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In their own words: David Chang, co-founder/VP of marketing, Snapmylife.com
Originally a mobile Internet content search application, Needham-based Mobicious Inc. found its niche as a mobile photo sharing application after launching SnapMyLife late in 2007. Since then, the application has done well, surpassing 1.5 million unique visitors per month, but executives say the company’s recently launched location tagging feature has really taken off, and is putting the company on the map.
Dubbed “Photo Maps,” the application was originally launched in conjunction with the 3G iPhone application store from Apple Inc. last July. After attracting some 200,000 downloads over the ensuing two months, the firm recently rolled the feature out for any phone with a camera and Internet connection.
“Overnight, a quarter of the photos on the site (SnapMyLife) were being tagged,” said David Chang, vice president of marketing and co-founder of Mobicious along with CEO George Grey.
Combined with the SnapMyLife photo sharing application, Photo Map allows users to tag the locations of pictures and share them with friends, or the general community interested in that region. Chang said that while the application is attracting users (and generating revenue through advertising on the SnapMyLife site) the functionality opens new possibilities, such as integrating local advertisers, or geocentric businesses such as travel agents. Such features, however, are still in the development phase.
“It’s a great opportunity to take advantage of location-enabled handsets,” said Chang.
The SnapMyLife application, with maps, has also won accolades from outside groups, including being named one of three finalists in AT&T’s $10,000 mobile applications developer contest “Fast-Pitch New England,” announced earlier this week.
Location-based services have become a fast-growing class of mobile applications, and analysts predict the trend to continue as handsets become more feature-laden and developers roll out new ways to use geographic data. According to a report released by ABI Research last spring, worldwide revenue from location-based services could reach $13.3 billion by 2013, up from approximately $515 million last year. Locally, companies like uLocate Inc. in Framingham, Proxpro Inc. in Weston, Skyhook Wireless Inc. in Boston and Vlingo Corp. in Cambridge have all hooked their mobile technology to geographic data.
It is that kind of growth that has executives at Mobicious confident they have made the right decision in focusing on SnapMyLife and locating people, rather than locating where to purchase ringtones and wallpaper.
“People tend to share the content on their phone, rather than buy things,” said Chang.
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