Introducing Push It. Simple, Anonymous Messaging.
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- insomnie
Hi guys,
I just wrapped up my new iOS App. Please check out this Medium post describing the app in detail.
Push It is a simple, anonymous, location based messaging app. There are no signups, no usernames, just chat.
- inv0
Cool idea!
- prophetone0
first of all, congrats. looks cool, very clean design, interesting concept.
ok. minimal info so I'm curious. it's just chat and you indicate venues and stores will be able to push notify users messages. is there a back and forth involved within that scenario?
i get a notification from a store and chat back and live-person bob from said store will chat back?
without usernames how are messages filtered or regulated? what if thousands of users within the same location send out at same time? does everyone receive all the messages?
- Stores and venues will have ability to have messages that always show up in that location. All other messages are basically gone the moment you send them. Every device still has an id, so in the backend its trackable. If users abuse the system we can limit them, or even disable access to the service.insomnie
- Yes, everyone would receive the message. Unless your device is set to invisible in the app. They you are not in that list. In the future there will be more ways to filter it.insomnie
- so how do you handle chat volume w/o filtering? how does bob deal with 2k chat msgs in 5 mins?prophetone
- You can snooze the app. Later we will have options for channels, etc.insomnie
- _niko0
pretty cool, great work.
Though I can see a lot of:
Nice boobs
or I'm following you
or free beer at some bar for the first 100 customers (when there is none) where's my beer damn it! lol- That's all good!insomnie
- lol @ 'I'm following you'prophetone
- insomnie0
I've been testing this with peeps at work and it's fun as hell. Good way to bitch about stuff at work.
- and Boss can see it too. lol but it is anonymous. classic.HijoDMaite
- Bingo!insomnie
- HijoDMaite0
Ability to push text only?
How about Photos? urls?- In the works. Photos are a bit more of a challenge. Don't want a bunch of dicks flying around.insomnie
- ascii dicks will likely reign downprophetone
- lolHijoDMaite
- And thats ok.insomnie
- monospaced0
NSA proof? Is anything stored on servers? Anonymous names, or truly anonymous in that encryption is on the hardware end?
- considering TOR is now hacked i am curious about this as well. 'anonymous' is a gambled promise nowadays.prophetone
- Servers hold your device id, installation id and a auto generated user reference as well as current location. We need this in order to send out push to right people. Messages are stored for a day only. After that they are wiped.insomnie
- We store messages for only one day. After that it's wiped.insomnie
- If you want anonymity, send pigeons.Maaku
- Don't have to. There's Wickr which is totally anonymous and way safer already.monospaced
- Thanks for the info, insomniemonospaced
- insomnie0
Unrelated, but holy shit. Check this out:
- i just sent this to my whole office.BrokenHD
- oh geezprophetone
- oh damn homieWeyland
- ffsApeRobot
- HijoDMaite0
So what size radius can you work with?
Store sends out happy hour message on Sat 3PM, How far does it reach? Can you adjust?
- HijoDMaite0
I see this having more advertising potential than Social media. Advertisers get excited about mobile products like "fencing" where cell phones in a radius around their store will get banners and such. But That can get expensive. This would allow you to go right to an inbox which is great.
If you app can have the ability to integrate to your SMS inbox then you could just receive and send through data.
- insomnie0
Everything is handled by Push Notifications. So it's all data.
- prophetone0
So... Push It stores a user's UDID and location b/w an auto-generated tag to specific content, albeit temporarily, to servers (presumably located) in the US?
- Correct. At least at this moment this is how its handled.insomnie
- And you fellas are 100% comfy with the promise of anonymity given these facts?prophetone
- I am not promising we won't disclose your details to NSA or FBI if you are a rapist.insomnie
- My concern is the gov't taking user info w/o you or your sponsors knowledge and exploiting it.prophetone
- Or frankly, a 15-yr-kid doing that for that matter. And w/ time/location tags, authorities could target protesters, etc.prophetone
- If it gets to a point where this is an issue, we can address it with servers somewhere else.insomnie
- storing UDID, paired with location and time stamp info on vulnerable US servers is already an issueprophetone
- the prob is if anonymity is promised and used in sales pitch you will find ur self in hot water pretty fastprophetone
- Christian0
^ yup, Knit - haven't had the time to check it out yet.
- insomnie0
They have a lot of UI, and you have to have actual friends. The only thing thats a little similar is the location thing. Even then our messages are only in the now. You can't leave a message for someone. Once you send the message it's gone. So if you just got to the place you won't see anything there from previous people.
You will only be able to communicate with people that are there at this moment.
You can say that their concept of notes resembles a bit of what we plan on doing with venue messages. But those will also be outside, handled by push notifications.
We wanted to make an app that you don't necessarily have to open.
- dbloc0
will spammers take over?
- but wouldn't the spammer need to be where you are? are there enough spammers walking around to annoy me?BrokenHD
- sure why not. sports games, music festivals, love-ins, protests, WoW tournaments, etc.prophetone
- spammers are everywheredbloc
- You will be able to report them, we are adding this in the next update.insomnie
- set0
Spam always takes over... but it's a great idea.
- prophetone0
So... at least initially, if the app is to become popular it will have to be wide open so as to encourage use among its user base. fair enough.
if the plan is to sell the ability to broadcast to the user base to a corp. sponsor, which is a good plan $$, what elevated functionality are you going to provide a sponsor that will set them apart enough that they'll want to spend $ vs. just using the app themselves within their own infrastructures, for free?
i'm going to assume some sort of randomly-inserted, approved, branded sponsorship?
beyond that, with no usernames or filtering other than it being location-based, what's to stop everyday users from broadcasting misinformation?
and not just heartless, criminal spammers but even slighted tweeners who just left TOPSHOP upset b/c they were no size 14 pashminas left and decide to broadcast a fake "Flash sale at that TOPSHOP RIGHT NOW OMGSFA!"
i'm curious b/c i feel you have a real challenge ahead of you. you have to build a user base first... and be very careful not to lose that user base, even though you will be constantly bombarded with these variables. A real balancing act.
Godspeed!