With all the focus on real-time information sharing, the next step in digital will be curating all of that content. And while companies from Google to Facebook are trying to get a handle on broadly organizing real-time information, one company is going niche and trying to corner the market on digital and real-time event sharing.
That company is Hot Potato, a service that connects people around live events in real time.
Hot Potato is betting that consumers will put a premium on having all of their event information in one place. The company is still in beta and has focused so far on its iPhone app and a soft digital launch, but Hot Potato raised $1.4 million in funding this fall and is set to launch a new suite of features in the next few weeks. The company has also earned praise from all the right places. (The New York Times calls Hot Potato a “promising solution,” while The Business Insider when so far as to dub Hot Potato “the next Twitter“).
Only time will tell if Hot Potato’s approach to digital event coverage catches on, but there’s certainly a lot of potential there. I caught up with the company’s CEO, Justin Shaffer, to talk about event sharing, Twitter’s failings for event organizers and where this all gets interesting for brands.