On stage at the LAUNCH Festival, one of the judges told Masha and I that while Momunt was “interesting,” he wasn’t sure if there was any proof that people wanted to see pictures of places.

I didn’t have a good response. I said “post cards.” Pretty weak.

For obvious reasons, that topic has been on my mind since the pitch. There are two distinct places to cover. The user’s current place, and other random places all over the world.

The reality is - we don’t know if people will attach to photos from a location graph like they attach to photos from friends. But here are some reasons why we’re true believers.

Photos around your location.

Parties/Concerts

How many of us have woken up after a great night out and wished we had all of the photos from the night before. Facebook was the first time I experienced seeing photos from friends the night after fun. Instagram has now taken over that responsibility in my social circle. But it’s not instantaneous. And when friends want to share multiple photos they generally end up on a group text/email chain.

With Momunt, all of the photos being shared at the party are instantly added to your local feed. The ability to take photos within the app makes it even simpler to add multiple images without worrying about bothering those Instagram followers.

Mystery Skulls: http://www.momunt.com/i0AxIf9397

Family Events

See above. Replace going out with friends with hanging out with your family on Christmas or Thanksgiving. Also, enjoy this…

Discovery

Early on during the development of Momunt we realized that the app helped us find food when walking through a city. I even wrote a blog post about this surprise feature. We refer to it as “Reverse Yelp.” Instead of searching for places around you and looking at the pictures to see if it’s worth a trip — Momunt skips right to the photos. If the food, bar, or venue nearby looks cool — tap the photo to see where it’s located. Stroll on over.

Photos from around the world

Momunt started as an app solely dedicated to the photos around you. It evolved to include the whole world because it was by FAR the most requested feature amongst our initial beta users. Seeing that the photos nearby were sometimes interesting, sometimes boring — users yearned to check out places that might be a little more exciting.

News

The first experience we had with the potential power of sourcing photos from anywhere in the world was when the protests in Ferguson took place. Race is a really difficult issue to discuss and because of that, news coverage is often heavily skewed. We found that pulling up the momunt from the protests gave a very interesting perspective. There is no text — no memes- simply pictures from people LIVING the experience. It was real, personal, intimate and unlike anything we’d ever consumed from the news. We’ve been warned about using touchy subjects to market our product, which is definitely understandable, but we see Momunt as an information curator and distributor. We’re simply looking to share data.

Momunt from Ferguson: http://www.momunt.com/qM8E5bnVIY

Sports

Sports are LIVE by nature. They happen at a place and a time. And people love to consume them. They are a fantastic example of how to use Momunt. My father (complete non-techy and way too honest to ever coddle his son) is a huge Patriots fan, and used the app as a second screen while he watched the playoffs. We’ve heard many times — “it’s kinda like being there.”

Super Bowl: http://www.momunt.com/aKstpBQibs

Travel

The first request we ever got from a user was the ability to “follow places” that he loved. Specifically, he wanted to follow where he spent his summer vacations. It turns out that winters in New England are cold — and lusting for warm summer weather is a common pastime. We all have places we wish we could go, Momunt gives us a little peak into what’s going on there.

I, on the other hand, have been reminiscing about a recent trip to India with virtual travel to the Taj Mahal.

Taj Mahal: http://www.momunt.com/alpha/BGtJp4F394

LOVE FROM TEAM MOMUNT!