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Show HN: Anonymous messaging with a 1km radius

194 points by theveloped 10y ago

theveloped 10y ago
Let me know what you guys think. The app was made to get people talking again to the people around them. I threw in automatically generated anonymous nicknames to lower the initial barrier a bit. Any advise on how to market/keep people engaged are most welcome.
- speps 10y ago
  Does it really work on a train as in the example? Having the GPS work reliably on high speed trains seems like a challenge, more so if you need to rely on cell data connection and everyone having their GPS synchronized properly.
- bresc 10y ago
  I think you are "over quota"
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- irq-1 10y ago
  Nice project. I'd suggest adding a like/ignore option to anonymous users. Also, don't miss this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12804222 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12804222
  - theveloped 10y ago
    There is a small cross in the corner of messages. The underlying menu allows for both reporting/blocking of a particular user.
- reledi 10y ago
  I don't have an iPhone to try it out, so a few questions. 1. Do you need to "log in" to use it? Or can it be used without an account? 2. Can you have hidden/secret conversations? That is, the conversation isn't easily observable by everyone within 1km?
  - theveloped 10y ago
    There is no sign-up required what so ever. If one wishes to continue a conversation one-on-one I believe other applications are better suited for that. I therefore build only one private function: The exchange of contact details if both parties agree. If one wishes to participate in an exchange of details. It is also for this function only required to fill in some form of details. The idea being you can than continue your conversation in private elsewhere.
- loader 10y ago
  I've had an idea like this in my head for awhile now. One use case, you're at home and something just happened, large car accident, loud noise, etc and you want to be able to chat with the people around you while sitting on your couch. When stuff happens around me when I'm sitting at home I find twitter to be too slow to update and it has a lack of information anyways. But then you're just dealing with the same network effects that twitter is having trouble with.
  - twothamendment 10y ago
    Ham radio works for me. The power went out a few weeks ago. In the time it took me to walk across the room and turn on the radio they were already talking about it. I didn't bother to transmit, I didn't need to ask. In the next few minutes I heard reports from across the area, who had power, who didn't. It was way faster than waiting for news on facebook. I had a similar experience when there was a large amount of smoke blowing through. Was it something close or from a neighboring state? Ham radio is pretty simple and you can get started for $50 (radio and test). What does it take? Check out http://hamstudy.org http://hamstudy.org (no affiliation, just a happy user).
eb0la 10y ago
Really nice idea :-) I remember a friend used whatsapp for the first time because it helped to get laid... until everybody had it. This could be better: no need to drive.
Freak_NL 10y ago
The about, privacy, and terms links are all dead. Is this an open protocol/api or a closed environment? It looks like a commercially backed app. What is the business model here? Paid access or advertising?
- theveloped 10y ago
  The "privacy" (http://www.zonemessenger.com/privacy http://www.zonemessenger.com/privacy) and "terms" (http://www.zonemessenger.com/terms http://www.zonemessenger.com/terms) should give you two static pdf's. On my side it's only the "about" link that is dead (will be my personal website). If "privacy"/"terms" really don't work on your side let me know! As of now there is no commercial backing what so ever. It's mealy a side-project that finally got finished. And for now there is also monetizing scheme implemented.
  - annnnd 10y ago
    Privacy: Over Quota This application is temporarily over its serving quota. Please try again later.
    - rkangel 10y ago
      Ah, the old Hacker News death hug.
  - Freak_NL 10y ago
    Ah okay, the privacy and terms links do seem to download something, but you might want to give the files the .pdf file extension.
shaunpud 10y ago
Similar to Herenow https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/herenow/id882349760 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/herenow/id882349760
- theveloped 10y ago
  Looks nice! Will have a look thanks.
- sveme 10y ago
  And Jodel (https://jodel-app.com/ https://jodel-app.com/), which is pretty big among German students and surprisingly entertaining as well.
cheiVia0 10y ago
How does this work? Broadcast a really strong WiFi signal?
- icebraining 10y ago
  Usually on similar apps the messages go to their servers (over 3/4G) along with your location info, and then they re-route it back to all the users whose reported location is close to yours. An exception was FireChat, which built a mesh network using the Bluetooh & Wifi-based connectivity API provided by iOS called "Multipeer Connectivity Framework", so you could talk to someone far away as long as there were other users between you, which served as routers.
  - Geee 10y ago
    Was?
    - icebraining 10y ago
      At the time their were an exception, nowadays I'm not sure if there aren't others doing the same.
- scrabble 10y ago
  You could just grab user location and populate it in a db. Use a proximity search to see which users you see and see you. You could also break things down by geofence, but that would work better for a city chat since there would need to be overlapping fences otherwise you could be next to someone and not see their messages. There are other ways to do it, but if you are going to use Internet connectivity, that's the simplest I believe.
Jamieee 10y ago
So like YikYak, but not based on campus and before they ruined it?
- theveloped 10y ago
  I believe YikYak is based on threads/comments right? The main difference is that my app is more like one big local chatbox. The initial idea was to achieve the atmosphere we used to have in (Dutch) public transport. Everyone could participate/listen to a couple of public conversations being held.
  - zyx321 10y ago
    You say public transport, but I have my doubts it'll work particularly well on the subway.
    - nkrisc 10y ago
      I think that was the inspiration rather than the goal. That's how I interpreted that comment.
  - newsignup 10y ago
    Like Powow http://powow.info/ http://powow.info/ (also based in Netherlands)?
  - th33ngineer 10y ago
    > one big local chatbox. If you are within the range of one user, who is having a conversation with someone in their range but not in yours, will you only see one side of their conversation?
matheo 10y ago
Not much different than YikYak and Jodel. Let companies advertise flash deals and you've got a winner!
fode 10y ago
Please update that 2015 Copyright
