Back when Yo was initially on the hype curve we created a clone for Switzerland called Hoi (a Swiss German way to say Hi) for a joke - link to some press we got below - one of the guys in the picture wasn’t even really involved we just included him and called him CEO to add to the craziness. Technically we had pretty good native iOS and Android apps, backend running on Parse.com (RIP). We got about 10K downloads until Yo actually tried to come after us via the iOS App Store with a vague claim of copying. We defended it OK, no lawyers required but it seemed kinda uncool. We even got our photos in Schweizer Illustriete, which is a dumb magazine featuring Swiss stars - it was the summer media hole so they were desperate. We also ended up adding features Yo didn’t have like sending a photo with your “Hoi” ... took less than 1 week until random strangers were sending naked parts of their body - freaked me out that anyone would trust a random app with their privacy...
Then the hype blew over, Parse shut down and we lost interest until I actually met the Yo CEO at a mobile event in Berlin, and after initially accosting him we ended up taking a selfie together and made up.
Anyway just a random anecdote of developers with too much time on their hands.
The article repeatedly makes the mistaken assertion that sending a 'Yo' constitutes 1 bit of information transmitted. This is mistaken as the information also holds temporal information, which is actually what is very useful. It's not a Yo at some random point, it's a Yo now. It's really encoding "now!". Still not very much information but a ton more than 1 bit, its a timestamps worth in fact...
Guys, I worked it out. It's the Heisenberg uncertainty principle/Fourier conjugate.
Let's say you send a yo now, and then you're going to send another one in 5 minutes. Then you decide to send a third in between. How much information does it contain? Less than a full timestamp's worth, because the timing is constrained.
Once you are sending yo's at the maximum line rate (certainly at least every nanosecond, it's such a critical piece of infrastructure), sending or not sending an individual yo is down to one bit of information. The time component is basically completely gone.
In other words, you cannot know the precise position of a yo at the same time as knowing the precise momentum.
I perhaps took the idea too far. Any iOS push notification can be up to 4kb, and Yo’s API shows that each Yo includes a created time, sender name, avatar, User ID, message status, and more. That’s for traditional Yo’s; newer ones can include a location or link or RSS feed item for a news update, which goes far beyond the core concept.
So on a technical level absolutely, a Yo is far more than bit. Conceptually though a single ping—a single bit—could contain the same information, like a single dot telegram, with you or your local device recording the time received. If you only Yo’d with one other person, the time and the sender and the message they intended to convey would all be data points you would assemble in your head with the ping to get the full information.
> The article repeatedly makes the mistaken assertion that sending a 'Yo' constitutes 1 bit of information transmitted. This is mistaken as the information also holds temporal information, which is actually what is very useful. t's not a Yo at some random point, it's a Yo now. It's really encoding "now!". Still not very much information but a ton more than 1 bit.
It’s still one bit. The time is not part of the transmission.
Years ago, I hooked up my apartment buzzer to Yo with a raspberry pi. https://github.com/sambostock/yoorbell
It was super insecure, but if you yo'd it, it would let you in, and if someone buzzed the buzzer, it would yo me. Exactly as much info as needed.
Ooh I did a similar thing at in college where I used a raspberry pie to hook up the door handle to speakers to play “The Boys are Back in Town” whenever someone opened up our front door at the beginning of the semester.
I noticed the gradual reduction of message length too when Yo came out (email -> tweet -> yo), and wondered what it would mean to transmit less than a single bit of information.
I came to the conclusion that it would be a messaging system, somewhat like yo where sometimes it would send a notification even when I hadn't told it to. If you configured it so it sent an extra notification randomly for every notification you sent, then you're conveying approximately half a bit of information.
Strangely enough, I think this could be quite useful, as a way of initiating conversations with people you would otherwise lose contact with.
Author here, agreed, and using something like that to stay lightly in touch with people ideally would have potential. Strangely I think it could have possibly worked in Facebook better if they hadn't named their "notify someone without a message" feature _Poke_.
