It’s a very interesting time for local businesses. Mobile apps are opening many different opportunities for them to be discovered and new and creative ways. Likewise opportunities for engaging with customers and providing them with offers are becoming increasingly apparent.

Layar, which makes a pretty useful augmented reality app, announced Layar Stream today, which will fuel the discovery of augmented reality content that is available around you.

First, a little about Layar’s app itself.  It already has more than 1.6 million users, and serves 1.2 million augmented objects a day. Over 600 layers are published on the Layar Platform with over 2000 in development. Layers within the app let smartphone users point their phone in any given direction to find items as diverse as nearby restaurants and bars, Twitterers, crime spots, sports and events, apartments for rent…you name it. Some layers are free and some are paid.

What the Layar Stream will do is generate a stream out of the augmented objects that are available around you. With so many layers in development, this will likely become an increasingly important element of tapping into the ones that you will find useful.

"Layar Stream is the necessary building block to make Augmented Reality part of every day life," says CEO Raimo van der Klein "There is a whole augmented world out there that is waiting to be discovered. You just need to tap into Layar Stream"

The Layar Stream will be available in the next version of the Layar app to be launched later this month. It will go to Android first, and then iPhone.

With iPhone (not to mention the iPad) maintaining a great deal of popularity, and Android usage rapidly growing, you can see where this app might provide great value to local businesses.