- diggan 10y ago
  Update the copyright? Then that means they are saying that they didn't have copyright in 2015, only in 2016, which doesn't make any sense...
  - pulse7 10y ago
    © Copyright 2015-2016
- Jaruzel 10y ago
  The date in a Copyright notice is the date of first Copyright for the works. You do not update it to the current year. However, some sites do suffix the current year as well (e.g. 2012-2016), although that's not required as it's already implied (by dint of displaying the notice in the first place). See -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_notice#Form_of_notice_for_visually_perceptible_copies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_notice#Form_of_notic...
  - timoth 10y ago
    In addition, "All rights reserved" is technically obsolete: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_rights_reserved https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_rights_reserved
- ungzd 10y ago
  Why everyone is still adding such copyright notice if it's optional after 1989 and gives no additional protection?
  - qb45 10y ago
    Because not everybody knows even if they should. Because it makes things easier for others. Because it facilitates contacting you for licensing deals and you want this money. Because it makes infringements easier to prove since you haven't officially registered your copyright. Because you want to sign your work.
Desustorm 10y ago
I would be careful about this. Could definitely be used for bullying by kids - would suggest you come up with a strong mechanism/policy for banning users!
- jacquesm 10y ago
  You could say the same for a lamppost (that I can attach a photo with a message to) and just about every other means of communication where the sender is not known (regular mail, for instance). Technology can be used for good and for bad, this tech is no different in that respect.
  - aethertron 10y ago
    The lamp post is part of a wider local 'ecosystem' that includes ways of dealing with abusive messages attached to publicly-visible objects. Communication apps like this, not so much. This is why service and software makers are considered to have more of a responsibility to be concerned with misuse of their platforms. (ETA:I mean platforms, as in publicly-accessible stuff on the net, that's under their control.)
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - witty_username 10y ago
      Maybe block the user or don't use the app if someone's bullying you?
      - aethertron 10y ago
        "Block the user"--that requires the app to have a block feature. Would you say that's something to be taken for granted? Something we can rightfully expect in communication software? Something the service-provider has an obligation to provide? If 'bullying' in a social app/service continues, then yes, there is option to stop using it. But if that service has value, users are going to want to keep using it, but they're going to ask for a better service.
anotheryou 10y ago
Can you make the zone adaptive so there are always at least a few people there?
- theveloped 10y ago
  This is one of the biggest decisions I've had to make based. The current implementation requires a huge critical mass before there are enough local users. Because as of now I'm not perusing making any money from the app, I opted to test the feasibility of the core idea. Talking to local people. One could of course argue that I could deviate from this slightly (variable range) to reach this critical mass.
  - anotheryou 10y ago
    I think this would be great. As a non-US guy I don't even bother to install it (though I'd need android anyways).
  - pjlegato 10y ago
    I'm in San Francisco right now, a dense, large city with a huge tech-savvy population. There seems to be one other person online at the moment. I guess there are probably more online elsewhere in SF, just not within 1km of me. Adapting the radius to match the number of people available seems like a great idea. If there's only one person within 1km, step up to 2km, 3km, etc. until some number X of people are available. If there are too many people, step back down.
- sjm 10y ago
  Funny that you mention this, as I've literally just submitted this exact app to Apple and should hopefully be launching in the next few days. The app is called hoody (https://hoody.im https://hoody.im) and I can't wait to post it to HN. I was actually a bit bummed to see this as I figured they had _just_ beaten me to the post, but in fact our apps are slightly different. It's anonymous, with auto-generated nicknames as well, but the chat areas are dynamic based on activity in your area. So if no one is using it, it goes worldwide, and shrinks down as people around you are active (country level, city level, suburb), down to a minimum of around 700 metres. Look for it on HN in the next couple days! ;)
smnscu 10y ago
Great work! Congrats on finishing a side project, that's the hardest part. :) I look forward to seeing it on the Play Store.
- golanggeek 10y ago
  I agree. That is the hardest part
elaus 10y ago
How does this work if a person that is 500m away from me is currently chatting with someone 1.2km away… will it seem to me like that person is talking to himself (because his chat partner is out of my reach)?
- friendzis 10y ago
  Looks like. At least in Ingress (location based game) there is radius [client-side-]limited chat and it looks exactly like that :)
- trolor 10y ago
  Random fun fact of the day: this is also called the hidden node problem [1] when applied to wireless networks, and it can cause problems with certain collision avoidance algorithms! Just learned about this the other day :D [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_node_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_node_problem
- wccrawford 10y ago
  I played a game that had communication like this, and the conversations were often quite odd because of it, hearing half-conversations a fair bit of the time. And relaying messages to people further away... Though it wasn't anonymous, and people knew where to tell people to send the messages towards.
  - KarenWint 10y ago
    Looks like it is from a rpg book, not a computer game. My first guess was GURPS by Steve Jackson Games (General Universal Roleplaying System) - but I'm leaning towards one of the oldest roleplaying games (which AFAIK has been "computerized" several times): Traveller. The "tech level" indicates which level of technology is needed for a particular piece of equipment to be available and/or normal (won't get you burned at the stake for using "magic") - in Traveller it is used to label different worlds in the universe AFAIK - with GURPS it also extends to cross-dimensinal travel, alternate realities, time travel etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller_%28role-playing_game%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller_%28role-playing_game... http://unblockedallgames.com/unblocked-games/happy-wheels http://unblockedallgames.com/unblocked-games/happy-wheels
discordianfish 10y ago
