Waffle is Samsung’s Collaborative New Social Network

Samsung is getting into social with a collaborative new platform they call Waffle, which rolled out at the annual South by Southwest 2016 event in Austin. Creative interaction is the main vision for Waffle, which makes it easy for users to work together on content they post and develop as a group. The app gets its name from the grid-style appearance of the content wall user see when they log in.

Waffle was just one of new apps released from Samsung’s Creative Lab (dubbed the “C-Lab”), their innovation program to encourage employees to design new products. With Waffle’s ability to draw together the efforts of various creators, the platform could enable brands to tap into a network of different users to collaboratively come up with an influencer marketing campaign.

Waffle functions a bit like in-network Live Stories in Snapchat, where input from various sources are curated into an experience that relates to a subject. Samsung’s Newsroom provides the following example, “A travel enthusiast might start a feed with a photograph taken on her latest trip to Tokyo. Then, others might add a digital doodle of a sumo wrestler, a quote about traveling or an image of some beautifully plated sushi.” The big difference here is the free flow method by which Waffle users make their contributions within their network of friends, as opposed to Snapchat managing the way content is woven together from a broader set of people in a region or all of whom have the same interest in the Story’s subject.

Another quirk of the platform is the way content is presented in the waffle grid. Without additional contributions, content might seem unfinished. That could actually encourage collaboration to complete 4×4 or 3×3 grids of content that a friend created.

Samsung is promoting these collaborations as new content. “Waffle enables users to add their own perspective to someone else’s content, and vice versa,” says Joseph Kim, creative leader for Waffle. “These doodles, images and messages converge into entirely new content.”

Brands could potentially make use of these collaborations in the way that they’ve participated in Snapchat campaigns in the past. Better yet, with a network of brand-friendly influencers, Waffle could open the door to interesting collaborations built among creators who all understand the brand’s message and goals.

The app is currently in a closed beta on Android. Samsung hasn’t announced if the app will spread to iOS but, if they are looking for collaboration across friend networks, limiting it to one platform isn’t a recipe for success.