This article is extracted from the digital magazine
Mashable which is the largest online independent news site. In his article, the
journalist Sam Laird is describing the functionalities of a new application
called Wallit, launched at the beginning of March 2012, created by Veysel Berk and
which aims at revolutionizing the visitors’ experience. Indeed, Wallit is a
combination of the interactivity of Facebook, the short writing messages of
Twitter and the geo-localization of Foursquare with an additional augmented
reality feature.
 |
| (Copyright 2012 Wallit Inc. Source: http://wallitapp.com/) |
How does it work? Imagine you are in front of the
Eiffel Tower, or assisting to a Knicks basketball game at Madison Square Garden
and you want to share your thoughts, photos, and comments about your
experience. Just launch the Wallit app and you will see a wall appear on your
smartphone screen. More than 700 walls have already been created. If a wall
does not exist for the place you are in, a “radar” function will point out places
where other walls exist. You can request for a wall creation but only Wallit can
actually create it. It avoids having plenty of walls for a unique location.
Note that the application allows you to post only if you are actually in the
place but you can view all the walls you want from wherever you want. You can post using an anonymous Wallit login
or link Wallit activity to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Finally, your
comment cannot exceed 140 words. Quality is preferred to quantity!
The application is only available on iPhone and iPod
Touch for the moment but will be launched on Android and iPad very soon.
Berk also thought about developing the application
further by creating walls for 326 Apple stores to enable people to post while
they would be queuing to get the new iPad 3! Besides, a “Super Wall” gathering
all the activity from the Apple Stores walls will also be created. This grouping
concept is a key point in Wallit strategy as they plan to offer businesses to
register (and pay a fee) so they can customize their wall. The app is free and Berk’s
objective for now is to build customers’ involvement. But in the future, the
business model of the app will come from its monetization through advertising
(virtual billboards) and registration fees for businesses so they can customize
their wall. Finally, companies will also be able to access data about people
who commented on their location by paying another fee.
As a conclusion, Wallit adds a real plus to social
interactions and visitors’ experience with augmented reality features but we
wonder about the ability for people to manage too many accounts on a regular
basis. In our opinion, people may become fed up by the social applications that
grow up as fast as mushrooms. Thus, there already are several social networks
that enable travelers to post their comments, upload photos and interact with
friends and this whenever and wherever they want.
In this regard, there could be a limit on people using
the app due to its strict rules and lack of freedom for wall creation for
example. However, the idea is quite interesting and the application could gain
additional success acting as a buzz marketing tool (i.e. this has already been
done for the launch of the Ipad3 with Wallit creating walls in 326 Apple
stores) but in order to do that it should remain strictly as an application
without account creation and without acting as a social network.
Source: Laird, S. (2012,
March 6). Wallit app assigns virtuals walls to physical places.
Retrieved March 21, 2012, from Mashable Business:
http://mashable.com/2012/03/06/wallit-app/
No comments:
Post a Comment