There are some of the many phrases being used by commoners of India to describe their day to day problems and express their discomforts. With India being a democratic state, every other day we see mass protests proving the power of AAM JANTA. But can we do a candle-light march for the above problems everyday?
A team of five IIM graduates, thought of utilizing the same power with its Android mobile app, Shout – a social app which helps users to get locality based help without the hassles of building a network first. It allows people to create messages or shouts similar to tweets or status updates and make them reach to even the end corner of their locality.
How it works?
There is no need to add friends or build network, one just need to Simply download the app from the play store and login with the Facebook or Google account. You will automatically get connected to other app users in the locality within a specific radius of one kilometer. You can create your own shout in form of text or a picture, or can echo the already present shouts on the platform.
‘Echo’ is an option which lets user know about how far the shout has reached. For example, consider a shout posted by a person 5 kms away from the user. Once you echo it, it will increase its reach to 6 kms adding your radius into it.
‘Shutup’ a shout if you do not agree or chit-chat with your fellow strangers adding your ‘Comments’. You can share the shout on other social networks, thereby adding people to your cause or query. Also, you can use #hastags to promote and make your shouts easy to find and to search for topics in mind.
WHY USE SHOUT
Get help: New to the city ? Ask from people around you about the best in area
Converse: People around the world are using shout to neighborhood problems, crime, and other local issues
Meet people of similar interest: Get company for daily jogging, swimming or form teams for weekend football, cricket matches
Live Traffic Updates: Never get stuck in traffic jam, warn others with live traffic updates of your area
Reviews: Get first hand user reviews on restaurants, movies, plays, events.
Buy and Sell: get the best deals from people living next door, or sell your old stuff. But marketing from companies is banned
Stand for a Cause: Spread the good word about your social cause be it to gather support for street dogs, or to save trees.
Emergency Shouts: in case of natural disastrous call for help and warn others. Also shout to get blood in case of emergency
USP- Option of creating parallel anonymous ‘Alter Ego’ shout
This is something even the best social platforms lack out their. The app allows you to create an anonymous profile along with the actual one. Just pick one alternative name and a display picture and you are ready to speak your heart and soul without disclosing your real identity.
For instance, as mentioned on the company’s blog, recently there was an alter ego shout in Bangalore “Can you refer a good fertility test clinic.” Truly, the person would have never dare to put this in public in fear of getting his/her image down.
Utility
Well.. to some extent it is similar to the existing platforms like Facebook, Twitter or WhatsApp. However, it helps users to connect with total strangers and focus on the problem/ cause, instead of increasing the number of friends in the list.
Also, with Alter Ego shout, one can stand for causes such as anti-political movements, corruption, rapes, etc., thereby gathering masses. Who knows, when it takes the form of a social movement, and can even force the authorities to take action on those problems.
Future Plans
The app has already crossed over 10k downloads. Average time spent on app is more than 5 minutes and with retention percent of over 91, it has present across globe in more than 10 countries. As of now the founders want to bring in maximum users, at the same time increasing their focus in Bangalore.
Checkout: Bencho! An App By IITians For The Delhi Janta Catering To The Inappropriate