How does this compare to YikYak (or the German equivalent 'Jodel')? Seem technically very similar.
lima 10y ago
So... Jodel?
A1kmm 10y ago
If it is exactly 1 km you could triangulate to find someone's location. A program to do that would do a bisection search along a line (faking coordinates for the location of the device) to find the point on the line where you transition to seeing the person's messages. Then, repeat along other two lines in different directions. Each transition point gives a circle of 1 km radius on which the person is present, and the one point shared by all three circles is their location. This could be mitigated by rounding off coordinates to be coarse enough that it doesn't give their precise location before calculating the distance.
- fucking_tragedy 10y ago
  This is trilateration, not triangulation. Triangulation works if you know the angles, trilateration works if you know the distances and uses circles. Source: I've done this before and it is very accurate and creepy. > This could be mitigated by rounding off coordinates to be coarse enough that it doesn't give their precise location before calculating the distance. Reporting a slightly different location to users or varying the search radius per user search could help.
- jamesfisher 10y ago
  Tinder once had this exact problem. You could find users' exact locations via triangulation, since the API reported an exact distance from your location: http://blog.includesecurity.com/2014/02/how-i-was-able-to-track-location-of-any.html http://blog.includesecurity.com/2014/02/how-i-was-able-to-tr...
  - badwolf 10y ago
    Grindr as well, which due to the nature of that app could have had bad effects should someone with ill-intent take advantage. There were even a few apps in the Google Play store that would pinpoint other grindr users.
    - secfirstmd 10y ago
      Yep, this is a big problem in the human rights space these days. When we train on apps with LGBT communities in the Middle East and Africa, we have to spend a lot of time on this issue. More info: https://grindrmap.neocities.org/ https://grindrmap.neocities.org/ Comparison amongst gay dating apps (from 2014) https://grindrmap.neocities.org/overview.html https://grindrmap.neocities.org/overview.html
Vanit 10y ago
I figure you're just rounding latlons to 2 decimal places and putting people in buckets?
- problems 10y ago
  Latlons will not get you meters with accuracy. You need to use Vincenty's formulae.
- theveloped 10y ago
  This is indeed very similar to how initial sorting of the database is done. To improve accuracy (over performance) further sorting is done. Like mentioned the non-linearity with regard to latitude makes standard trigonometry useless. In my case I opted for the haversine formula (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haversine_formula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haversine_formula) this is pretty accurate on the small range of 1km
NicoJuicy 10y ago
You could fork it and theme it with Pokémon Go ;) Fyi, i ran a facebook group with 15 k. people for Belgium. The #2. A little bit late to the party of location based messaging concering Pokémon though ;)
s17tnet 10y ago
Is there anything similar but browser based ?
JulianMorrison 10y ago
Anonymous messaging has proven in practise to be full of cruel gossip, hate speech, and bullying. I can't see a positive use for it, really.
- CraigJPerry 10y ago
  It's also proven to be full of insight, creativity and honesty. As a pretty active consumer of anonymous content, I'd hate to be without it now. Not to undermine your valid points but it is a pull medium, not a push. You're free not to consume. I expect twitter to end up in 2 tiers, the verified default view and the anonymous dark forest (what we have today) you can opt into.
  - b3n 10y ago
    Out of curiosity, where do you consume your insightful anonymous content?
- netsharc 10y ago
  From the screenshot: "I'm at X, who wants to get coffee?" Are people this social, and this lonely? "Let me spend this 30 minutes of free time to talk to some random potential weirdo!"
  - taneq 10y ago
    Lonely? Or adventurous?
  - stefs 10y ago
    people aren't weirdos by default - most are nice, well adjusted people. if they actually are, you're the weirdo, not them.
  - pjlegato 10y ago
    What's so weird about wanting to share your coffee with someone? The screenshot shows someone riding a train -- presumably they are in a distant city where they don't know anyone.
faitswulff 10y ago
Random, but the name "Zone Messenger" makes me think of zones from Everquest and other oldschool MMORPGs. /shout DING!
- stefs 10y ago
  congrats
mxuribe 10y ago
Looks interesting; hoping its fun! Best of luck!
mgallowa 10y ago
I founded an anonymous social media platform in the past. It can be a real pain because once identity/accountability is removed, people tend to act very poorly. On paper, I like your idea of helping people to form risk-free connections, but it is very possible for your platform to spin out of your control. The small radius location nature of your app will likely mean a lot of negative press and/or police inquiries about stalking, harassment, threats, bulling, maybe even rape or murder in the extreme. Not trying to be negative; I know your intentions are good, but be please be prepared. When the police call you in the middle of the night, and they will, make sure you can provide whatever information you can to identify the users. I am actually surprised you would be able to get into the Apple store without being able to do so.
- SamBam 10y ago
  Indeed. Yik Yak is a huge platform for bullies: https://www.google.com/search?q=yik+yak+bullying https://www.google.com/search?q=yik+yak+bullying Basically, if you use this near a school, then the school will be the main topic of conversation. And in that case (assuming students using this), half the conversations may be "So-and-so is a ____" Is there any thought of community moderation?
  - fucking_tragedy 10y ago
    Law enforcement and schools are all over Yik Yak as well for this reason.
  - jandrese 10y ago
    I was about to comment that this is just YikYak again, and the primary use of YikYak is for kids to anonymously harass one another.
  - JoeDaDude 10y ago
    Yik Yak removed user anonymity in recent releases. All users now have a unique handle.
- denzil_correa 10y ago
  Secret.ly an anonymous messaging app, also shut down due to similar concerns. https://medium.com/secret-den/sunset-bc18450478d5#.7bzsu8ut6 https://medium.com/secret-den/sunset-bc18450478d5#.7bzsu8ut6 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/30/technology/a-founder-of-secret-the-anonymous-social-app-shuts-it-down-as-use-declines.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/30/technology/a-founder-of-se...
peterkshultz 10y ago
That the app is both geofenced and anonymous reminds me of Yik Yak, which was a huge success on my college campus before the company decided to move away from anonymity. Did you develop this as a side project, or is this something you want to turn into a business?
- mywittyname 10y ago
