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"The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.\nName: Snapr\nQuick Pitch: Mobile photo-sharing app Snapr plots uploaded photos on a map that other users can browse. Its new open API will allow other mobile photo app developers to add location-based features and real-time photo feeds to their own apps.\nGenius Idea: Snapr brought a novel approach to photo sharing when it released its iPhone photo-sharing app last year. In addition to allowing users to easily share their iPhone photos to Twitter, the app uses geotags to plot the photos on a map. Users can browse photos taken in locations near them and make comments in other people's photo streams. They can also search for users, locations and key words to see related photos on the map. The company was able to amass about 75,000 downloads and about 15,000 active users with the idea.\nThe problem is that swarms of other great photo-sharing apps are also taking off. Last year saw the launch of popular apps Instagram, PicPlz, and Path. Dozens of other apps offer filters and other photo effects.\nAs the proverb goes, if you can't beat them it's best to join them, and that's exactly the move that Snapr made when it opened an API this month that other photo apps can use to create a social component to their own apps.\n\"We're pretty avid iPhonographers ourselves, and we find ourselves using a lot of different apps. Different effects and things \u2014 they come and go. So we think that people really want to use a range of apps, I don't think it's ever going to just be one app,\" co-founder Rowan Wernham explains. \"[With Snapr's API] you can have one user account and connect it to your Facebook, Foursquare, Tumblr, all of those things, and then in a range of apps you can just sign in and never have to do that again.\"\nThe API will allow other photo apps to add sharing capabilities, add photo streams similar to Instagram's, or add location-based and mapping features. Photos shared across multiple apps using Snapr's API will contribute to Snapr's inventory, making its own app more robust.\nBut one has to wonder: Is anybody still using filter and photo effect apps that don't already include sharing options? Apps like Hisptamatic, Picplz and Instagram have already attracted a good number of the \"tweak and share\" photo crowd, and Instagram and Picplz also include location-sharing options. The API could have more potential for niche location photo sharing \u2014 Wernham gives the example of a crowd-sourced street art location app. Snapr also plans to sell white-label solutions for branded apps.\nIf Snapr's API does attract a significant number of developers, it will bode well for the next move the self-funded startup has planned. The next version of its own app will focus on finding friends and keeping track of what they're up to via location-based photo feeds (it will be interesting to see if this new version can compete with Foursquare's new photo-sharing feature).\n\n\n\n\nSponsored by Microsoft BizSpark\nBizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2011/01/07/snapr/>