<\/p>\n
Skidattl wants to use augmented reality to get people to engage with the real world. It\u2019s a story we\u2019ve heard before from AR companies, particularly as they pit themselves against the potentially isolating effects of virtual reality. But rather than chasing metaversal Pok\u00e9mon creatures on the street, Skidattl aims to use AR \u201cbeacons\u201d to show people what\u2019s going on around them.<\/p>\n
Randy Marsden, Skidattl co-founder, said they will be like \u201ca Bat-Signal for fun\u201d once the app launches.<\/p>\n
Anyone can make a beacon and anyone can see them. Businesses might set up beacons, which have a one-hour life span, to advertise two-for-one coffee sales, movie times or open bowling lanes. People might shoot up a beacon at a music festival to help their friends find them in the crowd. All a user would have to do is scan the horizon with their phone, or eventually with AR glasses, to see an array of beacons at up to 100 yards of distance, said Marsden.<\/p>\n
When Skidattl exhibited as part of the Battlefield 200 at TC Disrupt last week, the company had an AR beacon over its booth to demonstrate what it might look like.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, you can look at a map and say, \u2018What\u2019s near me?\u2019 but this pulls you back into the real world,\u201d Marsden told , noting that he is an Apple alum and a two-time Battlefield finalist for previous companies \u2014 Swype (technically TC50) and Dryft (Disrupt SF 2013).<\/p>\n
Skidattl\u2019s AR beacons will be anchored by GPS coordinates in the real world. To locate where a user is in relation to that beacon, Skidattl uses Google\u2019s ARCore Geospatial API, which relies on Street View data.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you launch the app, it\u2019ll tell you to scan the buildings across the street, and within a few seconds, it will know where you are,\u201d said Marsden. \u201cAnd then those beacons are anchored; they don\u2019t move around.\u201d<\/p>\n
When people want to set up beacons indoors, Skidattl will also use Wi-Fi signals to help position users against the location of those beacons.<\/p>\n
Skidattl is still in its angel funding stage and alpha tech stage, but the startup hopes to go to market with a freemium business model \u2014 meaning it will be free to use but Skidattl can monetize through premium subscriptions, in-app purchases and affiliate commissions.<\/p>\n
Like any new social media app, Skidattl will have to battle the chicken-and-egg problem \u2014 no one will want to use it if there\u2019s not plenty of beacons already lit up, but there can\u2019t be any lit-up beacons without people on the app.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we can kickstart the business side pretty easily by giving them a free beacon,\u201d said Marsden. \u201cOn the customer side, getting YouTube and TikTok influencers to talk about it, place ads with and that sort of thing. And then once we have someone in the app, we can give them incentives for sharing with their contacts.\u201d (It goes without saying, but ad sales are totally separate from editorial.)<\/p>\n
Skidattl is currently trying to raise $500,000 to finish the minimum viable product and get the money it needs to officially launch its app at South by Southwest in March, Marsden said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Skidattl wants to use augmented reality to get people to engage with the real world. It\u2019s a story we\u2019ve heard before from AR companies, particularly as they pit themselves against the potentially isolating effects of virtual reality. But rather than chasing metaversal Pok\u00e9mon creatures on the street, Skidattl aims to use AR \u201cbeacons\u201d to show […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1236784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1236782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrity-gossip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1236782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236782\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1236782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1236782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1236782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}