  Yik Yak dropped anonymity because they had a problem with harassment on the platform. I'm not sure how Zone is going to be any different.
  - golanggeek 10y ago
    Interesting issue though.. that it should not become an harassment
  - problems 10y ago
    Does it need to? Did YikYak need to? The death of anonymity was pretty much the death of YikYak. Letting people talk, harassment and all seems to be the way to go. It's an opt in thing, so if you don't like it just uninstall or ignore a few users. Maybe I'm just a sucker for a good cesspool sometimes.
  - peterkshultz 10y ago
    I have it on good sources that they dropped anonymity not because of harassment, but because of the history of anonymous apps fizzling out. Anonymous apps generally fail to generate sustainable, long-term growth.
- kuschku 10y ago
  Actually, you on your campus might want to try out Jodel – it’s basically a German YikYak clone, but it still has all the anonymity in it.
  - pantalaimon 10y ago
    It also has a channel feature that works somewhat like subreddits which spawns pretty nice little communities
theveloped 10y ago
Following some of the comments from HN I've just started a small test by temporarily increasing the range.
Xeoncross 10y ago
How do they get wifi or bluetooth to extend to (1k/3,200ft) when standard wifi or bluetooth is less than 400ft? Are they taking control of the wifi chip and making it so the packets are allowed to take much longer to arrive to cover the greater distances?
- Faaak 10y ago
  Simply by using the phone's GPS and sending all messages to a centralized server which then broadcasts it to the "in the area" participants.
  - Xeoncross 10y ago
    So they use paid cellar data then and it's not really limited to location other than the app enforces this. Much less interesting now compared to actual proximity apps.
blitzo 10y ago
You know your product doing great if it blocked in China.
Johnny555 10y ago
How anonymous can a service be that sends messages through a central server and uses your phone's GPS to know where you are at all times? You're only anonymous to each other, but the server in the middle knows all. When I saw the headline, I thought this used some sort of ad-hoc Wifi network with MAC spoofing and couldn't figure out how they got 1km of range.
- andrewstuart2 10y ago
  GPS + Tower location + SRC/DEST IP + MEID, etc. The metadata is the problem for true anonymity, not the amount of information that individual users can see, or that the server stores in its database.
wheelerwj 10y ago
Cool idea, not anonymous even a little bit.
red_anorak 10y ago
Interesting. I built a website a few years back called LampNote, which was based around the idea of "virtual noticeboards" approx every 100m apart from each other. In an earlier incarnation of that project I had considered solving the same problems using anonymous geo targeted messages, either using an app or email. I quickly discounted that approach, as it seemed like it could become a magnet for all sorts of dodgy characters, and a potential headache legally. The end product I arrived at was something quite different, so I'll be interested to see how you get on with zonemessenger. Good luck!
williamle8300 10y ago
Did you make this with Ionic? Pretty smooth UX
- theveloped 10y ago
  Jup. It's build using the Ionic framework. What gave it away?
  - williamle8300 10y ago
    When you click on the logo the "slide down" animation feels very web-y. The rest of app is really nice though. Everything feels really slick for a HTML/JS app. The keyboard show animation could a little work, but I know that's not easy to do.
daveguy 10y ago
I wonder how this compares to an app like YikYak. I checked out YikYak for a few days (really a weird feeling with a bunch of random anonymous people posting messages). This seems similar except maybe only one-to-one rather than message thread based? Also YikYak seems to have about 5 mile radius zones (8km) rather than 1km.
- csydas 10y ago
  I haven't used Zone but I know YikYak caught on pretty hard with college aged folk and college campuses, so the discussions and posts tend to be a bit different. I worked at a University in tech and due to the harassment issues with YikYak was told to keep an eye on it and determine if we need to request a Geo-Block from the YikYak team. I would imagine Zone can probably break free of the age association and maybe grab people with the same sort of "town bulletin board" feel, but it's going to have a lot of conflicting user bases, and probably lots of trouble with harassment in local areas. YikYak had tons of issues with the harassment [0] problem until the user base took on a much more serious approach to moderating. The few times I was told by a student that there was something bad on YikYak, it had already been moderated out of visibility. I don't know how Zone's posting works or if it has moderation or not, but hopefully the user base takes a similar approach. [0] To expand on the harassment, it wasn't just nasty messages being written, it was stalker-ish comments tracking individual's activities, threats against persons, calls for vandalism, and so on. On a smaller University campus, it's taken a lot more seriously. We also had issues with student workers abusing access privileges and leaking private information to YikYak, which was dealt with appropriately by the administration.
ToasterOven 10y ago
I put a decent amount of work into something similar and had a fairly polished mobile app with a good number users in a few concentrated communities using it. And it was a disaster. Anonymity plus a shared reference point of being near each other (mine was 400ft) produced either random attempts at discussion that never matured into a conversation, or focused vitriol at real people. We ended up discontinuing the app as it was hard to overcome the double network effect (needing people you actually want to chat with, and needing them to be nearby), and the only times where it did was because of a pretty reprehensible use case.
azaydak 10y ago
Doesn't seem to be out for android yet.
rezashirazian 10y ago
For anyone interested I built something similar (anonymous chat within a radius) as part of a pokemon go app A few months ago. It's an iOS app built, written in swift with a firebase backend https://github.com/kingreza/Social-Go https://github.com/kingreza/Social-Go
bahjoite 10y ago
This isn't anonymous messaging, but pseudonymous messaging.
pareidolia 10y ago
It seems pointless to me to limit the functionality to an application that requires installation. A webapp would be a better choice. Count me out as an (interested) user because I'm on Ubuntu Phone now.
fapjacks 10y ago
I think it would be more interesting if the radius was variable and dependent upon the population density of your area. This way, your neighborhood in the city (SF) is roughly a kilometer out, but in Wyoming, you're going to talk to a relatively similar number of people. I think anyways it would be more useful for the kinds of tasks I would see myself using this app for.

