Share location, ETA, messages and photos, privately with individuals and groups.
It's easy, simple and keeps everyone informed of your arrival.
Reviews are in:
"Answers the Age-Old Question, “When Will You Get Here?” - MacLife
"What’s great about the app is that it has the ability to automatically notify your friends, family and colleagues when you depart, are a few minutes out and just about to get to your meet up." - AppCraver
"This is an app that’s dead-easy to use. It’s just what you’d want from a well designed app." AppBite
"A useful communication app" - BlogCritics
Apps Going Viral
Posted: 2012-04-13
Two apps have caught my attention this week, and just about everyone else's: Instagram and Voxer.
Instagram was acquired by Facebook. Voxer, after 5 years and $20MM of friends and family money, raised $30MM of Venture Capital. (I started my career working in voice, so Voxer remaking POTS and PTT is compelling to me.)
Both companies chose to develop for iOS before Android. In Voxer's case, there was about a 6 month gap between iOS and Android launches. We all know about Instagram's intense focus on iOS and very recent launch on Android.
Voxer's founder says the app went viral after launching on Android. iPhone users couldn't interact with their Android friends, the app wouldn't spread -- it wouldn't leap from one host to another. Voxer's viral vectors reached dead-ends (maybe "spread-ends?").
Developing first for iOS allowed Voxer to work on the UX and those improvements were carried over to Android. Getting the experience right on iOS first is a wise. Turning on viral channels doesn't guarantee virality.
Instagram is currently growing at 1MM users a day on Android. Pent up demand? Definitely.
All those dead-ends I mentioned above were about to activate and spread.
Both companies took the right path: Focus on getting the experience right and then open the pipes up for network effects.
Network effects, it's been discussed for decades now. It's not just about integrating with Facebook and publishing a story to a user's newsfeed. Scoble has a perspective on this and Glassmap. A new user to Glassmap will very likely encounter a graveyard and no amount of viral engineering or design will yield desired results. Glassmap has tried to go viral before getting the experience right, and pissed off at least one potential user.
A useful, necessary or pleasurable app, that is easy to use and is relevant to billions of users, will benefit from network effects when connected to the pipes. In this case the pipes are iOS and Android running on kick-ass mobile networks (and WiFi) worldwide.
Perhaps, this is what caused concern among Facebook's management -- Instagram received $50MM in capital AND the app was just about to go viral.
