“Working again on merging old and new media using AR” – Rodric Leerling

Thanks to a renewed cooperation with CoolBrandsPeople, I picked up a cool idea I’ve been working on before. This technology helps to make bring traditional publishing in sync with the mobile world: Augmented Reality.

The 2nd edition of Around The World in 80 Brands is filled with stories of people behind a great brand, recorded while travelling the world. And with the help from an app on your mobile phone, video messages as well as impressions of a city, region or sports can be shared. Whereas the glossy publication content can easily last for a year, the video content shown in the app can be refreshed as often as you want.

I immediately thought of my other current sales project, the new sport magazine we are launching soon in the Dutch region called West-Friesland. This region is basically the triangle between the towns of Medemblik, Enkhuizen and Hoorn, located in the Province of North-Holland. The first edition of the magazine Sportief Westfriesland will run interviews with local government officials on their policy of encouraging sport as civil participation and the cooperation in the region to facilitate top sport activity. Along with stories of companies actively supporting local sport clubs, telling why and what it does for their company brand image and its employees. And it will be presenting local sports talents and the tools and funds available to bring them to the next level.

Wouldn’t it be a great idea to publish not only these sport stories along with a cool action photo, but also share a action video that will pop up when you point your mobile phone to the interview? Augmented Reality (AR) is working smoothly now, I really love the concept and can envision it. But it’s not for free. A hurdle to take.

 

“Praying before a game” – Rodric Leerling

I had noticed it once in a while before the start of professional football games – players praying muslim style. This weekend two players were openly praying at the start of both game halves of my U16 game in Amsterdam. I respect that but wonder what the intention is.

I don’t know what they are praying for but surely not to win the game. In the opponent team there appeared to be also muslims. At least I noticed a few times one of the muslim players admonishing an opponent and calling him “brother” when a possible conflict arose. Not sure how he recognized him and if he appreciated this at all.

Well, I assume the prayer has saved me corrective talks and yellow cards. I eventually had to show a yellow card, but not to a muslim player. At least, this player had not been praying and wasn’t called ‘brother’. Next time I will need to find out what the prayer topic really is. It might come handy when needed to calm down players. I will recommend them also to start with prayer in future and tell me what it all means to me as referee.