Whenever I’m giving a workshop on fun mobile photography apps, Seene is always at the top of my list, but today I learned that Seene has quietly been acquired by Snapchat. The deal actually makes a lot of since for both parties… Snapchat’s bizarre filters could get even weirder with Seene’s 3D mapping technology and Seene never really managed to get a critical mass of users to keep itself sustainable.
These news articles keep referring to Seene as a “selfie app”, but it’s face scanning mode is a relatively new addition to the app. It’s cool, but not all that useful. Plus it never really worked with my glasses on… The real great use for Seene was for having a unusual way to capture landscapes, architecture, or even food. Adding a slight element of depth to an otherwise static photo really made the image pop.
Aside from the 3D tech, the app was also built around a community aspect. Sort of like an Instagram for 3D images. Within the app, images could be viewed by moving your phone around to get a feel for the depth of the image. Though the community never really took off, it was a very close knit and supportive group of users at it’s core. Though my images went up in my Seene timeline, most of the time I would just export them as a 15 second looping video that I’d share on IG, Twitter or wherever.
For me, Seene was a great tool for creating unique images and I have a feeling that Snapchat is not going to maintain it for long. My hunch is they’ll shutter the app within the next three months and just use their face scanning tech within the existing Snapchat app. So my suggestion is to download Seene right now (for iOS or Android) and give it a try. Hopefully if the app does get shuttered, the 3D image capturing tech will continue to work.