194 points by theveloped 10y ago

Let me know what you guys think. The app was made to get people talking again to the people around them. I threw in automatically generated anonymous nicknames to lower the initial barrier a bit. Any advise on how to market/keep people engaged are most welcome.

speps 10y ago
Does it really work on a train as in the example? Having the GPS work reliably on high speed trains seems like a challenge, more so if you need to rely on cell data connection and everyone having their GPS synchronized properly.
bresc 10y ago
I think you are "over quota"
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
irq-1 10y ago
Nice project. I'd suggest adding a like/ignore option to anonymous users. Also, don't miss this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12804222 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12804222
- theveloped 10y ago
  There is a small cross in the corner of messages. The underlying menu allows for both reporting/blocking of a particular user.
reledi 10y ago
I don't have an iPhone to try it out, so a few questions. 1. Do you need to "log in" to use it? Or can it be used without an account? 2. Can you have hidden/secret conversations? That is, the conversation isn't easily observable by everyone within 1km?
- theveloped 10y ago
  There is no sign-up required what so ever. If one wishes to continue a conversation one-on-one I believe other applications are better suited for that. I therefore build only one private function: The exchange of contact details if both parties agree. If one wishes to participate in an exchange of details. It is also for this function only required to fill in some form of details. The idea being you can than continue your conversation in private elsewhere.
loader 10y ago
I've had an idea like this in my head for awhile now. One use case, you're at home and something just happened, large car accident, loud noise, etc and you want to be able to chat with the people around you while sitting on your couch. When stuff happens around me when I'm sitting at home I find twitter to be too slow to update and it has a lack of information anyways. But then you're just dealing with the same network effects that twitter is having trouble with.
- twothamendment 10y ago
  Ham radio works for me. The power went out a few weeks ago. In the time it took me to walk across the room and turn on the radio they were already talking about it. I didn't bother to transmit, I didn't need to ask. In the next few minutes I heard reports from across the area, who had power, who didn't. It was way faster than waiting for news on facebook. I had a similar experience when there was a large amount of smoke blowing through. Was it something close or from a neighboring state? Ham radio is pretty simple and you can get started for $50 (radio and test). What does it take? Check out http://hamstudy.org http://hamstudy.org (no affiliation, just a happy user).

eb0la 10y ago

Really nice idea :-) I remember a friend used whatsapp for the first time because it helped to get laid... until everybody had it. This could be better: no need to drive.

