Niantic announces new social media platform called Campfire
During the Niantic Lightship event in San Francisco, CA on May 24th, 2022, Niantic announced the release of the Lightship Visual System for developers to anchor AR content on real-life objects along with a social application, Campfire.
Building a new type of map
Lightship Visual System helps developers to unlock immersive AR experiences by localizing the user’s position and anchoring AR content with centimetre-level precision.
According to the press release, Niantic has been collecting short video snippets, also known as scans, of the real-world locations from its developers, surveyors and players to create rich 3D maps. This data was then processed into a detailed AR map of the world.
People can head to Niantic’s wayspots, which can be a landmark or a park or even a local businesses. Once the users point their smartphone camera within the VPS activated location they will get to experience the AR content.
Campfire: A hyper-local social networking platform
On top of Lightship VPS, Niantic unveiled its own messaging solution for its users, especially PokemonGO players. According to Niantic, Campfire is the homepage of the real metaverse where players can organize events, discover new players in their local area, message one another and share content.
The campfire is live in Ingress, Niantic’s first AR game and will be launching across all of the other Niantic titles such as Pokemon Go, Pikmin Bloom and the upcoming Transformers: Heavy Metal and Peridot games.
How does Campfire work?
According to an article by Pockettactics.com, Campfire works as a social media platform linked to a user’s Niantic account and apps that utilize it, such as Pokemon Go, allowing users to see other participants.
Niantic says the app starts with a map and adds people, events, communities, and messaging. It looks similar to Snapchat Maps, which allows snap users to upload location-based stories onto the maps so that it’s viewable to their friends.
Although the company hasn’t revealed any information regarding its features, it surely eliminates the need for Niantic users to rely on third-party communication platforms like Discord to connect with one another and organize meet-ups.
CEO John Hanke said in a keynote speech at Niantic’s Lightship summit, “We’re giving them a platform to better conduct their activities and for players to find these groups. Basically, just providing some tools to make all this smoother and easier for these users.”
