From PC Magazine;
A Better Use for Camera Phones
By Lance Ulanoff
March 24, 2004
Kaplan (Philip J. Kaplan, the guy behind F***ed Company, studied at S.U. in the 90s) greeted me at his Manhattan loft (which doubles as his office) in bare feet, an open collared shirt, and jeans. He initially comes across as shy—almost quiet. He did, however, grow increasingly animated as he talked about his various ventures. I dropped by to discuss his newest enterprise, Mobog, which is more or less a traveling Web cam site. Once again Kaplan seems poised to tap into the seemingly ephemeral zeitgeist of the Web and new technology. It's such a simple and smart concept that you have to wonder why mobile phone and Internet industries didn't come up with it first. Let's face it, camera phones have been around for a couple of years already.
The genius of Mobog is that it allows anyone with a camera phone to take pictures wherever they are or whatever they're doing, mail them to pics@mobog.com using their phone, and have them appear on the Mobog home page minutes later. Visitors to the site can comment on these pictures and if the user registers with the site, the comments are delivered immediately to the cell phone where the picture originated. The registered cell phone owner can then reply to those messages.
Kaplan believes that Mobog is an answer to the question about what folks can do with their camera phones. Mobog, like F**kedCompany, began as a personal project, not a business enterprise. "I just did it for me," Kaplan says. "Originally, I put a thing on Ask Pud [another one of his Web sites] a long time ago where I could just send pictures and they would show up. I wrote a little personal version of [Mobog]. And everybody was like, 'Dude! How do you do that? I have a camera phone and I want to do that!' So I made a site where anybody can do it."
A Better Use for Camera Phones
By Lance Ulanoff
March 24, 2004
Kaplan (Philip J. Kaplan, the guy behind F***ed Company, studied at S.U. in the 90s) greeted me at his Manhattan loft (which doubles as his office) in bare feet, an open collared shirt, and jeans. He initially comes across as shy—almost quiet. He did, however, grow increasingly animated as he talked about his various ventures. I dropped by to discuss his newest enterprise, Mobog, which is more or less a traveling Web cam site. Once again Kaplan seems poised to tap into the seemingly ephemeral zeitgeist of the Web and new technology. It's such a simple and smart concept that you have to wonder why mobile phone and Internet industries didn't come up with it first. Let's face it, camera phones have been around for a couple of years already.
The genius of Mobog is that it allows anyone with a camera phone to take pictures wherever they are or whatever they're doing, mail them to pics@mobog.com using their phone, and have them appear on the Mobog home page minutes later. Visitors to the site can comment on these pictures and if the user registers with the site, the comments are delivered immediately to the cell phone where the picture originated. The registered cell phone owner can then reply to those messages.
Kaplan believes that Mobog is an answer to the question about what folks can do with their camera phones. Mobog, like F**kedCompany, began as a personal project, not a business enterprise. "I just did it for me," Kaplan says. "Originally, I put a thing on Ask Pud [another one of his Web sites] a long time ago where I could just send pictures and they would show up. I wrote a little personal version of [Mobog]. And everybody was like, 'Dude! How do you do that? I have a camera phone and I want to do that!' So I made a site where anybody can do it."
Comments