Freak_NL 10y ago

The about, privacy, and terms links are all dead. Is this an open protocol/api or a closed environment? It looks like a commercially backed app. What is the business model here? Paid access or advertising?

theveloped 10y ago
The "privacy" (http://www.zonemessenger.com/privacy http://www.zonemessenger.com/privacy) and "terms" (http://www.zonemessenger.com/terms http://www.zonemessenger.com/terms) should give you two static pdf's. On my side it's only the "about" link that is dead (will be my personal website). If "privacy"/"terms" really don't work on your side let me know! As of now there is no commercial backing what so ever. It's mealy a side-project that finally got finished. And for now there is also monetizing scheme implemented.
- annnnd 10y ago
  Privacy: Over Quota This application is temporarily over its serving quota. Please try again later.
  - rkangel 10y ago
    Ah, the old Hacker News death hug.
- Freak_NL 10y ago
  Ah okay, the privacy and terms links do seem to download something, but you might want to give the files the .pdf file extension.

shaunpud 10y ago

Similar to Herenow https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/herenow/id882349760 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/herenow/id882349760

theveloped 10y ago
Looks nice! Will have a look thanks.
sveme 10y ago
And Jodel (https://jodel-app.com/ https://jodel-app.com/), which is pretty big among German students and surprisingly entertaining as well.

cheiVia0 10y ago

How does this work? Broadcast a really strong WiFi signal?

icebraining 10y ago
Usually on similar apps the messages go to their servers (over 3/4G) along with your location info, and then they re-route it back to all the users whose reported location is close to yours. An exception was FireChat, which built a mesh network using the Bluetooh & Wifi-based connectivity API provided by iOS called "Multipeer Connectivity Framework", so you could talk to someone far away as long as there were other users between you, which served as routers.
- Geee 10y ago
  Was?
  - icebraining 10y ago
    At the time their were an exception, nowadays I'm not sure if there aren't others doing the same.
scrabble 10y ago
You could just grab user location and populate it in a db. Use a proximity search to see which users you see and see you. You could also break things down by geofence, but that would work better for a city chat since there would need to be overlapping fences otherwise you could be next to someone and not see their messages. There are other ways to do it, but if you are going to use Internet connectivity, that's the simplest I believe.

Jamieee 10y ago

So like YikYak, but not based on campus and before they ruined it?

theveloped 10y ago
I believe YikYak is based on threads/comments right? The main difference is that my app is more like one big local chatbox. The initial idea was to achieve the atmosphere we used to have in (Dutch) public transport. Everyone could participate/listen to a couple of public conversations being held.
- zyx321 10y ago
  You say public transport, but I have my doubts it'll work particularly well on the subway.
  - nkrisc 10y ago
    I think that was the inspiration rather than the goal. That's how I interpreted that comment.
- newsignup 10y ago
  Like Powow http://powow.info/ http://powow.info/ (also based in Netherlands)?
- th33ngineer 10y ago
  > one big local chatbox. If you are within the range of one user, who is having a conversation with someone in their range but not in yours, will you only see one side of their conversation?

matheo 10y ago

Not much different than YikYak and Jodel. Let companies advertise flash deals and you've got a winner!

fode 10y ago

Please update that 2015 Copyright

diggan 10y ago
Update the copyright? Then that means they are saying that they didn't have copyright in 2015, only in 2016, which doesn't make any sense...
- pulse7 10y ago
  © Copyright 2015-2016
Jaruzel 10y ago
The date in a Copyright notice is the date of first Copyright for the works. You do not update it to the current year. However, some sites do suffix the current year as well (e.g. 2012-2016), although that's not required as it's already implied (by dint of displaying the notice in the first place). See -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_notice#Form_of_notice_for_visually_perceptible_copies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_notice#Form_of_notic...
- timoth 10y ago
  In addition, "All rights reserved" is technically obsolete: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_rights_reserved https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_rights_reserved
ungzd 10y ago
Why everyone is still adding such copyright notice if it's optional after 1989 and gives no additional protection?
- qb45 10y ago
  Because not everybody knows even if they should. Because it makes things easier for others. Because it facilitates contacting you for licensing deals and you want this money. Because it makes infringements easier to prove since you haven't officially registered your copyright. Because you want to sign your work.

Desustorm 10y ago

I would be careful about this. Could definitely be used for bullying by kids - would suggest you come up with a strong mechanism/policy for banning users!

jacquesm 10y ago
You could say the same for a lamppost (that I can attach a photo with a message to) and just about every other means of communication where the sender is not known (regular mail, for instance). Technology can be used for good and for bad, this tech is no different in that respect.
- aethertron 10y ago
  The lamp post is part of a wider local 'ecosystem' that includes ways of dealing with abusive messages attached to publicly-visible objects. Communication apps like this, not so much. This is why service and software makers are considered to have more of a responsibility to be concerned with misuse of their platforms. (ETA:I mean platforms, as in publicly-accessible stuff on the net, that's under their control.)
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - witty_username 10y ago
    Maybe block the user or don't use the app if someone's bullying you?
    - aethertron 10y ago
      "Block the user"--that requires the app to have a block feature. Would you say that's something to be taken for granted? Something we can rightfully expect in communication software? Something the service-provider has an obligation to provide? If 'bullying' in a social app/service continues, then yes, there is option to stop using it. But if that service has value, users are going to want to keep using it, but they're going to ask for a better service.

