Don't "Cloak" the Problem

You may have heard the buzz surrounding a new app called Cloak. Cloak takes information from your social networks to show where your friends are, so you can avoid bumping into people that you don't want to see. It works by connecting to Foursquare and Instagram, then displaying your location and where friends have checked in nearby. If there is someone you want to avoid, simply "flag" them and Cloak will send you an alert when they are within a certain radius of you. The default radius is half a mile but can be changed to as close as one block, or as far away as two miles. In short, Cloak is as close as the app world is going to come to developing Harry Potter's mythical invisibility cloak.

Cloak seems like a dream come true for the "anti-social" or maybe for people who are just having a bad day. But is it taking things too far? Many studies have shown the positive correlation between in-person social interactions and happiness. Is essentially hiding from these potential interactions the best course of action? Honestly, probably not.

If seeing purported "friends" is causing a person enough unhappiness that they feel the need to go out of their way to avoid what would otherwise be a chance encounter, perhaps it's time to take a realistic look internally. Ask yourself if you could make it through a five minute conversation with the person you flagged.  If you can't, ask yourself why they are even your "friend" in the first place. If the person no longer has a positive, meaningful influence on your life, it may be time to cut that relationship loose.

At first glance, Cloak may seem like an innovative solution to a problem. In reality, however, Cloak is just hiding a deeper problem, possibly even compounding it. You don't need an invisibility cloak in your life. Let's leave that to Harry.

The Emotional Epidemic on Facebook

A new study shows what many have long assumed: emotions expressed online can be contagious. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, Yale University, and Facebook Inc used an automated text-analysis system to scan a billion messages from over 100 million people, and found that Facebook posts were likely to affect the mood of others online. Moreover, upbeat posts were far more likely to have an effect than negatives posts.

One of their significant findings was the influence of the weather on mood, and how it could spread amongst users. A rainy day caused the number of negative posts to rise 1.16%, while the number of positive posts fell 1.19%. A subtle change, yet it was compounded among these users' friends in other cities. In a city where it was not raining, each additional positive post resulted in a further 1.75 positive posts among friends, while each negative post resulted in a further 1.29 negative posts.

Facebook currently has 1.2 billion (with a B) active users. If posting messages about the weather alone can cause mood shifts among some users, posting emotional messages about more volatile subjects could have an emotional chain reaction. Recessions, stock market downswings, and economic difficulties could have negative emotional effects on people who are otherwise indifferent to the event. Likewise positive events could be used to influence people who may otherwise be apathetic.

So how do we use this information to our advantage? The simple answer would be post happy things on Facebook. The more complex answer would be to tie more uplifting messages to days when negative posts are trending, so the uplifting messages stand out and foster positive brand association. Obviously rainy days would be a good time to do this, but looking beyond that we can see that there are several other negative days in the year such as April 15th (aka tax day) or even Mondays.

What you post is ultimately up to you, but realize the impact you could be having on other peoples' emotions.

A New Way to Price Social Apps

WhatsApp made the news last week when it was bought by Facebook for $19 billion. People started questioning whether or not this was a smart move, and if WhatsApp was even worth that much. My thoughts went straight to how this would affect their stance on advertisements. WhatsApp had previously stated that they would not sell ads and that they were against personal information collection, two things which Facebook does extensively. Personally, I believe they were a little naive to think that they could shun advertising forever. Many social and mobile apps use the advertising model simply because it is the easiest way to turn a profit for the business, while providing a free app for the consumers. In most of these apps, consumers can opt to upgrade to a paid version, which takes away the frequent advertisements. However, many consumers are reluctant to upgrade if they think they'll be the only one using said app or if they think the lifecycle of that app will be very short.

What I propose is a new pricing model for these social apps. The apps foster a sense of community, so why not provide a pricing option that treats them as a community. Many businesses will provide customers with group discounts if a large enough party takes advantage of the product/service, so why shouldn't a group based app utilize this same ideal? Community based pricing discounts could be offered depending on the size of the group that downloaded the app, which is a double win for the app developers. They get a revenue stream without needing to spam users with advertisements, and they also get a consumer base that will be more likely to continue to use the app so that they can stay connected with their friends. The consumers win since they will be paying less for the app than they would individually, and they don't have to deal with advertisements.

This type of pricing would be most effective for social apps, like WhatsApp, or for mobile games with a strong sense of community. I've gone through several game phases with some of my friends, such as Words With Friends or Flappy Bird, and having a pricing option like this would have been very appealing. It's always more fun to challenge friends to mobile games, but they're not always willing to shell out the dollar or so that some games cost. If group pricing could reduce this cost to 50 cents, the app would seem like a bargain compared to many others, and users would be more drawn to it. The concept of group pricing still needs some tweaking before it should be implemented, but ultimately I think it would be a viable alternative to many apps' current strategy of spamming users with advertisements.