Print 2.0 Will technology soon kill print? It’s been a never-ending debate ever since the Internet showed up. But perhaps that’s not the right question to ask at all. Perhaps a better question to ask is this. Has technology ever killed any form of media? The answer is, quite simply, no. Sure, it’s changed the game. But that’s what great things do. Change the game. Jackie Robinson changed the game of baseball. Michael Jackson changed the game of music. HeadOn ® changed the game of medicine. And now, the online revolution has changed the game of media by forcing everything to evolve. Just look at radio and television. No, they’re not nearly the media monopolies they once were, but it doesn’t take a surgeon to see they’re very much alive. Radio has evolved into both satellite and streaming versions of its primitive self, while television has morphed from the novel concept of color, into online, high definition and now 3-D adaptations. But unlike radio and television, the print industry hasn’t exactly accepted change. Unlike radio and television, print is dying. And the only thing that can save it is the same thing digging its grave. New technology. But amidst a state of sheer panic, it seems a cure may have finally been found – something to give newspapers and magazines a 21st century shock, and breathe new life to this dying breed. At last, augmented reality. (AR) Everyone’s seen it. Hell, sports television has been utilizing this seemingly state of the art technology for years. Ever wonder how that little yellow first down line gets projected onto football fields? Augmented reality. Or how that colored trail showing the exact location and direction of a hockey puck gets there? Augmented reality. And remember watching Michael Phelps chase those virtual world record markers during the Beijing Olympics? Yep. Augmented reality. But as useful as those ancient applications are, they don’t even begin to highlight the possibilities of this technology. They don’t even start to show how print too can be enriched using a digital dimension. Now imagine for a moment that this page was only half the story. Half the interaction. What if there was a way to connect this concrete piece of pulp you’re holding, with something on the screen? Well, there is. And publications and brands are finally starting to realize how the tangible nature of AR lends itself perfectly to the printed page. Not too long ago, Topps used AR to give its brand a quick jolt. Users needed nothing more than a webcam, Internet connection, and pack of special trading cards to interact with their favorite baseball stars. Doritos ® even brought their sweet chili chips to life by printing AR codes right on their bags. And MINI let users check out the all-new Cabrio by turning a simple magazine ad into its own digital car show. What augmented reality does so well is amuse and entertain. Sometimes, sadly, for hours. It gives the audience an extra avenue of interaction. But most of all, it proves that print, when combined with other technologies, can be the key that unlocks a unique user experience. Nothing shed light on this more than when Esquire magazine integrated AR into much of its December 2009 issue. It was the first time the print industry seemed to truly embrace and harness the new technologies at its disposal. Some called it “the future of print.” Others simply saw it as “a dying medium's last desperate grab at attention.” But dying or not, one thing is for certain. Print is far from dead. And thanks to new technology, people might once again have a legitimate reason to drop cash on magazines and even, dare I say it, newspapers. Today it’s augmented reality. Tomorrow, who knows? But like any form of media, print must keep evolving if it wants avoid going the way of the dodo. It’s the very process of evolution that Darwin spoke of ages ago – a process that not only makes survival more likely, but a species so much stronger. written and art directed by The Evolution of a Species