Watching Seattle Is Dying reminded me of an app that Dave Remer, owner/creative director of remerinc and a member of the MARKETING IMMORTALS pantheon, first developed several years ago for family and friends. It’s called iWitness—a personal-safety app that’s certainly appropriate for everyone, but all the more so for people navigating Seattle’s increasingly treacherous street life today. I came to find out, coincidentally, that Dave is about to launch the app for general distribution. Here was his update:
“iWitness was born of two forces—the ubiquity of smartphones combined with the desire to keep yourself and those you love safe. The idea is really quite simple. Anytime you’re walking in an area that’s sketchy or unknown to you, the iWitness app records video and audio of your surroundings to the cloud. So, if anyone bothers you, evidence against them already has been collected and is stored where they can’t erase it.”
“I think of iWitness like I do a seatbelt. it’s an easy-to-use, common sense way to stay safer in places where the likelihood of being bothered by someone is heightened. As a husband, father and grandfather, I have a strong interest in protecting the people I love… and I’m certainly not alone in that. After much refining and testing, I truly believe iWitness will save lives and that’s why I want to make it available on a broader scale.”
If you’d like to learn more about it, visit iwitness.com, the Apple App Store or Google Play.
—Larry Coffman