A wise man once told me that travelers are the best storytellers! Well I couldn’t agree more. However, they do not have the right platform to share their precious memories of all those faraway beautiful lands they have had the privilege to set their foot on. Yes you may argue that conventional social networking sites may suffice but trust us most of the time such beautiful travel tales do get lost amongst other content.
To solve this very problem there is soon going to a new app in town called Souvenir. With this app travelers can now document their journey around the world.
Meet The Mastermind!
Souvenir was ideated and founded by Sebastian Sadowski.
Sebastian is a Berlin-based interaction designer focusing on user experience design for digital services as well as data visualization. He is specialized in digital design for web and mobile applications with a focus on experimental, innovative interfaces. One of his biggest passions is to travel around the world and doing some freelance work while spending time abroad. He is in love with surfing and prefers enjoying the endless summer of New Zealand instead of the European winters.
It is his undying passion for traveling that urged him to come up with the idea for Souvenir. Through this app he what’s to offer users with a portal wherein they can share all their great travel experiences.
Know Souvenir Better!
As mentioned above, this app is all about sharing your travel experiences. The iPad app enables you to upload GPS Data (e.g. via the app Moves) as well as pictures or videos of a trip. The app then visualizes the data of the itinerary on a custom map in a beautiful watercolor style.
You can browse through your pictures and tell your travel stories with automatically added information such as the weather or the Wikipedia entry. Additionally, you can also print the map as a poster and give it to your family and friends.
What Problem Is It Solving?
Travelers from around the world go to many breathtaking and exotic places. Unfortunately, they do not have a dedicated platform to share their personal travel experiences. Souvenir offers a solution to this very problem. It lets them tell their travel story in an amazing way. They can do so by designing maps and by presenting pictures of the place they have been to.
Further, in order to keep the process even more fun, the app also highlights the weather at that moment and offers more information about the place via the provided Wikipedia entry. This app is surely a new way of telling travel tales which is just so much more exciting.
The Driving Force!
Sebastian caught the travel bug 5 years ago and has been traveling a lot around the world ever since. He always kept track of the GPS route with tools such as the iOS app Moves in places such as Guatemala, India, United States or various other countries in Europe. He is also a passionate photographer and if people asked him about his last trip, he always opened a map on the ipad first to present the itinerary and afterwards the pictures.
Therefore, he thought about how to bring those two worlds together to make it easier to tell the travel stories. Additionally, he figured out that GPS data enables automatic gathering of heaps of data that could also be presented besides to enhance travel storytelling. So he packed all those ideas together in one app and called it “Souvenir” because stories and memories are the best souvenir of a journey.
On Challenges Faced
One of the biggest hurdles was the fact that the motion tracking app for Android and iPhone ‘Moves’ was acquired by Facebook in April 2014. Post this acquisition people started to avoid the app as they feared Facebook would misuse their data.
However on the brighter side, after Sebastian let a few people know about his idea, they started to send him gathered GPS data and personal pictures for some alpha testing. This helped him to keep on going with the project.
Potential Competitors
In terms if competition, maptia.com and cobird.com pose as potential direct competitors. These sites focuses mainly on that one special story and users have to write lots of text to tell that story.
However, Souvenir is different and provides a much easier user experience. All one has to do is add their GPS data and some pictures or a video. This app will then gathers all additional data based on the GPS data and visualize it automatically. Souvenir is a much more flexible tool helping you to tell your adventurous travel tales in a visual way.
On Expansion Plans & Target Audience
“The next step is to launch the beta and for that more developers are needed. We are currently looking for some seed capital and depending on that progress, the beta will be launching hopefully soon”, says Sebastian.
Presently, Souvenir is mainly targeted at frequent traveler from all over the world.
The Monetizing Model!
“They are many ways to bring your travel memories in the analogue world such as printing a poster or getting jewelry of your route. Thus this kind of services will be offered for a good price. Additionally, the app will be offered on the app store for a specific price”, says Sebastian.
So all you traveler out there, keep an eye out for this app as it is here to give you the perfect way to tell your travel stories in the most unique manner.
To know about Souvenir and to stay posted on its launch date, do visit: http://souvenir.fm
