So I’m sitting at the bait shop counter going through Twitter this afternoon, and up pops a Tweet that says “RMG Networks to Launch ‘RMG 3D-VR” at ISE 2014.”
The linked story goes on to somewhat breathlessly say RMG will be showing a new solution with a “headset containing a screen, optics and sensors which allow the user to see, look and move around inside an immersive 3D environment.”
I blink for about 10 seconds, and utter a slow WTF???
RMG has been doing a lot of stuff, and hiring a lot of people, since it got a forklift or two of operating capital by going public last year. But I didn’t really see a company that’s a blend of digital out of home advertising and business-centric digital signage offers getting into the whiz-bang, that-looks-really-weird world of virtual reality.
Turns out they’re not.
I contacted RMG marketing exec Chuck Strottman, who also went into rapid eye-blink mode when he saw the story. He dug into it, and it seems a group of bright young students at the University of Bedfordshire in England got a wee bit overzealous about a demo they’ll be doing WITH RMG in the RMG booth next week in Amsterdam, at the ISE trade show. They put out a press released and rAVe, no fault of theirs, put it up.
“It’s definitely not a product or something we’re getting into anytime soon,” said Strottman, saying he found out through RMG UK ties that there will be a proof concept at the booth. It’s booth bait that will allow people to slap[ on the gear and see ads very differently.
That’s it. Kinda funny.