Multi-Person Event Photo Viewer

For a while I have been thinking about a certain idea for a product, a multi-perspective photo viewer.

Today, after attending a wedding the night before (the original idea came at a wedding), I read an article in Springwise talking about a site that gathers wedding photos from guests. Now I havent tried the product nor seen what it looks like but the title at least hints at the idea that I originally had.

The concept follows:

• Many people at an event, each with a camera.
• Each person's experience is different, a reflection of their perspective.
• The only real way to get a feel for the "total" event experience would be to somewhow see all the photos of each person.

Now I can just imagine what such an interface could be and the thought of it really gets me excited. Imagine Photosynth but on a timeline, throw in an event guest list with a sprinkle of Facebook connect for identity. Obviously video needs to be supported as well.

One really important facet here is PERSPECTIVE. The apps main navigation should be the concept of perspective. There should be a way to easily move between people's perspectives and ideally, as per photosynth, be able to see the same event (perhaps based on time) from different perspectives. I say TIME because it is not necesarily true that all the people at an event would be shooting photos of the same thing at the same time (which sometimes removes the ability to do pure photo stiching).

There would have to be a spatial view as well. Especially because in the same event there may be different spatial clusters. As geotagging of media becomes more prevailant this no longer seems far fetched.

When you add TAGGING and facebook into the mix one could imagine that I could express the experience, say a collection of photos, of different groups at an event, eg: tables at a wedding, and connect them via a cross over metafor: say the bride is in a photo from each of the collections then as a user I could use the bride as the portal between the two collections.

While doing the mockups I realised how valuable it is to have not just the coordinates of where the photo was taken but also the direction. This is similiar to the advances in Aumented Reality browsers. So we could think of this as a MULTI-PERSON RECORDED AUMENTED REALITY VIEWER.

The interesting thing here is that I could use this now as my presentation architecture.

Eg: I have a subject that both A and B have taken a photo of around the same time. I know this because the line of site of the shot interesect based on the coordinates (GPS) and direction (compass) of A and B.

One limitation here is that we dont know the depth of field of the photo so theoretically they could still be shotting at different subjects.

Now imagine that C was taking a photo of B at that exact same time converting B into the subject from a different perspective. I could visually display this and allow the user to move through these spatial and time related media in a representation that is similar to the physical world.

I could definately see in the future Facebook give the ability to add your album to an event which automatically adds the content to this multiperson event viewer.

Facebook Photo Search

Today I found myself with the need to get my hands on a photo that contained two friends of mine. The first thing I thought of was to go on to Facebook where I knew I had tagged both of them in numerous photos together. To my surprise there was no way (that I know of) of doing this today.

I should be able to go on Facebook and search my photos for photos that have specific people.

For example: SEARCH photos of Person1 AND Person2

This functionality will become even more usefull with the autotagging applications that are starting to be released.

I know that this can be done because when you are looking at photos of a person Facebook gives you the option of viewing photos of that person and you in the same photo.

Why would Facebook not offer such a functionality? cost of processing? Does Google's Picasa already have this? How should a Facebook photo search look like or function?

UPDATE: this already exists and works just as expected. As Nick O'Niel from Allfacebook.com just told me this feature is currently a prototype and you can add it using this link: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=113716318847

Anchor vs Flow

The two essential states of creative capture...

and the different tools that should be used at each point.

Flow

• state of mind
• stream of thought
• uninterrupted interplay between characters of the mind
• multi-polar discussion

tool: chaining, threads

Anchor

• memory stamp
• connections
• ships that are related
• solidifying a thread to transit lines in the mind
• abstraction back into the footprints of an outcome
• stop

tool: mind map

Tool selection depends on the state and purpose.

The mind map is not always the best form of capturing thought.

Perhaps start with a thread (could be visual represented as a lightning shaped +/- polar back-and-forth in order to keep it moving forward or a more mathematical logic statement arrangement), during which an outcome may be deducted, at which point an anchor is needed (could be in the form of a mind mapping exercise) to abstract the experiences and past deductions that led to the current outcome as well as lock the outcome in mind through association.

Threadless' use of context

Threadless makes good use of context by not only identifying where the user is coming from but also giving them an incentive call to action through the use of a specific promocion code.

Phone app with local timezones

A phone application like Skype should have a world clock built into it.
When calling overseas it is probably the most common piece of information you would want.

Currently you see this:


It would be useful to have something like this:



I originally was thinking of putting the local time next to each option in the drop down but then I realised that it was too visually cluttered and also that it did not serve a purpose ie. it doesnt help in the selection of the item (you only want to know the local time of the item you are selecting).

Looking at this now I realise that in this particular case there is one problem: the items in the list are countries and local time varies by city. Perhaps the app could give a range of timezones or at least have a link to get timezone information.