#yobongo

[parislemon]

Several months back, the Yobongo team [got acquired](http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/08/yobongo-acquired-by-mixbook/) by Mixbook, a photobook and calendaring service. They've been heads down since working on an iOS product called Mosaic, which isn't quite ready to go yet, but is close. If you're interested, click on the link above for early access when they near launch. No conflicts here. Just interest.

[kalebaskew]

[lution-blog]

Yobongo Aims To Up The Interaction With “Around” And “Nudge”

Yobongo has a problem that isn’t an easy one to solve. They want to create a realtime communication tool centered around location. But if people around you aren’t always on Yobongo, what do you do? Two new features aim to address that key issue. “Around” and “Nudge”.

Both new features launch today in the latest version of the app. And they make a lot of sense from an interaction perspective. “Around” allows you to see who has been recently active on Yobongo near you. This means that even if a user has closed the app, they’ll show up as someone who has been online recently and looking for a conversation. And you can message them. “Nudge” is more straight forward. You know the Facebook “poke”? Yeah, this is that for Yobongo. If you want to bring someone online to talk with them, you use this.

“As we work to reduce the friction of making new connections, we realized we were missing the real world equivalent of seeing who is around you,” Yobongo Caleb Elston says about Around. “We already allowed you to chat in a group with people, and then move to one on one conversations. Around fills the gap of seeing who is around, but with even more context than the real world,” he continues, noting that the recent Pondering feature plays a role here as well.

Meanwhile, of Nudge, he says that it’s “a quick way to get your Yobongo friends to join the conversation.” “If you swipe to the end of the faces in the top bar there is a new ‘Nudge’ button. When tapped, it presents a view of people who have recently sent messages and people you have interacted with on Yobongo whom you can then simply Nudge,” he continues, noting that if a conversation in the main chat room slows, they’ll also suggest users who you can nudge to join in.

Since its launch four months ago, Elston says that Yobongo is now seeing users sign in an average of three times throughout the day (which is lower than it would be if Yobongo didn’t add multitasking support recently) and that active users are sending sending 49 messages a day on average.

The startup remains committed to the iPhone as they don’t want to spread themselves too thin. They now have five employees.

You can find Yobongo in the App Store here.

[rajibedi]

Hyperlocal is not revolutionary

It used to be very normal to ask your neighbor to borrow a cup of sugar. Human exchange was physical. Then came the Internet and millions of people waited anxiously for their dial-up connection to screech with excitement, opening up a world of digital dialogue throughout the world. The Internet changed the way we interacted (*gasp*). Our previously local, intimate relationships became digital and remote. Shit, I’d rather get a few pounds of sugar shipped to me overnight via Amazon Prime.

Fast forward and the world is flatter than ever. But human interaction is beginning to mirror the path of a boomerang. Originally clutched by a human, thrown aggressively into the clouds, it is now returning to the firm grasp of a real person. There is a growing appetite for people to engage locally again, albeit using the digital world as an efficient way to facilitate physical interaction. A middleware of sorts.

As always, catchy buzz words quickly surface to describe the next big thing. Never mind that it’s not revolutionary. In this case the word is "hyperlocal". Hyperlocal news. Hyperlocal deals. Hyperlocal advertising. Hyperlocal ____________. It’s not cool to just say that the way we interact tomorrow will more closely resemble the way we interacted a decade ago. We have to make it sound like it’s a brand spankin' new concept.

The proliferation of smart phones is undoubtedly responsible for the renewed emphasis on local.  There is still a lot to figure out, but there is no question that the digital world is being turned upside down. But it can be tough to shake a bad habit. (Isn't it just a little bit crazy that local businesses have to use the internet to attract local customers?) But, overtime, it is fair to say that the digital world is going to make the physical world a lot more efficient. In my blog about social neutrality,  I defined innovation as the creative repurposing of things that already exist. That concept applies to the examples below for which neither the technology nor the behaviors are new, but are being creatively repurposed.

Zipcar is hyperlocal sharing. Driving isn’t a new behavior. But I don’t need to buy a car if I only intend to drive it for a few hours a week. Enabled by a digital portal, Zipcar allows me to borrow a car for a short period of time.  Today, Zipcar is a $180m+ business, with over 550,000 Zipsters. Lisa Gansky goes into great detail about sharing in her book The Mesh.

