and compete against their friend network for points. ReadWriteWeb first covered the company's launch in March. Since then it has partnered with Bay Area Rapid Transit and a number of businesses to offer location-based deals to users.

iPhone App Recommendation - Appsfire: In a world where iPhones seemed to saturate the earth, Appsfire offers a great way for users to share their favorites. Launched in August, ReadWriteWeb praised the convenience of the iPhone app. Four months after downloading it, many of our RWW teammates are still sharing their apps via the embeddable Appsfire widget and the iPhone application.

Real-Time Search - Collecta: If you're interested in finding out the latest info on a particular product, Collecta offers real-time search with a variety of results including blog posts, photos and Twitter and Identi.ca posts. ReadWriteWeb covered the company's release, which launched in June. In September the company released its API to developers.

Twitter App Discovery - OneForty: Dubbed the "unofficial Twitter app store," OneForty is a marketplace where Twitter developers add their applications for discovery. End-users can add their reviews and recommendation to be featured on the service's front page. Launched in September, Oneforty breaks down the applications into easy-to-understand categories and features the most popular apps and recently uploaded apps on the homepage.

Next Page: Top 10 Startup Products of 2009 6-10

All-You-Can-Eat Music - MOG All Access: Although MOG has been around as a blogging network for a few years, earlier this month the company launched its much-anticipated $5-per-month streaming music service. The product's unique features include a discovery bar slider where users can play streaming radio and tweak the flow of recommendations to their liking. Coupled with an iPhone app that is promised to encompass offline caching, MOG All Access is a great service rivaled only by close competitor Spotify.

Web TV - Clicker: Launched in mid November, Clicker is considered the TV Guide for Internet television. The company indexes 400,000 full episodes from 7,000 shows and features a DVR-like playlist (including Netflix Instant Streaming and Amazon VOD) and integration with Facebook connect. Clicker also has a Boxee app that pulls in metadata for shows, channels and actors.

Semantic Search - Evri: Evri is a semantic search engine with a matching algorithm that creates connections between people, products and concepts. Launched in mid-June, ReadWriteWeb first reported the product's ability to distinguish between subjects, verbs and objects to make connections.

Conversation Aggregation - JS-Kit's Echo: While JS-Kit has been around for three years, the company' latest product Echo is a better iteration of blog comments. ReadWriteWeb first wrote about the product launch in July. The service allows users to embed a simple line of javascript in their blogs in order to gather a real-time stream of Diggs, Tweets, comments and reactions.

Augmented Reality - Layar: ReadWriteWeb readers first got a glimpse of Layar in June. Created by SPRXmobile, the service places images and data on the mobile browser for a new form of location-based augmented reality discovery. In July, SPRX released the company's first developer keys for the API and by August it had celebrated an Android release with an iPhone app to follow. The company currently has a gallery with several cool 3rd-party applications.