"I was at home in Puglia, and I needed a photo of an event that was taking place in Rome at that moment, but I wasn’t able to find it on social media or using search engines." This is how Enrico Scianaro, a LUISS graduate in Economics and Business Management, got the idea for Whoosnap, "an application that allows anyone to request a photo of a place or an event even from hundreds of kilometers away."
Along with his developer friend Vito Arconzo, Enrico was selected for the LUISS EnLabs incubation program and after just over a year he was able to create the app, which was launched on the market on December 12, 2014.
Whoosnap functions in a very simple way: to request a photo, the user must describe the image that they want, along with the location, and set the amount of compensation. Once the request is received, Whoosnap sends a notification to all those who have the app who are in that area in real time. "The system is based on feedback, which creates a ranking of the best photographers, thus increasing the value of the photos. Compensation, which is expressed in coins, is certainly inferior to that received by a professional, but they get more publicity."
The app was created thinking of the media and "the difficulties that are sometimes encountered in finding images in a short time," explains Enrico. "With this application, newspapers could use amateur photojournalists with smartphones available at any time and in any place at a very low cost. The process of acquiring material from social media would be reversed: it will no longer be the journalist that searches the web, but the community that reacts to their requests." In addition, Whoosnap guarantees "the veracity of the materials: you can’t upload a photo from the camera roll on your phone as you need to take it right when you reply. Also, the application prevents you from taking photos if you are not in the exact location requested."
In its first month, Whoosnap registered over 3,500 downloads with more than 2,500 active users who use the app every day to make requests or take photographs, so many that “there are already around 2,000 photos on the platform." Right now the application is only available for iOS devices, but by March an Android version will be released, and by June one will be released for Windows Phones. "Over the next few months,” says Enrico, “we will enrich the service with video and new features, for example, even reporters will be able to indicate interesting shots by sending alerts.
The acceleration program lasted about 6 months and finished on January 15, 2015 with the Investor Day. "During my studies, LUISS offered me a number of business opportunities and helped increase my enthusiasm and motivation to become an entrepreneur. EnLabs, then, is a blend of innovation and continuous training; it was the experience that most influenced me from a professional standpoint."
Now, Enrico and Vito are in contact with various investors, "who will support us in our future development and in the dissemination of the platform internationally. Our objective for 2015 is to increase the spread of the app here in Italy and to launch it in the United States."