Every year at SXSW, a new social media platform becomes the darling of the hipster/techie set. This year, the app blowing up in Austin is Highlight, a location-based social media friend finder. Think of it like Grindr, but without the inherent gay dating aspect. Or like Blendr, except without the ick factor of every media outlet referring to it as the “straight Grindr.”
The concept is pretty basic — you link in with your other social media networks and enter in your likes and dislikes. Highlight tells you if people you know are around you, or if people who are “friends” with people you know are around you or if there happens to be someone else at the bar who is really into bass fishing. This app is cool because it blurs the lines between social media and reality.
On the other hand, it also blurs the lines between social media and reality. As in, not only does some random jerk spamming a friend of yours know where you are, they also know what you look like, and can continue to follow you until you turn the app off. This is potentially a bad horror script waiting to happen. I’m thinking starring Donald Glover from Community trying to take a serious turn — he can start off all sweet and charming, then shift to that dead-eyed stare.
This is also a really cool app to use at something like SXSW, where people who may at best know each other from online profiles are gathering from all over the world, only to leave a week later. I can imagine some potentially cool uses for Highlight at a venue like Comic Con — for instance, a video game publisher could have their game’s fans list the game as an interest, allowing attendees to figure out who likes Mortal Fighter XXIXVX, as opposed to who’s there for the Hunger Games panel. Or at a job fair, hunters and seekers can put down various skills and find each other in the crowd. However, when you’re at home, and you have the potential for actually seeing people again… that could be weird.
Android users currently don’t have to worry about the potential weirdness, as the app is iOS only.
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