Razorfish’s 2008 Consumer Experience Report is a really interesting read for anyone interested in emerging trends related to digital consumer experiences. It covers subjects like social media, ubiquitous computing, gaming and ambient technologies, and is available for download right here (via How to Change the World).

If you jump to page 75 on the .pdf and read the chapter dedicated to “Beyond the Browser, Designing for the Ambient Technology Revolution”, there’s a clear link to what we define as Reality Computing and YDreams Life projects’ scope. Interactive Environments are much more that a digital consumer experience. In the same way that the CD-ROM and the Web presented new paradigms in the way we perceive and explore information, these intelligent ambients will set new standards for interaction with our surroundings, may it be in a store, a museum or even our perception of urban space.

In a time of advanced and pervasive communications, brands and corporations are struggling to find and engage with their consumers. Channels have fragmented. Audiences are scattered everywhere. Still, companies are constantly looking to effectively impact people.

There is still a place where you are sure to connect with consumers, where you can use interactivity to create surprise and engage in a totally new relationship with people. No, it’s not the Web. It’s at the store, dummy.

The store is the place where you have the best shot of really going for it, connect with your audience using all their senses (or most), using a set of tools that would be unmatched in any other place. This, for example, is what we have done in Porto, together with TMN. This what how we perceive interactivity: as a means to create experiences that are really remarkable. Because they are real.

*or at the Showroom, or at your Headquarters, or at your Company’s Museum, or at… you get it now.

International news and current affairs channel, France 24, did a special Portugal day, where YDreams was featured as a success company story.

Besides the usual interviews, you can also glimpse a bit of life at the office, which includes scooters, an RC Helicopter and quasi-Olympic table tennis expertise.

You can read and watch the story here:

http://www.france24.com/en/20080930-y-dreams-a-portuguese-success-story-interactivity-science-researchers&navi=REPORTAGES

Or here, if you’d rather watch it in French.