Groupon is hyperlocal deals. After all this time I spend staring at my browser, I am left with very little time to window shop.  But it’s certainly something I used to do. Groupon incentivizes me (via daily deals) to walk down the street and interact with my neighborhood again. It's rumored that Groupon's imminent IPO will value the company at $25bn (Google was valued at $23bn when it went public).

Outside.in is hyperlocal news. Reading the town’s newspaper is not a new behavior. But, for a while we lost some interest in what was happening around us because we were so mesmerized by what was happening around the world. Outside.in provides a way to reconnect with the news in your neighborhood. Recently acquired by AOL, Outside.in will likely be integrated with AOL's Patch.

Yobongo is hyperlocal chat. Sitting on the porch and chatting with neighbors is not a new behavior. Yobongo enables people to chat with people near you - strangers and friends alike. The prospect of chatting with someone that is not worlds away from me adds an authenticity that is glaringly absent from typical chat sites. I could actually go hang out with this person I am chatting with. Yobongo recently closed a seed round led by True Ventures.

From journalism, to commerce, to farming, to nightlife, technology will more efficiently enable the type of interactions we are used to. Real ones. Like, you know, with real people and real things.

[luncheditor]

Yobango

group msg'g service

Amplify’d from www.youtube.com

Startup: Yobongo iPhone App

See more at www.youtube.com

 See this Amp at http://bit.ly/fA5MSF

[luncheditor]

group msg'g

Amplify’d from techcrunch.com

“We spoke to investors in October but many people doubted that Yobongo would work. So we went and kept working on the product,” Yobongo co-founder Caleb Elston says. “A few weeks ago we got the product into peoples hands and literally 10 minutes from sending the beta to one of our investors he called, emailed, texted, and Yobongo messaged me. ‘I get it, I’m in.’,” he continues.

And that one investor is hardly the only one. The mobile chat service has secured a $1.35 million angel round with many familiar investors taking part. Individuals Mitch Kapor, Dave Morin, Kevin Rose, Gary Vaynerchuk, Karl Jacob, Bill Roux, Shervin Pishevar have all invested. And Freestyle Capital and True Ventures have joined in on the action as well.

“The round came together unbelievably quickly – in just a few days. We had to turn away some unbelievably talented people,” Elston says of the round. “We have hand-picked each one of our investors for their particular experience and steadfast belief in Yobongo. We wanted a group who have unique insights into social dynamics and technology and have shepherded companies through all stages of growth,” he notes.

Read more at techcrunch.com

 See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bw5lb

[sxsw-milesmedia-blog]

Bumping into Yobongo

Most of the pre-SXSW media buzz was about the launch of yobongo, a service that allows people to chat with people near them via their cell phones - no friend lists needed. Major media coverage, including the New York Times. This morning we hopped on the downtown shuttle, and I noticed some yobongo shirts. So I asked - and yup, we were in the van with Caleb and David, who launched the service. In fact, they are staying in our hotel. Of course, I went into reporter mode. I may build websites now, but I can't forget my roots. Here are some things we talked about: * The crazy launch, including all their press * Why no Android app - "we've got a guy working on it" * Any nerves about such a public launch? Nope, all things are a go and running smoothly (wish I could have such confidence) * How are people using it? Lots of meeting up at restaurants, tips. We talked about how it could apply to travel. * They describe it like a chat room, minus the bad rap chat rooms of old (no sleaze factor). Albeit, a geo aware, mobile chat room. * They started working at Justin.tv. What they noticed was how popular the live tv chat was, something like 10,000 lines a day... * And lastly, swag. They have t-shirts and Becky scored us some. And, they have girl sizes. Caleb has sisters, and they taught him well.

[nonosisi]

Domo, un app como Yobongo pero que se vale de tus intereses en Facebook para conectarte con personas interesantes apra tí... A lo que hemos llegado, no hay mercado todavía, al menos no desarrollado y ya están saliendo lo que para mí es un producto adelantado en el tiempo de mercado.

Domo es al parecer hecho por Japoneses, eso le daría la razón. Lo que si es cierto es que es competencia directa de Yobongo pero le agrega la funcionalidad de que puedes encontrar gente que tenga los mismos gustos que tú, para mí un plus bien importante.

¿Que opinan ustedes?