What is Poparazzi?
Poparazzi’s launched on May 24, and after a brilliant pre-launch strategy, it skyrocketed to the top of the Apple App Store. Here’s it’s description:
Poparazzi is a new photo sharing network where your friends are your paparazzi and you are theirs. Your profile on Poparazzi is created by your friends when they take photos of you. On the flip side, you create your friends’ profiles when you take photos of them.
App Category: Photo & Video
Corporate website: Poparazzi (but not even a secure site – proves how “new” and risky the app is)
APP Store rating:
- 12+ in Apple’s App Store
- Not available for Android yet.
How does Poparazzi work?
- Using the in-app camera, users simply take a quick photo and then tag their friends. The photos are designed to be candid and the app doesn’t allow for any changes, like cropping, adding captions, filters or edits (which is completely different from Instagram and Snapchat).
- A user’s Poparazzi profile is divided between the photos they take of their friends and the ones that are taken of them.
- Profiles show which users most frequently catch them on camera by calling out “Top Poparazzi” (another brilliant engagement feature).
- Tagged photos do not appear on a user’s profile unless the accounts are following each other, BUT the app automatically follows everyone in an individual’s phone book when it is downloaded, which makes this “control” almost useless!
- Users are incentivized to take more pictures by giving them a “pop” score.
- There are many privacy concerns with this app, as TechCrunch recently noted.
The bottom line: Is Poparazzi safe for your kids?
No. The privacy concerns are legit – they don’t need your entire contact list but require it and allowing others to curate your profile, although genius, is just rife with trouble for adolescent brains. Imagine trusting your teen friends with your public image? NOPE.
2 amazing ways to keep tabs on an app like Poparazzi:
- Stay current on the digital landscape by registering to receive our free, weekly Download newsletter.
- Stay current in bite-sized chunks be downloading our Protect App! (Apple here, Google here)
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