Olapic's service allows organizations to quickly and easily enable fans, readers or other types of audiences to submit photos of their own experiences at a game or event. Members of a crowd use social networks to submit their photos to the larger organization. The photos are then automatically collected on a subdomain and published after a moderator approves them. No new site, no new laborious curation process.
After launching in June by running a crowdsourcing campaign with the New York Daily News for the city's gay pride parade, Olapic has found a niche with sports teams. It has since partnered with the New York Giants, Baltimore Ravens and Indianapolis Colts of the NFL; the NBA's Dallas Mavericks; and international soccer powerhouse FC Barcelona. Olapic is also running a new contest with the Giants for Super Bowl XLVI.
"Everyone has a camera now and everyone is taking pictures, so what we're trying to do is help these sports teams and brands leverage those photos in a new way," Olapic co-founder Jose de Cabo said in an interview. "We want to help replicate that warm, fuzzy feeling people get again and again."
Crowdsourcing photos isn't a new idea, but Olapic makes it exceptionally easy to do so. Photographers snap a shot and upload it to a page of the team's website or -- easier yet -- tweet it to the team's Twitter handle. Tweeted photos are automatically sent to the corresponding team page, then go live after a moderator approves, which they can do in batches. When the submission is published, the photographer gets an automated tweet back letting them know.
Teams have so far used the service to run a variety of promotions, often for prizes like gear or tickets. The Mavericks told fans to imitate their star player's signature move, and FC Barcelona asked fans to submit supportive photos when their star suffered an injury.
The Ravens ran a contest in which they painted a series of golden logos around the Baltimore area. Fans who found and submitted a picture of themselves with the hidden emblem were entered in a drawing for free tickets to the AFC Championship game last month.
Dave Lang, the Ravens' digital media manager, said that the team ran a similar contest last year but received about four times as many submissions after adopting Olapic's solution. Lang also said that several fans were so excited to see their photos on the Ravens' official site that they would then capture screenshots to post to their own Facebook or Twitter pages.
While Olapic can be used for a variety of purposes, the marriage between social photo sharing and sports seems especially strong.