Launchpad Ignition portfolio company Badger Media just launched their photo-sharing iPhone app, which allows you to create location-based badges for your interests, share them with a community and develop commentary around them.
It’s a tool that lets you share your photos and videos around common interests – it’s about connecting with other like-minded people, visually and geographically. The Badger app is very easy to use. First, the user takes a picture or video. Then, he tags the geographic location via GPS, and shares with followers. The app associates user’s photos around themes or topics of interests, known as badges. Badges are user-generated, so you can create one for basically any situation you can think of.
For example, if you love street art, add the “street art badge” to your badge wallet and you’ve got access to the hottest graffiti being posted. And don’t forget to start the conversation – snap a photo of your own and add it to the badge for others to see. It’s like a crowd-sourced photo blog of the things you’re interested in, all geographically linked. Create your own map or badge and incorporate other users’ feedback and commentary, then you can share via e-mail, Facebook and Twitter.
Jacek Grebski, a co-founder and COO of Badger Media, says that the app will also partner with brands that people love, generating excitement through contests, giving prizes, and building a rapport between brand and consumer. “People effectively care about the brands they’re most passionate about, they define them. We are changing the traditional location-based social networking standard by allowing an outside brand to reward their most valuable evangelists, initiating new relationships. Each brand is unique and we want to work with them to get the most out of our platform, and provide the most value to their consumers and our users.” Says Grebski.
Badger is the offspring of the web-based photo sharing game of the same name by Badger Media, which was founded in Dec. 2010 in NYC. Badger received seed investment from Launch Pad Ignition, a Tech Stars-affiliated incubator based in New Orleans. The new iPhone app works with the website, where you can view uploads, badges, comments and interactive maps of the content from the app and other sources.
You can download the app here.