Harpoen Launches Version 2, Emphasizes on Discovery

Harpoen Ltd. today launches Harpoen 2.0, a significant overhaul of the "digital graffiti" app launched back in March 2012. Eschewing much of the interface of version 1 but still keeping the overall look and theme, Harpoen 2 is the result of a rethinking of how the app is being used by its most active users as well as maintaining the idea behind the app which aims to get people to leave notes, messages, remarks, and memories about particular places.

In Harpoen 2.0 gone are the private messaging feature, the settings sheet, the list of read posts, the vanishing posts, and maybe a few more that we missed. They were removed so the app can return to its core, which is discovery. Harpoen is less of a social network, more of a way to leave your marks at places.

Ever heard the saying, "Take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but memories"? Harpoen is the perfect app to do that. You can leave memories in places that you've been and have others stumble upon them when they use the app near those places. Of course, the app lets you take photos as well and there's an addition to the photo feature in 2.0 too, Aviary.

Since people seem to be enamored by filtered or otherwise edited photos and switching between apps to get the right look for the photo that you want can be a hassle, Harpoen has incorporated the open source photo editor Aviary into the app. Sure, there's a separate Aviary app for iOS but having it built in is a lot more handy. Flickr and Twitter are two of the latest high profile mobile apps to include Aviary components into their respective apps.

Because this is an app to leave your mark, your digital mark to be precise, you shouldn't expect much of a privacy, after all, the idea is to leave things for other people to discover, but there is a way to leave notes or photos anonymously which is thankfully carried over from the previous version. Just tap at your name on top of the screen when you're composing a post and it will switch to anonymous posting.

The new version did away with character limit unless the post is being shared to Twitter. In other words, there's no longer a limit to how many words or characters you can post but if the post is being shared to Twitter, a character count appears warning you if you're reaching Twitter's 140 character limit. Unlike apps like Path or Foursquare, Harpoen does not offer a web view (at least not yet) so there are no links on posts shared to Twitter.

You still have to log in via Facebook though. Primarily this is to streamline the sign up process and to keep people from being confused when being offered multiple ways to log in and having to remember which service or account to use when logging in. Scratch that. Turns out you can log in using Twitter in version 2.

Visiting the Harpoen hive in Menteng, Central Jakarta recently, co-founder J.P Ellis shared a story about how taxi drivers in Anchorage, Alaska, are using the app to leave notes for each other. In Jakarta, there are notes left around town for wifi access in public places that are free but require passwords to use, some of which may no longer be valid as certain places change their passwords every now and then.

Search is a big part of what makes Harpoen a useful app. People can search for keywords, save them and be alerted whenever any of them pop up in the vicinity. Because Harpoen isn't about what's new, notes from months or even years ago will show up. After all, it's about discovering what other people have discovered, and what happened earlier.

One major aspect of the app that got the co-founders; JP Ellis, Agatha Ellis, and Ty Kroll, excited is the ability to inject historical records into the network. They are currently in the process of inserting historical facts around Jakarta so people can learn more about the city and about what happened in the past.This city has seen more than its fair share of major events and history buffs will no doubt find this app a useful tool to raise awareness of that fact.

Who wouldn't want to know what Bundaran HI look like 20 or even 50 years ago? What did Menteng look like when a young Barack Obama was still living in the area? How was Jakarta's traffic back in the early 1900s? Wouldn't you like to know?

While the app is currently available only on iOS, an Android version is being developed which should be released soon and it will be the 2.0 version of the app. The team has also produced a brand new video showing off the latest version of the app which is also available on its redesigned site.