Communication has always been an integral part of technology, and a muse for continued innovation. It helps people connect and break down barriers regardless of the distance between them, whether they went to the same event or even if they don’t speak the same language. But there are still major steps we need to take, and the inspiration can come from surprising places.
I was at a rock concert in 2009 and watched as masses of people took out their smartphones to capture the event. My sister texted me and said she wished she could be there as well—so I sent her a photo. That was the eureka moment. Social platforms could connect people on multiple levels across the globe if we created a platform that allowed people to see the world through the eyes of others. A simple way of bringing people together through visual content would enable anyone and everyone to literally have eyes around the world. That’s when the idea of mobli was born.
Mobli succeeds because we identified a gap in the industry and created a product with that specific niche in mind. We stepped in to bridge communication worldwide; to extend what we see and do on a daily basis; and to create a place to interact with the friends you already have and to meet the friends you have not met yet. With mobli, you are not limited to your social eco-system— by following not only people, but rather interests and locations, mobli has become not just a photo sharing app but rather a platform to provide data for visual search.
Forecasting the Future
The trend of the future, I feel, will be to enhance digital conversations by infusing them with the core elements that make our offline interactions unique and authentic. We are seeing a growing trend of communication tools that attempt to mimic some of the most important elements of good, old-fashioned face-to-face conversations. Combining old fashion communication methods with modern day technology.
We are moving away from the need to store every conversation, text or image we send, and we are embracing messaging apps like MIRAGE that disappear after the message has been viewed. These apps present an opportunity to bring the honesty and passion of a normal conversation to the digital world. We don’t need to think about every word, we don’t need to take dozens of Selfies until our picture looks perfect – we can be ourselves and live in the moment.
New apps are bringing us a new sense of digital authenticity in other ways as well. The wildly successful launch of a monosyllabic messaging tool like Yo didn’t look to dumb down our conversations; instead, it looked for a way to digitize the simple interactions that often drive our offline interactions. The head nod, wave, wink, smile and myriad other gestures aren’t dumbed down conversations – they’re simply other means of communicating. The more we can bring these offline mainstays into the digital world, the more we can offer the type of real interactions users are increasingly seeking.
Digital communication is becoming more and more fragmented and the startups, developers and mobile giants of the future are going to succeed not just because they can give us a digital lifestyle we can’t find offline, but because they can channel the beauties of the offline world into our digital lifestyle.
Moshe Hogeg, the CEO and Founder of Mobli Media Inc., founded mobli in 2011, which has now over 60 employees and is expected to reach 80 by the end of 2014. As Mobli Media’s chief executive officer, Moshe is responsible for leading mobli’s technology strategy and global expansion plan, as well as driving investors’ relations and strategic alliances. In November 2013 the company has completed its second round of investment reaching a total capital of $89M. Moshe is also co-founder of Yo and co-founder of Genesis Angels VC and is a member of the board of directors at Infinity Augmented Reality Inc.