As Fueled covered earlier this week, photography application Snapr recently opened an API enabling outside developers to utilize its unique mapping feature, making it possible for users to display an increasingly-mixed array of content - including, for now, photo and video - on a shared map. Over time, mobile app developers Edward Talbot and Rowan Wernham expect, the interface will be heavily enriched by shared creative content of a limitless variety, all accessible by anyone who downloads the app or visits the site.

On Thursday, September 8, Snapr embraced its own technology and released Capture the Flag, an amalgamation of Foursquare-like services that adds a playful component to the Snapr experience. Download the app, and you’re asked to join a team based on nationality or interest. Your goal, then, is to amass points as a group by snapping photos of suggested locations; gather the most photos of a particular venue, and your tribe can claim it as their own. Featured venues will reward winning participants with deals and bonuses, bringing the incentive full-circle.

Fittingly, with the warm embrace that defines Snapr’s ingenuity, bonus points are awarded for both the sharing of content on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, among others, and the comments received on those sites from participating users. The interface features a number of ways to sort through this information, all depending on a user’s particular needs: sort by venue, search by city, browse the map, or simply scroll through a stream of photos taken nearby. The experience is both participatory and communal in nature, developed with an understanding of varied consumption habits.

For those less competitive, Capture the Flag does not eliminate the simple social features that make Snapr’s interface intriguing; in fact, its focus on highlighted venues and the ability to categorize locations generates a unique possibility for planning out one’s day. As mobile markets grow, those apps shedding their categories seem, on some occasions, the most poised to grow, spawning, in Snapr’s case, new products altogether. “Doing creative stuff with photos has never been easier or in the hands of more people,” Wernham said, “and we think that’s really exciting.”