Have you ever looked at a photograph of a captivating figure, with vivid detail and exotic settings, and thought to yourself ‘If this person could talk, what would they say?’ That’s the question that the people at Fotobabble asked themselves before creating their innovative application that allows you to upload an accompanying audio message to your photos, effectively creating a sort of digital scrapbook.

The idea of attaching text to photos is as old as photography itself; however text can never fully capture cadence, tone and sincerity, all things that add value to the viewer’s experience. The benefits that such an application can bring to the personal consumer market should be self evident. You can share memories and experiences with family and friends, framing the message and tone of your pictures in ways that text can never do. With Fotobabble, your pictures can tell your story the way you remember it.

However, Fotobabble has set their sights much higher than on the personal user/ sentimental market.  Fotobabble believes it can also be used to better frame the message of brands and companies, public personalities and celebrities. Imagine logging onto a major organizations page and having their slogan actually talk to you. Customers are used to seeing the ‘Face’ of a company, but now they can hear the ‘Voice’ as well. The same goes for celebrities and public personalities, or pretty much anyone who wants to tell a story through their pictures, but in their own words. Even the journalism industry could theoretically adopt such an application, replacing dry captions with vibrant monologue and further framing the tone of the news.

The possibilities are many. For starters though, Fotobabble is teaming up with iVillage, the popular women’s social media community, to launch two promising campaigns. The first targets the personal/ sentimental market, asking woman to upload pictures with a theme focusing on beauty, fashion and confidence, hitting at the heart of iVillage’s members’ interests.  The second campaign is building on the personal /sentimental market as a foothold to break into the celebrity market. This ‘All Star Moms’ campaign asks mothers of celebrities to upload images with Fotobabble , discussing advice, tips and even recipes that helped them turn their kids into the stars they are today.

In the microsite for their campaign, visitors can see and hear the motherly advice of such celebrity moms as Robin Paul, mother of NBA sensation Chris Paul, as well as the mother of late night funnyman, Jimmy Fallon, and pro skateboarder Ryan Scheckler.

Sometimes there is a fine line between a good idea and a realistic one that will actually catch on. With high profile moms eager to pitch in for the ‘All Star Moms’ campaign, the evidence seems to indicate that Fotobabble is on the right track.

What I think is really great about this sort of application is that you never really know how far it can go, and where it might pop up next…

“Can I see your license and registration please?” “Certainly officer, but please don’t click on the picture, I was drunk when I recorded it.”