Imagine this: We want to go out for drinks with friends, but please let’s go somewhere nice. There should be an atmosphere but you can be relaxed. How do we know before we walk in and walk through the door? You might think, I wish there was an app that would let us see what the inside of a bar is like and let us know if we should go or not. Like Google Maps telling us when a place is more or less busy but has the same atmosphere as the inside of a bar. That would be a great idea.

There is one in San Francisco.

And that’s not such a good idea.

2nightsThat’s the name of this app, which launched earlier this year and is described on its website as “an all-in-one app for managing, promoting and discovering nightlife.” The company has set up a network of cameras (between five and eight, according to a local newspaper) in different parts of San Francisco and allows live access to their footage via an app.

Screenshot of 2Nite’s Instagram profile

Idea. It’s less about people having a beer at a bar (there are better programs on streaming platforms), and more about locals promoting their events. For example, let’s say a bar has a live DJ session. You can broadcast it through the app to get the word out and get people interested. That’s the case with Club Cali in Berkeley, which has a live stream every Friday and Saturday.

Venues decide when to turn the cameras on and off, and as co-founder Lucas Harris explains: “They’re primarily intended to provide coverage of live shows in bars, clubs and other venues.” According to Harris, there are already 3,000 people using the platform, with another 300 being repeat users. For now, everything is free.

Sorry for Party rocking. Perhaps most veterans remember an app called SceneTap. Back in 2012, this app aimed to offer something similar, while also letting you know the male/female ratio and average age. It ended up being average. Some of 2Nite’s critics believe it offers a similar invasion of privacy.

After all, why would someone calmly (or not so calmly) drinking in a restaurant have to go live online for everyone in the world to see? The problem is that, on the one hand, it’s an invasion of user privacy, but it can also be a source of publicity for venues and bars. In any case, it didn’t take long for criticism to reach the app’s social networks.

Harris’s viewAs Harris explained in interviews with The San Francisco Standard, “I still believe that you don’t go to a bar or a club looking for intimacy.” […] You’re surrounded by strangers.” Anyone who’s played Assassin’s Creed knows that the best way to camouflage yourself is to blend in with the crowd, but 2Nite took precautions anyway.

Turbid flows. Faced with this situation, 2Nite decided to blur the image of streams to the point where people’s faces are indistinguishable. For adults, the goal is to only blur the faces of the audience so that the artists playing in the venues can be seen.

There are positive opinionsThe idea of ​​the app is not bad in itself, but its implementation requires some compromises in terms of privacy. However, some venues consulted by the American media assure that the idea is good because it can promote the venues and the bands that play there.

Image | Pexels

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