OUTTA - Make & discover virtual spaces at real world locations

@devin_blong I think from now and into next year we're really going to see a lot of AR apps hitting the market. While AR's been around for a while on iPhone (anyone remember fighting TIE Fighters in NYC?), as @garyvee said, Pokemon GO is really the coming out party for AR. My main question is - was this something you were working on before the success of GO, or were you inspired? Also, how do you manage clutter at popular locations?

@rossdcurrie @garyvee Hey Ross, we agree that AR is really starting to heat up. I personally think we're going to see the coolest stuff in the few years as more and more of the technologies that are brewing as peripherals (Google Tango, etc.) get integrated into the devices we carry in our pockets. Right now though, it seems like what AR needs is just tons of people playing with it and seeing what they can build. This is actually something we have been working on since the beginning of the year. Pokemon GO just happened to land on us right as we were pushing the first versions of the app out of beta. Pokemon GO has made life way easier though. Instead of having to start every conversation with explaining what AR is, you can now just use GO as a jumping off point. Clutter is something we're planning to tackle in coming versions. We've got a couple of ideas, including some that work off crowdsourcing or letting users contribute to existing spaces. Right now though we're just looking at clutter as an awesome problem to have. :)

@rossdcurrie @devin_blong I like the idea of location based digital content. I spent quite some thoughts to that since Pokemon had been released. What I found particularly interesting was the question of privacy/ownership: What if I tag something in a place of my friend that he doesn't like? Just like graffiti it is a modification of his property/space... I put my thoughts down here: geoawesomeness.com/pikachu-arrested-for-digital-trespassing/ What's your take on that? How does your app handle 'infringement'? Do you think it's necessary to include a geo-fence? :)

"Instead of having to start every conversation with explaining what AR is, you can now just use GO as a jumping off point." @devin_blong I have a friend who was accepted into a local accelerator with his VR/AR startup and he has said exactly the same thing. You don't need to explain what AR is to people anymore. "Right now though we're just looking at clutter as an awesome problem to have. :)" Right on! Best of luck!

@bentossell Hey Ben, awesome question. So while you can make photos of a space, that's not really the point. Instead, the idea is that when a user makes space, he leaves the stickers and messages tied to that location. When someone else comes there and unlocks it, they see the stickers around them on top of the live camera feed, arranged in the same way the first user left them. In practice, it plays more like Pokemon Go, with people making and posting their creations out in the world.

@devin_blong riiiight - so kinda live real-time snapchat geofilters but not on snapchat?

@bentossell There are definitely some similarities with what you can do with them. Here's where we see the differences: OUTTA, while it uses location to help you find spaces, is designed to let users say something in a particular way to annotate the world. We do this by tying spaces to a target image that other users line up with their camera to unlock. Let's say I take a picture the Empire State Building, then put the dragon stickers to look like they are breathing fire on it. To open my space, you line up your camera with the same orientation of the building, so when the space unlocks you see the dragon in place. We're thinking of spaces a little more like a user's statement in a location, rather than filters where every user would annotate their photos in that location. We also want to make it so anyone can make spaces really easily from our sticker and filter library, so that anyone can make something to share without the submission process. But hey, like I said we are still trying things out. Maybe having fewer and more curated visual experiences for a given location that people then use to produce sharable media will be what gets people excited. We want to keep listening to users to see what sticks :)

@devin_blong @bentossell Do you have to have the app to detect the photos and unlock them?

@elizabethhunker @minecraft @snapchat @outtaapp @gabriel__lewis Hey Elizabeth, Thanks for the feedback! We're really excited to see what people do with it, and scavenger hunting enhancements are a suggestion that comes up a lot. Thanks again for giving it a try and giving us your thoughts.

@antonis_tsagari Hey Antonis, Thank you for your kind words, I'll pass them on to design. We're hoping to get the android version out as soon as we can, with the learnings from this iPhone version integrated. If you can spare a follow on twitter @OuttaApp we will make a bunch of noise when we get close to launch.

@devin_blong @outtaapp I just followed OUTTA on Twitter, I'm looking forward to the Android release!