Every two years, betaworks brings in brand new entrepreneurs and helps them bake up a new batch of products and services. In 2013, those companies included Giphy, Dots, and Poncho. Now the startup studio is ready to introduce its first new product of the 2015 batch.
World, meet Glitter!
Glitter is a personal trading cards app, which lets users create mobile, tradable cards that feature all types of ‘ingredients,’ as the company calls it. That may include regular text, links to social accounts (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat), images, gifs, links and other contact information like phone number and email.
While we have a number of different profiles on the web, from our social accounts to LinkedIn even to About.me, there is no profile built specifically for mobile.
With Glitter, you can make any number of cards (perhaps one with your phone number and email for closer buddies, one with social accounts to build your brand, and one full of gifs just to make people laugh) and send them to whomever you choose.
There is no main feed of cards, but rather users can share these cards via links on iMessage, email, or to other social networks. Links and social media accounts are all clickable on the cards.
If you have the Glitter app, the link opens directly inside the app and lets you ‘collect’ that card. If not, you can still save the card as an image.
Christian Rocha, Glitter co-founder, explained that using Glitter and collecting cards should feel like collecting a little piece of your friends to take around with you. Since these cards represent just a tiny fraction of someone’s personality, the more of their cards that you can collect, the more pieces of them you can have with you.
The team behind Glitter was very explicit about the fact that Glitter is meant to be a consumer-facing app, which may explain the name Glitter. That said, “if it evolves into a true business card app, we’d be happy with that, but it’s certainly not the objective,” said Josh Auerbach, partner at betaworks.
In terms of monetization, the team envisions an opportunity to sell in-app purchases with new, more interactive ingredients. Perhaps users can play a little mini-game within someone’s card, or complete a quiz, or send a photo reaction when they’re looking at someone’s card.
However, it’s not necessarily the type of content that it adds to the app, but the speed at which it’s added. There is finite combinations of things that can be placed on a Glitter card (for example, there are currently only three font options for text), and once a user has exhausted those options (or even seen all of those options), it could be easy to abandon the app.
If the Glitter team can continue to add ingredients to the bake shop, users will find new and creative ways to bake up Glitter cards without losing interest. Putting that aside, the app has a strong design with clear functionality and cute little interactions for sharing and rearranging cards.
If you want to check out the app, head over to the website here.
