A few months ago, Israeli startup Yo shocked the tech world when its one-action app went viral. Mashable’s Pete Cashmore, Betaworks, founders of China’s Tencent, and a few others pumped in US$1.5 million into Yo at a surprising US$10 million valuation.
Now, here’s something for those who love the ease of Yo but want to say more than just a yo in a “one-bit communication.” Silicon Valley-based address book app Addappt just launched a new feature called Tapp, where one can send 100 customizable characters and emojis with a single tap.
For instance, you can send an emoji with one tap to tell someone that you’re safe or thinking of her, or want her to call back. You can customize and create a notification that can be sent frequently with one tap to many. There is a group Tapp option with no limits on the number of members messages can be sent to. WhatsApp, the most popular messaging app in India, for instance, lets you chat with up to 100 people at once.
“With group Tapp, there is no BCC/CC list. So it appears to come from the person individually and there is no ‘reply all’,” Mrinal Desai, co-founder and CEO of Addappt, tells Tech in Asia.
Android and iOS compatible, Tapp allows users to keep conversations private as well. “When you swipe the notification or hit “Done” on the Tapp screen or respond to a received message, it is gone. There is no history of the conversations and none of it is stored on our servers,” adds Desai.
Desai was LinkedIn’s first business development manager – “when they had about 15-20 employees” – before turning entrepreneur with CrossLoop, a marketplace for remote tech support. CrossLoop raised investment from top investors in Silicon Valley, and was later acquired by AVG Technologies. He bootstrapped Addappt with Jorge Ferreira, a Microsoft veteran.
Tapping into the missed call phenomenon
Tapp, he says, is perfect for India, the Philippines, and other Southeast Asian countries where a large number of people use missed calls to convey anything from ‘I miss you’ to ‘call me back.’
But missed calls do not use up data. The reason why it became such a phenomenon is that it allowed people with not enough credit on their phones to communicate at zero cost. Tapp requires a smartphone, and people who can afford a smartphone probably won’t feel the need to stage a missed call.
To this, Desai replies that the company eventually plans on putting Tapp on feature phones, which might help drive uptake among those who need it most. “Just like how WhatsApp is available on so many platforms, we see ourselves doing that. Almost all phones, even feature phones, have some sort of data or will have it soon – especially at the rate at which data cost is falling in India.”
Looking at the rate at which Indians are ditching feature phones for low-cost to cheap smartphones, though, Tapp doesn’t seem like it will have to do much more to adapt for the Indian masses.
Besides English, Tapp will be available in 11 languages, including Korean, simplified and traditional Chinese, and Japanese as well as major European and Latin American languages.
See: Holaa! A new mobile app from India identifies callers and blocks spam
This post Love Yo, but want to say more? Tapp out a hundred other messages or emojis with this app appeared first on Tech in Asia.
Love Yo, but want to say more? Tapp out a hundred other messages or emojis with this app
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