Augmented Reality Meets Location-based Social Networking
Location-based social media is a particular fascination of mine lately. I love Foursquare and always have. But one of the more popular types of app for mobile devices these days is Augmented Reality, which is a term for software that uses the mobile device's camera to provide a direct or indirect view of physical, real world environment overlaid with computer-generated elements such as video, sound, or important data such as GPS coordinates.
A new app in this field is TagWhat. Part augmented reality-app and part social networking service, it lets people check and view locations along with additional random info like the place's history, the famous people who lived in it, anecdotes about the neighboring establishments, or any other information that can either be trivial, interesting, or extremely useful.
Unlike other augmented reality apps, TagWhat relies on extensive user interaction. The fun, friendly user interface allows you to tag pictures, locations, as well as include your own stories and musings about a place, or even include multimedia like a video of a famous event that happened in a location, or a famous song that was written in an establishment. Think of TagWhat as the lovechild of location-based augmented reality apps like Foursquare and social networking sites like Facebook.
What differentiates TagWhat from Foursquare (and what makes it more like Facebook), is the fact that it eschews the formers' game mechanics and focuses on the user interaction and community building aspects of the latter. The basic use of TagWhat is that it lets users turn a view of any location into an engrossing, educational experience, as users provide interesting stories and entertaining information about every single thing that can be captured by your camera - think a diner and its history is interesting enough? I Love this examples they give on their website. Try to point the device at the tables, perhaps a user has tagged the exact table where a famous actor used to sit during his lunch breaks. TagWhat makes the world more interesting.
When it comes to TagWhat's user interface, like any good mobile app worth your time, TagWhat's interface is straightforward and intuitive, as it lets you tag locations, upload media, and preview your work in a couple of taps, as well as access the help documentation within the same screen. TagWhat also provides a lot of value for marketing agencies for clients such as tourism bodies or local councils.
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