anotheryou 10y ago

Can you make the zone adaptive so there are always at least a few people there?

theveloped 10y ago
This is one of the biggest decisions I've had to make based. The current implementation requires a huge critical mass before there are enough local users. Because as of now I'm not perusing making any money from the app, I opted to test the feasibility of the core idea. Talking to local people. One could of course argue that I could deviate from this slightly (variable range) to reach this critical mass.
- anotheryou 10y ago
  I think this would be great. As a non-US guy I don't even bother to install it (though I'd need android anyways).
- pjlegato 10y ago
  I'm in San Francisco right now, a dense, large city with a huge tech-savvy population. There seems to be one other person online at the moment. I guess there are probably more online elsewhere in SF, just not within 1km of me. Adapting the radius to match the number of people available seems like a great idea. If there's only one person within 1km, step up to 2km, 3km, etc. until some number X of people are available. If there are too many people, step back down.
sjm 10y ago
Funny that you mention this, as I've literally just submitted this exact app to Apple and should hopefully be launching in the next few days. The app is called hoody (https://hoody.im https://hoody.im) and I can't wait to post it to HN. I was actually a bit bummed to see this as I figured they had _just_ beaten me to the post, but in fact our apps are slightly different. It's anonymous, with auto-generated nicknames as well, but the chat areas are dynamic based on activity in your area. So if no one is using it, it goes worldwide, and shrinks down as people around you are active (country level, city level, suburb), down to a minimum of around 700 metres. Look for it on HN in the next couple days! ;)

smnscu 10y ago

Great work! Congrats on finishing a side project, that's the hardest part. :) I look forward to seeing it on the Play Store.

golanggeek 10y ago
I agree. That is the hardest part

elaus 10y ago

How does this work if a person that is 500m away from me is currently chatting with someone 1.2km away… will it seem to me like that person is talking to himself (because his chat partner is out of my reach)?

friendzis 10y ago
Looks like. At least in Ingress (location based game) there is radius [client-side-]limited chat and it looks exactly like that :)
trolor 10y ago
Random fun fact of the day: this is also called the hidden node problem [1] when applied to wireless networks, and it can cause problems with certain collision avoidance algorithms! Just learned about this the other day :D [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_node_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_node_problem
wccrawford 10y ago
I played a game that had communication like this, and the conversations were often quite odd because of it, hearing half-conversations a fair bit of the time. And relaying messages to people further away... Though it wasn't anonymous, and people knew where to tell people to send the messages towards.
- KarenWint 10y ago
  Looks like it is from a rpg book, not a computer game. My first guess was GURPS by Steve Jackson Games (General Universal Roleplaying System) - but I'm leaning towards one of the oldest roleplaying games (which AFAIK has been "computerized" several times): Traveller. The "tech level" indicates which level of technology is needed for a particular piece of equipment to be available and/or normal (won't get you burned at the stake for using "magic") - in Traveller it is used to label different worlds in the universe AFAIK - with GURPS it also extends to cross-dimensinal travel, alternate realities, time travel etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller_%28role-playing_game%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller_%28role-playing_game... http://unblockedallgames.com/unblocked-games/happy-wheels http://unblockedallgames.com/unblocked-games/happy-wheels

discordianfish 10y ago

How does this compare to YikYak (or the German equivalent 'Jodel')? Seem technically very similar.

lima 10y ago

So... Jodel?

A1kmm 10y ago

If it is exactly 1 km you could triangulate to find someone's location. A program to do that would do a bisection search along a line (faking coordinates for the location of the device) to find the point on the line where you transition to seeing the person's messages. Then, repeat along other two lines in different directions. Each transition point gives a circle of 1 km radius on which the person is present, and the one point shared by all three circles is their location. This could be mitigated by rounding off coordinates to be coarse enough that it doesn't give their precise location before calculating the distance.

fucking_tragedy 10y ago
This is trilateration, not triangulation. Triangulation works if you know the angles, trilateration works if you know the distances and uses circles. Source: I've done this before and it is very accurate and creepy. > This could be mitigated by rounding off coordinates to be coarse enough that it doesn't give their precise location before calculating the distance. Reporting a slightly different location to users or varying the search radius per user search could help.
jamesfisher 10y ago
Tinder once had this exact problem. You could find users' exact locations via triangulation, since the API reported an exact distance from your location: http://blog.includesecurity.com/2014/02/how-i-was-able-to-track-location-of-any.html http://blog.includesecurity.com/2014/02/how-i-was-able-to-tr...
- badwolf 10y ago
  Grindr as well, which due to the nature of that app could have had bad effects should someone with ill-intent take advantage. There were even a few apps in the Google Play store that would pinpoint other grindr users.
  - secfirstmd 10y ago
    Yep, this is a big problem in the human rights space these days. When we train on apps with LGBT communities in the Middle East and Africa, we have to spend a lot of time on this issue. More info: https://grindrmap.neocities.org/ https://grindrmap.neocities.org/ Comparison amongst gay dating apps (from 2014) https://grindrmap.neocities.org/overview.html https://grindrmap.neocities.org/overview.html

