Image via CrunchBase
There’s a new place-based messaging app in town, and it could be the bleeding edge that certain brave travel marketers embrace.
Flyby Media allows users to send messages to each other using real-world objects as triggers. The company’s taglines are “Start Messaging in Real Life” and “Activate Your Real Life Objects,” highlighting just how the service is positioning itself as the arbiter of multimedia tagged to physical objects.
The service underscores the potential power of Google’s Project Tango, which recently opened up vast new possibilities for using 3D sensors and visual imaging for the next generation of phones.
Interestingly, the app is currently only available on iPhone 5 and 5s, with Samsung Galaxy S5 support coming soon. These are the only phones that currently support the framerates required to leverage the real-time imaging.
Flyby is one of the first consumer application to leverage this imaging tech, and is idling on a $10 million runway.
While Flyby is not the first in this space – an app called Drop was released late last year and the credential-heavy Findery lost its way last year with layoffs – the company might be at the right place/right time with the current techology and increased messaging interest from both investors and consumers.
The app itself is still a work-in-progress, as the company is attempting to build a user base before pushing it out to partners. This may work, although it seems that having a steady stable of partners publishing content would entice users to download while also offering a crash course in this entirely new way of communicating and consuming.
For travel marketers, the use cases are still quite compelling for those looking for an added edge over competitors in the travel space.
via Place-based messaging could give travel marketers an advantage.
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