Information is free yet tracked and monetized. (Image by LeaW.)

From a report about augmented reality on The Next Web:

“Another company that is doing pretty groundbreaking stuff in the AR sphere is CrowdOptic, a real-time crowd behavior monitoring tool underpinned by augmented reality technology.

CrowdOptic lets fans at events such as concerts and sporting fixtures point their smartphones at an athlete or performer and view real-time information about the target, such as coaching insights and stats, and also receive exclusive invitations, ticket discounts, marketing promotions and more.

For example, if you’re at a concert or football match you might point your phone’s camera at the action. If a few hundred other spectators do the same thing, using triangulation and GPS data, CrowdOptic detects where the crowd’s attention is at any given moment, relaying the data back to the event’s organizers.

By knowing what is being photographed or videoed, this gives the organizers a mechanism for monetizing these insights in real-time during the live event.”