Is it loud in here, or is it just me? If apps had voices, they’d be shouting. Shouting about location. Shouting about ideas. Shouting about photos. I’m all for rocking out, but maybe we can turn down the volume just a bit?

Don’t get me wrong – I love what’s going on in the mobile app space. Today’s social apps are doing something really fascinating. By allowing people to interact with those around them (even those they don’t know), apps are helping people make the public sphere more personal. Privacy concerns aside, it’s hard to argue with this noble goal.

I would gently suggest, however, that this achievement – making the public space more intimate – can be accomplished with a little less shouting. When we’re talking about building new relationships, shouting is important – if you don’t know who you want to connect with, you have to broadcast to everyone. Hence Color and Yobongo apply the share-first, think-later approach. When we’re talking about maintaining existing relationships, however, a whisper might well suffice.

My point is based on a belief that we all share, in connection with the people close to us, a deeply personal understanding of the physical space around us. The bar you went to on your first date with your fiancée means something to the both of you; and it probably also means something similar, by reference, to your friends (who fondly think of you when they go to that bar). These feelings – call them location-based sentiments – are very powerful and permeate our daily experience of the space around us.

Without a doubt, we can greatly benefit from apps that help us preserve, re-experience, and share these unique location-based sentiments. But we don’t need to shout to do so. In other words, we don’t need to reach out to everyone in the public space to accomplish this preservation. Quite the opposite – we just need to touch those people who share these location-based sentiments with us. That's what Litr is all about - and what I mean by a whisper. Or, if you like it better, “quiet social.” 

This isn’t to say that shouting doesn’t have its place. It definitely does. But we can’t shout all the time. If we focus exclusively on creating new relationships and sentiments, we’ll risk losing the extremely valuable relationships and sentiments we already have.

Let’s give whispering a chance folks.

So, in the spirit of what we pretentiously are calling “stealth mode” and not disclosing what our app does until it actually does it, I thought I'd write a post on what it's not. Over the past few months, we've seen an absolute blizzard of group texting applications, many of which “leverage” location. From GroupMe to Beluga to Fast Society (my favorite...by far), there's now no shortage of slick apps that will let you coordinate meetups and converse with select groups of friends. I think Fast Society's product most clearly communicates a prototypical use case of these services:

• (a) form a team of friends you want to, or have planned to, meet up with
• (b) share your current location with them and/or another place you'd like to go/meet up
• (c) share photos with them to convince them to meet you there and
• (d) all the while keep up an instant messaging chat with the team.

Pretty cool - no doubt. I mean I'm a user. It's just not at all what Litr is about.

Litr is not a group texting or messaging application. It's not going to be what you use to coordinate meetups with groups of friends or to instant message with them. It's also not going to be another checkin service, although it will enable people like me who checkin on third party services (FourSquare, Facebook Places, etc.) to do some pretty cool things with and for their friends.

Whether in the context of group messaging or checkins, Litr is not about sharing your location. It's about the subtle (and not so subtle) ways that location can add meaning to a message or a gift. It's about leaving [virtual] things of idiosyncratic and/or economic value at locations for your friends, and the fun ways that doing so becomes kind of a game (little bit Marco Polo / little bit surprise party).

Sadly, I've already said too much. My filter's all compromised by enthusiasm and chocolate milk. I gotta check myself clearly. Until later, folks.

Hello there! Thanks for taking some time out of your busy day to check out Litr. We're very excited about our app, and we're even more excited that you're interested too.

What is Litr? Good question. (Hint: It's not a crumpled piece of paper). Litr is a new way to interact with people and places. No, it's not another social networking site or microblogging utility. It's a simple, quick, easy, and fun way to privately interact with the people who mean the most to you by leaving virtual content for them at real-life locations. It's a little bit game, a little bit serious business, and a whole lot of fun. 

If we've been a bit vague, forgive us. We'll reveal everything in a matter of weeks. And we sincerely hope that you'll be among the first to enjoy the Litr experience.

In the meantime, keep an eye out for an email from us when we launch. And definitely check back here, if you have time.