Augmented Reality Meets Storytelling


Cliff Clavin watch out! A new app called Tagwhat is putting a virtual layer of stories on the physical world.

Recently unveiled at Brickyard 400 in Indianapolis, Tagwhat users can share a plethora of “little known facts” with friends and family as they travel the country. You can search stories by a variety of channels such as movies, sports, music and history. The app also includes a cool feature where you can email a photo postcard of yourself from a designated location along with a story. A great way to assemble a scrapbook from a trip.

A recent Mashable post points out a couple of the pitfalls that also came to my mind including the fact that it likely will take awhile for Tagwhat to gather enough stories, in enough locations, to make the app worthwhile. For example, as I sit here testing it out in my kitchen, it’s letting me know that the 1970s movie Airport with Burt Lancaster was filmed at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport and that Mallrats was filmed down the road at Eden Prairie Center. It also lets me know that Target Field is the home of the Twins. (I’ve been wondering why there is so much more traffic by the office these days!)

While those facts aren’t all that compelling, I’m not all that surprised that they haven’t populated Minnetonka, Minn. with a ton of data yet. While I wait for the database to build, I can virtually visit interesting cities such as New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Boulder.

I like the idea of accessing real-time information specific to my location rather than having to research it before or after. What do you think? Would you give it try?