Today, we have map services where people are just consumers of pre-defined content. Companies in this industry generate, gather, interpret, and map geophysical data. The users seldom have any rights to manipulate these geophysical data. But what if this would be different? What if every person can do more than consume? Just consider yourself contributing instead by creating and storing information like text and pictures at literally any geo-coordinate on earth. Would that not enable anyone to enrich and improve the world?
With these thoughts, Christian Schmitt and Dr. Tim Frey, two IT professionals, went down a rabbit hole to explore the thought “how the world would look like when everyone could comment on any geo-coordinate?”.
They searched for already existing examples in the physical world and came up with different things that people do already: Ancient wall paintings in caves; graffiti; putting locks on a bridge; carving the name in a tree…….!
“These examples show for us how natural it is to store information at a geo-coordinate. Thus, we consider the market gap is nearly as old as mankind itself: Leave information on a geo-coordinate for the next people to come or just perpetuate your memory there. This can be achieved through creating a platform where more the participation from people, the more the platform becomes a source of location information and a live streetview. Just imagine the whole world is ‘taggable’” proclaims Christian.
This thought of Christian and Tim, both IT professionals in IT consulting in various areas. e.g. Management, Software Engineering, Cloud services, took the shape of STAPPZ, a social travel app. STAPPZ APP enables all ‘Stappers’ to save and connect their memories and experiences to the place where they occurred. You can easily mark and perpetuate yourself at your current position on a map to collect your visited places of our world. 
Christian and Tim started in early 2014 to draft the solution of the crowd powered STAPPZ platform. The aim is to benefit the user: You collect all the places where you have been as footprints on a map and enrich the world. The target audience is travelers and open-minded locals. People wanting to collect their STAPPZ (= mixture between steps and app) of a trip or their life on a map and gain the possibility to communicate with other travelers or locals that use the app. Imagine STAPPZ as a personal “social map diary” game for yourself with a crowd-multiplayer mode on top.
The current STAPPZ release enables users to mark their own footprints on maps. In detail, users store pictures and text at location-coordinates and leave their so-called STAPPZ behind. The kind of information how you preserve your memories is free and may rank from an “I was here” selfie to insider tips for the next people, visiting the same place. Posting works simple, you just start the app, insert a picture, enter a text and post it – then it is on the geo-position of the map.
Aside self-posting, you can explore the STAPPZ map and investigate a newsfeed containing the recent updates of other stappers near you and save them in your profile. This way, you combine content of other stappers with your own. Furthermore, you can also post comments on the found items what enables you to get in touch with likeminded fellows or to ask back for more details from the creator. This way, your contributions and explorations create two things at once: A personal location based picture map diary for your perfect trip and a collaborative and localized world diary.
You can caption, recommend, mention, remember and like everything you want to, exactly at the place where you are. Whether it is just a great time with friends, great food, a festival or a historic event. You share and announce what is live near you.
One notable feature of STAPPZ is the offline positing capability. Once you are in roaming and have no data connect, you can post when a GPS signal is available and your posted STAPPZ get uploaded later, e.g. in the Hotel-WIFI. Additionally, the own STAPPZ and maps can be shared and saved as pictures via other apps like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, etc. i.e. you can export your pictures on the map to basically all social networks and messengers.
With offline and single user capabilities you can document and create your personal travel map diary. The more users hop onboard, the more the communication in the app gets enabled. Early adopters get the benefit of increased recognition that the next users find their postings once they activate the app.
The STAPPZ App offers to see posts near you without any registration. However, in order to use the map and to see more, you need to register with your email and a free chosen username. In addition, it has some fancy maps (3D, Watercolor) that makes browsing even more enjoyable. This way, all Stappers enrich the world together with their information.
STAPPZ® is a product of iunera GmbH & Co KG from Karlsruhe. iunera achieved the final-round member of Unitymedia’s made-in-de award and gets backed by Microsoft’s Bizspark Plus program. Among others, STAPPZ® got awarded as App Of The Day, by the German magazine Chip and got covered in different magazines about location based services and Android.
Currently, “our main focus is on travel and local enrichment of the world and we hope that a lot of Indian locals and travelers join to enrich the world in India. Since markets are different we plan and hope to gain a lot of feedback for our app idea from there to improve it further for this market” says Christian. Additionally, Christian and Tim want to improve small usability features in the app and have some more features planned that are already in the pipe!
You can check out the STAPPZ app and download it HERE!
