Yobongo Helps You Connect and Chat with Local People Just Like You
The goal of the app is to connect similar-minded users with one another in city-based chat rooms. The app monitors what kind of subjects you chat about and then connects you to others who like to discuss those same topics. The idea here is to introduce you to others in your city who share similar interests to you. From here, Yobongo Inc hopes a meaningful relationship will be born.
“We analyze every pair of messages sent through the system and use that to build up an understanding of who you like talking with,” co-founder Caleb Elston told Mashable, “Then when you open Yobongo, we place you with people you have the strongest affinity for. All of these simple signals lead to a very powerful signal."
Yobongo is quite easy to use. You simply start up the app, and it connects you to a chat room. You're able to chat with everyone or branch off into private conversations.
The app was privately beta tested in January, letting 150 users test a version of it. Elston says that beta testers of the application described it as "addicting." He claims that the average user participated in around 10 sessions per day. He also says that around 90% of users returned to the app each day. Sounds impressive. Of course, all these statistics are provided by the company's own internal metrics.
Currently, Yobongo is only available in a limited number of cities, including San Francisco, Austin, New York and Long Beach. If you're not in one of these cities, when you boot up the app you're greeted with a screen telling you that Yobongo is not available in your area, but that you can vote on Facebook or Twitter to bring it to your city.
If you're in one of the select cities where Yobongo is available, though, you can check it out on the iTunes App Store for free right now.