Many developers design applications to make life simpler, but have they finally ventured too far?
Yo is a new app that is designed to send the one-word phrase “Yo” to your contacts. Evidently, the app was created to eliminate the tedious task of sending full text messages and calling people. Instead, after opening the app (God forbid), users simply tap the “Yo” button to alert someone. While this can easily be accomplished via text messaging, the app’s goal is to be as non-invasive and quick as possible.
Not surprisingly (depending on your view of the Silicon Valley), Moshe Hogeg, CEO of image-sharing application Mobli, has invested more than $1 Million into this simple application. Yo’s founder, Or Arbel, moved from Tel Aviv to San Francisco to pursue his “Yo” dream, knowing outright that local VCs and angel investors love to throw money at seemingly meaningless ventures. Even more absurd is the fashion by which Yo was created. Reportedly, Hogeg jokingly asked Arbel to create an application that has one big button that sends someone a notification. After 8 hours of coding, the task had been completed.
Incredibly, Arbel foresees a broader future for “Yo,” outside of just messaging your friends (as if such an app could be any more general). He claims that Yo is “a new way to get lightweight, non-intrusive notifications,” obviously playing off of societal privacy concerns. He also believes that the application will be used to notify users of random events, such as World Cup updates, or plane departure times. In recent weeks, Yo has also connected with other Internet services to expand its uses.
Although the application is hilariously simple, it has become extremely popular in recent weeks. At one point, it was ranked higher than Facebook’s (FB) Slingshot app, a competitor to Snapchat, on Apple’s (APPL) App Store. Needless to say the future for Yo is fuzzy; however, if history has taught us anything (Instagram, WhatsApp, etc.) it’s that corporations will shell out billions for these “innovative” companies during their momentous peaks. Our advice: Sell Now!