The Yo app was initially ridiculed by media as being the simplest and most pointless social app ever.
But Yo app inventor Or Abel is laughing all the way to bank, as businesses have found ways to use it effectively and investors have sent millions in funding.
The Yo app, when launched, did one thing: Sent the message “Yo” to a contact’s cell phone.
Really – that was it.
But even at that primitive stage, a handful of restaurants realized the Yo app could be a replacement for those large “puck” pagers used to tell people when their tables are ready. And, the Yo app’s open API meant developers could start playing with integrating Yo into other services, like Instagram, Forbes reported.
Even though the “hype” around the app has faded, the app is continuing to develop. Now, a business or an individual can send a Yo with a link or a hashtag. The Washington Post is using it to send out breaking news alerts to Yo users. And some businesses are reportedly sending Yos and links to customers with special, limited-time deals or offers.
In late September, a featured launched allowing users to Yo their location to other Yo users, Business Insider reported. With the location based featured enabled, “if a user Yos his or her location to a service, they’ll receive recommendations, weather updates, news or other offerings from the partnering recipient,” according to BI. It would be nice to be the restaurant that gets recommended based on a geo-targeted Yo, wouldn’t it?
Before you dismiss an app out of hand, think about any possible way a business could take advantage of it.
Future Watch: What is Ello?
Next up on the social media hype wagon – Ello.
The social network was still by-invite-only at the time of this writing, but it’s getting plenty of attention for the promise of having no ads and no data-mining. Like other social networks, users can add friends and post status updates and photos to the network. Unlike Facebook and some other social networks, is has very little in terms of privacy controls, and warns users that almost anything they put on the social network can be seen by others, including search engines.
It doesn’t look like there’s any reason a business couldn’t create an Ello account and start posting photos, sales and useful information for customers and potential customers – but we haven’t heard of any businesses jumping on just yet. Still, it may be a network to watch the remainder of this year.