Stuff like this is great. It's like watching kids who grew up in the Twitter/FB age rediscover anonymous internet forums and imageboards like 4chan. People like anonymous services because you literally don't need to filter what you are saying. That can lead to a whole lot of bad, but some really, really great nuggets of truth and goodness coming out - it feels like tapping into the collective subconscious of the internet.
I've never used WUT, but was intrigued by the anecdote at the end: "Sun’s out; in Washington square park. Who’s around?”
I've seen tons of apps that try to solve the "I want to hang out" problem. They all fail because cool people don't use those apps. Psuedo-anonymity can potentially solve this.
Some tried to do anonymous matching, but those had cold-start-network-effect problems. Psuedo-anonymous social networks might be able to back into a solution by attracting early adopters with their "gossip network" use case.
This reminds me of how Facebook backed into essentially being a status, photos, and events platform when it started life as a networked address book.
I think some of it may simply be that hanging out is with strangers is not a way most people want to meet people. Meeting at events or places where simply by being there you have a mutual interest is more attractive for many.
What we need is a form of anonymous / pseudo-anonymous reputation brokerage. Tokens that identify not a person, but how trusted or how well liked that token has been used. You control your tokens, what networks, where they are used. An older token is worth more to you, and to others that see it. The values associated to a token varies depending on the tokens around it. Upvotes, downvotes, activities, flags from the various places where the token is uses contributes to the values attached to the tokens. It's a fuzzy concept at the moment, but I think as these new generation of applications grow, one that we may see evolve.
I wholeheartedly disagree with this, what you're essentially describing is just watered down identity. The whole point of the value of anonymity is that all posts are equal.
It would be incredibly useful if there were a link to the App in question.
WUT isn't very googleable, it wasn't entirely obvious from the article that it's an iPhone exclusive App, not a website or available on Android.
Not sure how you can call these apps anonymous or "semi-anonymous". I tried Secret a month or so ago, and the first thing it asked me for was my phone number. So, this one requires Facebook? Maybe I'm misunderstanding the meaning of "anonymous".
Paul here. Happy to answer any questions you may have.
facebook login is annoying but did get us out the door. poor grammar is intentional.
We used to have the words "WUT" repeated 200x in the app store copy, but Apple politely told us that wasn't good enough. We had more than a couple people tell us it was great though.
chadwickthebold|12 years ago
socmoth|12 years ago
The last era of the net (since 2004) a lot of stuff went full real names, after facebook made it ok to put your name on the internet.
We've started (re) discovering ways to connect which are less about real names.
aniro|12 years ago
This app requires a Facebook account. Facebook is a service that all but defines itself on identity verification.
kennywinker|12 years ago
deepinsand|12 years ago
I've seen tons of apps that try to solve the "I want to hang out" problem. They all fail because cool people don't use those apps. Psuedo-anonymity can potentially solve this.
Some tried to do anonymous matching, but those had cold-start-network-effect problems. Psuedo-anonymous social networks might be able to back into a solution by attracting early adopters with their "gossip network" use case.
This reminds me of how Facebook backed into essentially being a status, photos, and events platform when it started life as a networked address book.
tormeh|12 years ago
socmoth|12 years ago
chippy|12 years ago
stephengillie|12 years ago
frozen_tomato|12 years ago
uaygsfdbzf|12 years ago
[deleted]
pantalaimon|12 years ago
justin|12 years ago
grinich|12 years ago
cottonseed|12 years ago
ryandrake|12 years ago
socmoth|12 years ago
facebook login is annoying but did get us out the door. poor grammar is intentional.
We used to have the words "WUT" repeated 200x in the app store copy, but Apple politely told us that wasn't good enough. We had more than a couple people tell us it was great though.
joshu|12 years ago