What is Snaps?

Snaps is a web application for sharing full-resolution, event-based photos and videos.

Why are we Building Snaps?

We created Snaps because we wanted something with the power and flexibility of popular social media sites, but with real privacy controls and room to add specialized features for organizing, viewing, and contextualizing our content.

We never felt comfortable posting pictures and movies from our kid's birthday parties on other platforms -- who are notorious for selling private user data.

Even with private profiles on other platforms, we felt the need to post only a highly-curated set of content. We are tired of living for "likes" and only presenting our most-polished selves. We want to share our real moments, as raw as they are sometimes, with our friends and families.

From Our CTO

My wife and I have a young daughter. She has lots of playmates around our neighborhood. Nearly every day, they meet up to play, swim, and share snacks.

Whenever there's an occasion, we like to have get togethers with other families in our neighborhood: birthdays, Halloween, Easter, Cinco de Mayo, or any other excuse we can come up with really.

Every one loves to take pics of their kids. But sharing the photos between families, some people on iPhones, some on Androids, was cumbersome and inelegant, especially without knowing everyone's contact info or socials.

Why Events?

Most of the photo (and video) albums we create are centered around specific events, such as birthdays, holidays, or vacations.

But, we found that sharing photos with this type of organization isn't always easy and collaborating between even two people can feel like a real pain.

Besides intimate events with friends and family, we're also interested in how content is shared for less intimate events like workshops, corporate events, meetups, conventions, art exhibits, concerts and festivals.

With these types of events, a lot of photos and videos are taken, but we suspect far fewer are shared, especially between strangers. While sharing always brings up a number of challenges, there are many things we can do to make sharing content safe and easy.

Snaps Evolution / What's Next?

Snaps started as a web app, with just photos and semi-private events. We prototyped it and used it with friends and family in February/March, 2024. We added video support, more privacy controls, and lots of other features and improvements.

To be sustainable, we need Snaps to appeal to a broad base of people and to be compelling for repeat use. We think this means:

There are many other features we'd love to build into Snaps over time as well. For example: media editing, slideshows, creating non-media posts (with text, maps, links, polls, and other types of interactive elements), and supporting everyday (non-event) media sharing use cases as well.

Our Loftier Goals

We want Snaps to be the go-to app for all types of events, from small, private gatherings to gigantic multi-day music festivals.

We think sharing media and other posts, comments and discussions, and information on a common platform that also supports RSVPing / ticketing, invites, and reminders will be compelling for event hosts and promoters, for people looking for things to do, and for those wanting to reengage the memories of previous events.

And, we think having privacy, moderation support, and other usage safety features, on a platform that won't sell your data, is valuable across events of all types and sizes.

How to Get Started

If you have an event coming up, create a Snaps Event. Share the Snaps Event Code with whoever you want. Edit the event settings to change the name, provide details, and to change what different people can do.

If you have previous events that you have photos and videos for, create Snaps Events for those too. You can contextualize them with date and time information and anything else you like and share with exactly the people you want.

If you want to share with people at an event where you might not know everyone's contact info, consider printing out your Snaps Event QR Code. You can hand out QR code cards to individuals or have larger, centrally placed print outs. We provide a few convenient printable options for you.

And if you love Snaps, please spread the word.