APOLLO

Inspiration

Mainstream photo sharing is characteristically narcissistic, often tying our own self-worth to attributions of our digital self. If we could make photo sharing altruistic, there's a chance that an entirely new set of content would be created.

How it works

Users can request a photo from other users that are currently present in a specific location. All users in that location receive a notification requesting a photo.

Photos are curated by location (utilizing FourSquare's places API) using both user requested photos and those from existing content sources (e.g. ShutterStock, Behance, FourSquare). Imagga was used for photo tagging and Twilio was implemented to make a photo request via SMS.

Hypothetical use case scenarios include:

A prospective college student requests photos from dorm room locations at their target schools and current students share a photo of their room.
A parent who's flight was delayed can request photos from users at their child's music recital.
A parent who wants to know what that their child is safe and where they said they would be requests a photo from their current location.

Potentially, the messaging capabilities alone could possess a unique power:

A car accident transpires in a location where responders may be too far away to reach it in time to save the victims. A message could be send to users that are close by requesting their help.