“Pics or it didn’t happen!” – ABLAR Company Launches Picso

ABLAR Company is shaking up the app world again. After recently releasing their restaurant reservation app Poing, now the company has launched a new smartphone app called “Picso” short for the phrase “Pics or it didn’t happen.” The company’s CEO Chester Roh explained,

“While discussing how to make sharing photos fun and easy during everyday life, we focused on the culture of ‘photographic proof’….Just as social communication gradually becomes more important, we look forward to Picso’s user base increasing through social business campaigns.”

“Pics or it didn’t happen!” is common phrase used on the internet requesting photographic proof of something written by a user. Providing this proof has become a vital part of online communities. ABLAR Company has paid attention to this rising trend while developing Picso.

 
A Vertical SNS that uses Gamification?

Picso uses ‘proof photos’ as a medium for user activity on the network. For example, users that want to have their photos “proven” can upload their photos to Picso where friends mark the photo as “Cool” or “Uncool”. Each time a photo is marked as “Cool” or “Uncool”, a point is gained or lost respectively. If an image gains 5 points it reaches the status of “Cool”, over 15 points makes it “So Good” and over 30 points means the image is “Super Cool”. Likewise, if an image gets -5 points a “Warning” appears and at -15 points or less it is declared “So bad”. The app offers various features when taking photos such as self camera mode, filters and mosaic options to hide faces for those who are shy.

Picso’s most specialized feature is its photo campaigns. By going into the ‘campaign’ menu, users can select the title of the campaign they want and the length of time it will run for. Users can choose to have their photos viewed publicly or by friends only. For example, if the title of the campaign is, “What did you do on vacation? Vacation shots!”, many users may only want friends to be able to view the photos, while for more public campaigns such as “Love for Dokdo. Take a photo with the Korean flag.” most will choose to share the photo with everyone. Users who set up campaigns can easily make ‘badges’ and have the right to award badges to users who have uploaded photos to the campaign.

Picso also plans to expand its reach through its sharing features. Adopting Facebook’s ‘open graph’ protocol, all activity on Picso can be seen in real-time on Facebook. Of course users change the settings to control what content shared.

Following the release of Picso 1.0, ABLAR Company plans to release Picso 2.0 in mid-September which will offer social rewards to customers through business campaigns.

A Korean and English version of Picso has been released and is available on both iOS and Android. To download the app, check out Picso’s website.

[#M_ Click here to view the original article in Korean. | Hide | 아블라컴퍼니의 행보가 심상치 않다. 최근 ‘예약왕 포잉’을 런칭한데 이어 인증샷 전용 스마트폰 어플리케이션 ‘픽쏘(PICSO)‘를 출시한다고 밝혔다. ‘픽쏘(PICSO)’를 개발한 아블라컴퍼니의 노정석 대표는 “일상을 조금 더 편리하고 재미있게 공유할 수 있는 스마트폰 사진 어플리케이션을 만들어 보고 싶어 논의하던 중 ‘인증샷’ 문화에 주목하게 되었다”며, “소셜 커뮤니케이션이 점점 중요해지는 만큼 픽쏘(PICSO)가 개인 사용자는 물론 기업의 소셜 캠페인 도구로 널리 확산될 것으로 기대한다”고 밝혔다.

“대박! 회사 앞에 무한도전팀 등장!” “정말? 인증샷 올려!”

인증샷이란 인터넷 상에서 글만 올리면 사실인지 알 수 없으니 사진을 찍어 올려 사실을 증명하기 위해 만들어진 문화다. 게시판에서 탄생한 인터넷 문화가 생활 속 깊숙히 파고 들어 국민 문화로 자리 잡아 가고 있다. 아블라컴퍼니는 이 현상에 주목하여 픽쏘를 개발하기에 이르렀다.
 
Gamification이 적용된 Vertical SNS?

픽쏘는 인증샷을 매개체로 사용자 간의 네트워크 활동이 일어난다. 예를 들어, 사용자가 인증 받고 싶은 사진을 픽쏘를 통해 공개하면 친구들이 ‘인정’ 혹은 ‘무효’ 버튼을 눌러 인증하고 마크를 부여해 주게 된다. 인정을 받으면 +1, 무효를 받으면 -1로 계산해 +5점이면 ‘인정’, +15점이면 ‘완전 인정’, +30점이면 ‘무한 인정’ 마크를 받는다. 반대로 -5점이면 ‘무효’, -15점이면 ‘완전 무효’ 마크를 받는 식이다. 많은 사람들에게 공유하는 사진인만큼 특정한 부위를 모자이크 처리할 수 있는 기능, 셀카 촬영 모드, 다양한 사진 처리 필터 등 인증샷 촬영에 최적화된 기능을 제공한다.

_M#]