Once a day, this app sends you a notification at a random time. You then have one minute to take a picture of your surroundings - and then this happens

You never know when your notification from OneMinute is going to arrive, but once it does, you only have 60 seconds to take a picture of your surroundings before it scoops everyone's photos up and freezes them in place for all to look at.

The key idea is that everyone gets their daily OneMinute notification at the same time, resulting in an international scramble to find something remotely interesting (or not) to take a picture of before time runs out.

It's this spontaneous, almost flash-mob quality that makes OneMinute worth downloading. There's something particularly exciting about knowing that people around the world are anxiously looking around for something to take a picture of - and the resulting hodgepodge of photos gives users a glimpse into what's happening around the world, one photo-slice at a time.

To take some of the pressure out of finding something picturesque in less than a minute, OneMinute keeps everyone anonymous and only lets you capture a narrow sliver of your surroundings. The goal is avoid the time-intensive arranging and editing that comes with photo-sharing apps like Instagram where people can be overly concerned about how they present themselves to their peers.

With OneMinute you get the notification, tap it to access the app's camera, and snap a picture before the timer hits zero. After the app collects everyone's photos, you can then browse the resulting collage of people's lives, which OneMinute likes to call "one minute of everywhere."

If you miss the notification, too bad. You snooze you lose (and no, you can't choose to ignore the notification until you're in a more picturesque location. Once the notification gets pushed out to everyone, the timer starts).

Of course, this means the app's notification can arrive at less-than-opportune times, as demonstrated by one user who found themself in the bathroom when the notification was pushed out.

Users can like photos in the news feed by tapping on them, and OneMinute allows you to like a photo up to three times.

"I initially thought of the concept while blankly staring at a monitor, wondering what's happening around the world at that very moment," OneMinute founder Alex Kwon wrote on Product Hunt. "There simply was no way to instantly view the visual status of the world. Oneminute is the answer to the curiosity I once had."

OneMinute was originally created during Product Hunt's hackathon in October. After a positive response and some further testing, Kwon is opening up OneMinute for everyone, starting today.

To join in the fun, you can download OneMinute for free over at the App Store.