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Storyverse

Storyverse

Dreaming up a concept for a story discovery app.

Dreaming up a concept for a story discovery app.

Even before Pokémon GO I wanted to create a mobile app that is a love child of geocaching and blogging. But when Pokémon Go came on the scene, a light bulb lit up in my head and I set out to create conceptual designs for such an app.

The most emotive stories are the little stories that are embedded in a particular location, and I wanted to explore the idea for an app that would allow for the sharing of these stories.

Gotta catch 'em all!

One similarity between Pokémon GO, Geocaching and my idea is that you need to physically be at the location to access the content. You can't just browse a big list of stories on the app from your couch. This artificial limitation would be one of the key draws to the app.

Connecting reader and author across space-time.

My goal was to connect the author with the reader, by requiring the author to place the story at a geolocation using the app, and by requiring the reader to move to a location to unlock a particular story. This means that both author and reader were in the same place at different points in time, which adds to the richness of the storytelling experience.

People sharing tidbits of stories, from interesting historical facts, to personal stories, and random attempts at humour.

I remember first having this idea in around 2012, and I'm genuinely surprised that such an app hasn't yet taken off. I still believe that someone will build something like this, and it'll join the ranks of Twitter and Instagram as one of the greats of the internet.

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