Using a phone to navigate and enhance tourism experiences isn't new, but with limited cell reception in many state and national parks, mobile platforms with embedded information are emerging that cater to more remote places.

TagWhat, a Boulder-based company, and New York City's Parks by Nature have two developing products — one a media content system and the other an application for Android and iPhone.

Both are ways of tapping into the more than 100 million phones with “smart” capabilities, Parks by Nature COO Richard Dubi said, adding that the growth in a single year in smartphone users is phenomenal — from about 8 million in 2009 to more than 100 million in 2010.

TagWhat's Dave Elchoness sees his mobile tool as an enhanced window to reality, or augmented reality. The phone becomes a tool to get more information about one's surroundings.

“What augmented reality does is it exploits the senses. You can now touch and hear and sense things you couldn't otherwise,” Dubi said. “It's like having your own guided tour or computer with you at all times.”

A digital window

To enhance the world around him, Elchoness wants to tell stories through the “magical, digital window” of a phone — location-based stories.

Like where Mickey Mantle sat at the bar you just passed in New York, and a clip from the bartender about the kind of liquor Mantle drank.

In the more remote world of the West, perhaps the phone's application alerts you of nearby petroglyphs and explains to you what they mean.

“It's about having a unique experience with respect to your surroundings,” Elchoness said.

TagWhat currently employs several University of Colorado journalism graduates to populate the system prior to its launch in six to eight weeks.

“It's a medium,” he said to a room full of recreation professionals at last week's National Association of Recreation Resource Planners conference in Breckenridge. “We're creating a new kind of media that you all can use, we think, to benefit the public.”

He added that park and historic site managers and more can repurpose old content for use in the TagWhat system.

“The most important thing is sharing,” Elchoness said. “Just like the caveboy did with his grandfather. Because if you don't share these stories, they die.”

By synching to Facebook and Twitter, the TagWhat system has the ability to share a location-based postcard with one's own picture, message and recipients.

“It's not a Facebook update. It's not a Tweet. It's a story,” Elchoness said. “That's where we have the potential for virility. The goal is to get these things moving across the social Web so other people see it and want to come, too.

“That was probably the idea of the original postcard,” he added, but clarified that this goes beyond one person.

‘Don't drink the Kool Aid'

In some cases, the information could be embedded in the TagWhat program, Elchoness said. But Parks by Nature is striving to create a guide system that's even more portable — with the Parks Pocket Ranger.

Though augmented reality seems great, Dubi warns “don't drink the Kool Aid yet. You do need cellular reception, an issue at some parks.”

But it's being addressed, he added, by storing the information such as trail description and location, activities, weather, park facilities, hours of operation, directions, campgrounds and more within the application instead of constantly downloading it. An ideal feature is being able to search for a nearby park — such as one that offers rock climbing — while driving through the state.

The application technology is customized according to the park, Dubi said, like North Carolina State Parks, which recently hopped on board. It's a draw for the tech-savvy and financially sound areas because his research shows that “when people have this technology, people spend more money in the parks, more time in the parks and enjoy the parks better.”

Though it's slowly unrolling — Parks Pocket Ranger also has a Rhode Island State Parks application — the process is just beginning, Dubi said.

“It really is the top of the first inning ... Every day is like a week, every week is like a month and every month is like a year in terms of development,” he said. “Our company has its machetes out. There's nobody who did this before us.”

Colorado State Parks

As visitation at state parks throughout Colorado grows steadily and support from the state drops dramatically to zero, the funding situation is precarious — meaning it's not likely Colorado State Parks will be on board with buying into either application anytime soon.

To prepare for the loss of general tax and severance tax dollars, the parks board approved a financial plan in November 2010, including 10 strategies to reduce spending — including layoffs and selling a park, Colorado State Parks spokeswoman Deb Frazier said.

“While augmented reality and many other phone-based applications are wonderful and Colorado State Parks is aware of them, we, like all other state agencies have experienced severe cutbacks in funding,” Frazier said. “We hope the economy rebounds so we will be able to take part.”