You may be wondering what augmented reality (AR) has to do with online reputation management (ORM). Well, the truth is, a lot. Augmented reality is a digital overlay for the world around you. It is not just the visual of seeing people the way you want to see them in their everyday life. It also has a lot to do with the way that we see people on the internet. There is a reason that Facebook only shows you what they think you want to see and not different sides of the coin. If we take this just a few steps further, we could easily see everyone in the world wearing hockey masks or Richard Nixon masks. It would all be up to how you wanted to view the world.
Your Reality
Recently, the Wall Street Journal did a piece on the difference between the Facebook feeds of two different political leanings. If you were a liberal, you would constantly see only liberal-based content and nothing more. This includes all the good things that the liberal party is doing and all the bad things that the conservative party is doing. Likewise, if you were a conservative, you would see only content that was based on your political views. This could possibly be the reason that people see the other side as much different than they are. We are not trying to start a political debate here, we are only telling you the facts of the study. We don’t care which political party you lean towards, we are just informing you that there is a side of the other party that you are not seeing. The reason for this is the augmented reality that is being provided to you compliments of Facebook. We are not targeting Facebook, they are just the most prolific name in social media today. We are absolutely sure that you could look at all the different social media platforms and could find the same results.
One for Everyone
That being said, in a few years, with the amount of work they are doing on AR, you will soon be able to see every part of your life exactly how you want to see it. You want to see everyone walking around with Bob Marley hair, you got it! How about if you want to see everyone wearing parachute pants? No problem. The way you see the world will be entirely up to you. This can be a bad thing. The best part about the world that we live in is the vast differences between all of us. We have long said that the world would be a boring place if we all ate the same foods, shopped at the same stores, looked the exact same, and believed the same things.
AR and Privacy
A few years back, Black Mirror did an episode on rating systems and society. It was a scary look into the future of AR. While they were not using the huge contraptions that Oculus was using, they still had AR. All they had to do was use their phone and point it at someone. This would let them know the user’s rating and help determine who they wanted to interact with. The entirety of their days was made up working on their reputation. It was actually their job. Since your rating was currency in this world, you had to make sure that you were as liked as you could possibly be. If you look at the way that people use social media these days, you can see that we may not be too far off that reality. When AR takes over the world, our privacy will be all but gone. There will be hundreds or thousands of people that will be able to see every little detail about your life just by pointing their phone at you. Image for a minute, walking down the street and someone points their phone at you. They will instantly know what you like and don’t like, where you shop, where you go to the gym, where you work, and where you live. Talk about an invasion of privacy.
The Future
We don’t see that phones are going to be the end of the road of AR. As of right now, we do have phone applications that have an overlay on them already. Just look at Pokémon GO!. As you are walking around the world, you see an overlay of Pokémon animals that you need to catch. Well, if we take the Oculus Rift and apply that to Pokémon GO! then you have the next level AR. Beyond that, we see that they are going to move from the phone to implants. Essentially, you will have a way to see the world exactly how you want to see it. Think about in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy when they were talking about a world of people that were knee deep in fish. Well, this could be something you could overlay and see on a daily basis.
ORM
So, what does any of that have to do with online reputation management? Well, for starters, it would be a way that people could see everything about you. You would have to make sure that your reputation was glowing so that no one would see anything bad about you. With the system that will be constantly updating, it will be more important than ever to make sure that the world sees what you want them to see instead of them seeing what they want to see.
Conclusion
Don’t get us wrong, we do see a couple of great uses for AR, but we feel that it should be made in such a way that privacy is protected. With the current path of where we are going and what information we share freely, we don’t see that it is possible. We do have the power to change that. Remember, if you don’t want people to see it in the future, it would be best if you left it off your page today.