Years ago calling and immediately hanging up was immensely popular among teenagers/young adults as a way to ping someone. Used as a way of flirting, telling something was ready, arrived at home.
If you had enough credit to make a phone call, but didn’t want to waste your credits on a text, calling and hanging up is the rational thing to do as it costs nothing (provided you hang up before the other party answers). The price of a text for a teenager was significant back then. The other party might be a parent who could use a landline to call you back for cheaper, or a friend who called back using their parent’s landline.
Of course this tactic wouldn’t work in places where the receiver of phone call has to pay a portion of the price.
My middle school had a pay phone in the lobby. After-school activities had a variable end time so when I needed my mom to pick me up I’d call her collect. She never accepted the charges, but knew it was time to head over to the school.
I remember this! We used to call it “giving a dodgy” as in “dodgy (prank) phone call”! It’s hilarious thinking back to the sentence “dodgy is when ye get in and al come roond” 20 years later!
Years and years ago (like the 1970's) way before mobile phones, and phonecalls weren't particularly cheap it was common to give someone "three rings" to let them know you had arrived home safely after leaving them.
My shortcut to text my partner is called “Yo” and sends a “Yo”. Use it all the time. She knows when I’m leaving a store, or swinging by the house to pick her up, or when we’re in a store and ready to meet at the checkout lanes.
I think frequently that the app could’ve survived and have been useful. The iterations they went through took it in less useful directions, but the idea itself didn’t need to die. Feels like a lost opportunity.
Hah! I am basically like that with mine, but with “;)”. It goes through successive waves of being funny, useful and tiresome, which in itself is funny to me.
This reminds me of feature I liked about Google's Duo app (like Facetime): send a heart.
It's pretty clear what the heart means in the context of a video call app: "I am currently thinking about you and wouldn't mind a video call, if you want to." It solves the problem of instant-anxiety of getting an impromptu video call when you weren't expecting one.
Unfortunately now you can send one of 10 different emoji instead of just the heart, complicating the feature unnecessarily by adding more bits.
Yes. The last vowel is often dropped (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocope) esp by Italian Americans. This also makes it work for nearly every conjugation so it can be the question (do you understand) as well as the answer (I understand).
My impression is that the word was popularized from mafia movies depicting Italian mafia guys saying it, and that it means like "understand?" or "get it?"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo_(app) says the company has shut down but the app still works (not too surprisingly given its simplicity) with occasional minimal maintenance by the founder.
There's got to be a similar market for "push notification as a service". I wouldn't mind giving a company $20 for credits for 500 push notifications. I hit their API, they push to my phone with whatever text I give them.
SMS (twilio) and most chat apps (slack, discord, Facebook messenger, Telegram,GroupMe, etc.) offer this functionality. Is there something you want that using one of these would not satisfy?
I've been using Pushcut on iOS for this purpose, there's a lot of customizability offered including replying with actions. Add in using IFTTT to call the Pushcut notification webhook and then automation gets a lot easier than doing it by hand.
[+] [-] harryf|5 years ago|reply
Then the hype blew over, Parse shut down and we lost interest until I actually met the Yo CEO at a mobile event in Berlin, and after initially accosting him we ended up taking a selfie together and made up.
Anyway just a random anecdote of developers with too much time on their hands.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/apps/ap...
[+] [-] ThePowerOfFuet|5 years ago|reply
Here's the non-Google-AMP version of your link: https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/apps/app-hoi-schweizer-klone...
[0] https://www.theregister.com/2017/05/19/open_source_insider_g...
[+] [-] tlarkworthy|5 years ago|reply
/pedant
[+] [-] btrask|5 years ago|reply
Let's say you send a yo now, and then you're going to send another one in 5 minutes. Then you decide to send a third in between. How much information does it contain? Less than a full timestamp's worth, because the timing is constrained.
Once you are sending yo's at the maximum line rate (certainly at least every nanosecond, it's such a critical piece of infrastructure), sending or not sending an individual yo is down to one bit of information. The time component is basically completely gone.
