Has AR already run its course?

Not that long ago, Augmented Reality (AR) was all the talk around the digital marketing table. There were POCs floating around and lots of talk of how AR will change the landscape of interactive design on the web. Lately, however, the dialog has shifted back to the more straightforward and understandable mobile and social digital experiences. Hardly any discussion about AR is happening. Has AR's star waned already? And why?

I think there are three reasons for the lack of discussion around AR. First, the there continues to be a high level of complexity to the development of AR experiences, along with a lack of available talent that can do the work quickly and cheaply.

Second, for users to experience AR, they need to be in front of a computer that has a webcam, which is not as common as most marketers thought, and requires users to be at a desktop machine. More and more users are browsing on phones, tablets, and netbooks.

Third, and most important, it is much harder to come up with a way to effectively use an AR experience to create something meaningful for users. It is much easier to conceive of a social application or mobile app that would appeal to users and have more direct utility. A CMO can more easily justify creating a Facebook application or invest in mobile sites than for a neat, but ultimately perishable AR piece.

There are no new ideas, so perhaps AR will have its day yet. In the future, when more devices support the experience and there is more understanding of how these experiences would benefit users AR will resurface and become more ingrained in the common web experience. For now, it seems that it will live on a side branch of the web evolutionary tree, waiting for a place to thrive.