Picture of a fallen tree taken by multiple onlookers during Hurricane Sandy and processed by CrowdOptic
CrowdOptic, a Silicon Valley start-up company is harvesting social media pictures metadata (essentially location, time stamp and compass reading) to build heatmaps of people taking pictures of the same things at the same time (or different time) and same place.
The technology developed by CrowdOptic is subjecting native GPS/GNSS and compass readings to proprietary triangulation and algorithms to understand when and where smartphones are aimed. This is accomplished in real-time or post-processed after the event.
During events like the Olympics Games or Hurricane Sandy CowdOptic’s technology - in a matter of seconds - can identify pictures and location that are drawing the attention of the crowd.
"There is enormous potential for citizen reporting during an ongoing crisis such as Hurricane Sandy, yet up until now, the sheer volume of photo and video content contributed by the public, coupled with the unverified status of most of it, has limited the ability of publishers, broadcasters and enterprises to truly tap into it," said CrowdOptic CEO Jon Fisher.
The technology developed by CrowdOptic is subjecting native GPS/GNSS and compass readings to proprietary triangulation and algorithms to understand when and where smartphones are aimed. This is accomplished in real-time or post-processed after the event.
During events like the Olympics Games or Hurricane Sandy CowdOptic’s technology - in a matter of seconds - can identify pictures and location that are drawing the attention of the crowd.
"There is enormous potential for citizen reporting during an ongoing crisis such as Hurricane Sandy, yet up until now, the sheer volume of photo and video content contributed by the public, coupled with the unverified status of most of it, has limited the ability of publishers, broadcasters and enterprises to truly tap into it," said CrowdOptic CEO Jon Fisher.
Jon Fisher
Jon Fisher
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"With our technology, it is now possible to instantly hone in on the locations that are drawing heat from the public, where a cluster of focus has happened, and automatically catalog --even rebroadcast-- authenticated images of these locations. CrowdOptic technology can identify clusters both in real time or after the fact by analyzing large image repositories, as our analysis of Hurricane Sandy historical photo archives has demonstrated."
Building on this technology the start-up has already built a photo curation product for enterprise that can be used by events and media companies for example to determine the most interesting pictures taken by visitors to live events or develop related crowd analysis systems.
The company was founded by Jon Fisher, a former CEO of of Bharosa, a company sold to Oracle in 2007 which technology became Oracle's Adaptive Access Manager product.
CrowdOptic started in August 2010 and has been in production since August 2011 on approximately $3m funding including Silicon Valley Bank.
Building on this technology the start-up has already built a photo curation product for enterprise that can be used by events and media companies for example to determine the most interesting pictures taken by visitors to live events or develop related crowd analysis systems.
The company was founded by Jon Fisher, a former CEO of of Bharosa, a company sold to Oracle in 2007 which technology became Oracle's Adaptive Access Manager product.
CrowdOptic started in August 2010 and has been in production since August 2011 on approximately $3m funding including Silicon Valley Bank.
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