In other words, you cannot know the precise position of a yo at the same time as knowing the precise momentum.
[+] [-] maguay|5 years ago|reply
I perhaps took the idea too far. Any iOS push notification can be up to 4kb, and Yo’s API shows that each Yo includes a created time, sender name, avatar, User ID, message status, and more. That’s for traditional Yo’s; newer ones can include a location or link or RSS feed item for a news update, which goes far beyond the core concept.
So on a technical level absolutely, a Yo is far more than bit. Conceptually though a single ping—a single bit—could contain the same information, like a single dot telegram, with you or your local device recording the time received. If you only Yo’d with one other person, the time and the sender and the message they intended to convey would all be data points you would assemble in your head with the ping to get the full information.
Anyhow. That’s perhaps taking the idea too far :)
[+] [-] sixstringtheory|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hk__2|5 years ago|reply
It’s still one bit. The time is not part of the transmission.
[+] [-] sambostock|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Swizec|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aripickar|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] educated_idiot|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kybernetikos|5 years ago|reply
I came to the conclusion that it would be a messaging system, somewhat like yo where sometimes it would send a notification even when I hadn't told it to. If you configured it so it sent an extra notification randomly for every notification you sent, then you're conveying approximately half a bit of information.
Strangely enough, I think this could be quite useful, as a way of initiating conversations with people you would otherwise lose contact with.
[+] [-] maguay|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pcardoso|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] runarberg|5 years ago|reply
Of course this tactic wouldn’t work in places where the receiver of phone call has to pay a portion of the price.
[+] [-] treeman79|5 years ago|reply
Calling and hanging up didn’t count, so that is what we would do. We would know to call back.
Years later I ran reports for call centers. I would run data every which way.
Found an agent that would dial a disconnect number hundreds of times a day.
Went to big boss, as I couldn’t figure out the rational.
He took one look at it, and cursed “well know we know how he has top numbers.
Found so many ways agents would mess with metrics
[+] [-] ralph84|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scott_w|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gadders|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasonv|5 years ago|reply
I think frequently that the app could’ve survived and have been useful. The iterations they went through took it in less useful directions, but the idea itself didn’t need to die. Feels like a lost opportunity.
[+] [-] andruby|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1123581321|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] renewiltord|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spiznnx|5 years ago|reply
It's pretty clear what the heart means in the context of a video call app: "I am currently thinking about you and wouldn't mind a video call, if you want to." It solves the problem of instant-anxiety of getting an impromptu video call when you weren't expecting one.
Unfortunately now you can send one of 10 different emoji instead of just the heart, complicating the feature unnecessarily by adding more bits.
[+] [-] maguay|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beingrichishard|5 years ago|reply
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28247504
[+] [-] christiansakai|5 years ago|reply
This brings back memories.
[+] [-] bot41|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ktpsns|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simonebrunozzi|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] np_tedious|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jpxw|5 years ago|reply
Used to wear flip flops, now rare gear coppers
He's in it for the quiche
You might as well not ask him for no free s___, capiche?
Google tells me it’s “from Italian capisce third person singular present tense of capire ‘understand’”
[+] [-] pmichaud|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maguay|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] delcaran|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cblconfederate|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gwern|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maguay|5 years ago|reply
I haven’t used it regularly for years now though, but the idea’s always stuck with me.
[+] [-] jay_wild|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jtsiskin|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] renewiltord|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] molmsted98|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dagurp|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] The_rationalist|5 years ago|reply
Actually those genius level applications are not really innovative as people were spamming pokes on Facebook far before their advent
[+] [-] jobigoud|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nobodyandproud|5 years ago|reply
In the same spirit as the titles like “unreasonably effective”, and a few others gems.
It turns me off from the content immediately, but ‘m likely the exception.
[+] [-] The_rationalist|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Igelau|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwawaymanbot|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] adamnemecek|5 years ago|reply