Vanit 10y ago

I figure you're just rounding latlons to 2 decimal places and putting people in buckets?

problems 10y ago
Latlons will not get you meters with accuracy. You need to use Vincenty's formulae.
theveloped 10y ago
This is indeed very similar to how initial sorting of the database is done. To improve accuracy (over performance) further sorting is done. Like mentioned the non-linearity with regard to latitude makes standard trigonometry useless. In my case I opted for the haversine formula (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haversine_formula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haversine_formula) this is pretty accurate on the small range of 1km

NicoJuicy 10y ago

You could fork it and theme it with Pokémon Go ;) Fyi, i ran a facebook group with 15 k. people for Belgium. The #2. A little bit late to the party of location based messaging concering Pokémon though ;)

s17tnet 10y ago

Is there anything similar but browser based ?

JulianMorrison 10y ago

Anonymous messaging has proven in practise to be full of cruel gossip, hate speech, and bullying. I can't see a positive use for it, really.

CraigJPerry 10y ago
It's also proven to be full of insight, creativity and honesty. As a pretty active consumer of anonymous content, I'd hate to be without it now. Not to undermine your valid points but it is a pull medium, not a push. You're free not to consume. I expect twitter to end up in 2 tiers, the verified default view and the anonymous dark forest (what we have today) you can opt into.
- b3n 10y ago
  Out of curiosity, where do you consume your insightful anonymous content?
netsharc 10y ago
From the screenshot: "I'm at X, who wants to get coffee?" Are people this social, and this lonely? "Let me spend this 30 minutes of free time to talk to some random potential weirdo!"
- taneq 10y ago
  Lonely? Or adventurous?
- stefs 10y ago
  people aren't weirdos by default - most are nice, well adjusted people. if they actually are, you're the weirdo, not them.
- pjlegato 10y ago
  What's so weird about wanting to share your coffee with someone? The screenshot shows someone riding a train -- presumably they are in a distant city where they don't know anyone.

faitswulff 10y ago

Random, but the name "Zone Messenger" makes me think of zones from Everquest and other oldschool MMORPGs. /shout DING!

stefs 10y ago
congrats

mxuribe 10y ago

Looks interesting; hoping its fun! Best of luck!

mgallowa 10y ago

I founded an anonymous social media platform in the past. It can be a real pain because once identity/accountability is removed, people tend to act very poorly. On paper, I like your idea of helping people to form risk-free connections, but it is very possible for your platform to spin out of your control. The small radius location nature of your app will likely mean a lot of negative press and/or police inquiries about stalking, harassment, threats, bulling, maybe even rape or murder in the extreme. Not trying to be negative; I know your intentions are good, but be please be prepared. When the police call you in the middle of the night, and they will, make sure you can provide whatever information you can to identify the users. I am actually surprised you would be able to get into the Apple store without being able to do so.

SamBam 10y ago
Indeed. Yik Yak is a huge platform for bullies: https://www.google.com/search?q=yik+yak+bullying https://www.google.com/search?q=yik+yak+bullying Basically, if you use this near a school, then the school will be the main topic of conversation. And in that case (assuming students using this), half the conversations may be "So-and-so is a ____" Is there any thought of community moderation?
- fucking_tragedy 10y ago
  Law enforcement and schools are all over Yik Yak as well for this reason.
- jandrese 10y ago
  I was about to comment that this is just YikYak again, and the primary use of YikYak is for kids to anonymously harass one another.
- JoeDaDude 10y ago
  Yik Yak removed user anonymity in recent releases. All users now have a unique handle.
denzil_correa 10y ago
Secret.ly an anonymous messaging app, also shut down due to similar concerns. https://medium.com/secret-den/sunset-bc18450478d5#.7bzsu8ut6 https://medium.com/secret-den/sunset-bc18450478d5#.7bzsu8ut6 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/30/technology/a-founder-of-secret-the-anonymous-social-app-shuts-it-down-as-use-declines.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/30/technology/a-founder-of-se...

peterkshultz 10y ago

That the app is both geofenced and anonymous reminds me of Yik Yak, which was a huge success on my college campus before the company decided to move away from anonymity. Did you develop this as a side project, or is this something you want to turn into a business?

mywittyname 10y ago
Yik Yak dropped anonymity because they had a problem with harassment on the platform. I'm not sure how Zone is going to be any different.
- golanggeek 10y ago
  Interesting issue though.. that it should not become an harassment
- problems 10y ago
  Does it need to? Did YikYak need to? The death of anonymity was pretty much the death of YikYak. Letting people talk, harassment and all seems to be the way to go. It's an opt in thing, so if you don't like it just uninstall or ignore a few users. Maybe I'm just a sucker for a good cesspool sometimes.
- peterkshultz 10y ago
  I have it on good sources that they dropped anonymity not because of harassment, but because of the history of anonymous apps fizzling out. Anonymous apps generally fail to generate sustainable, long-term growth.
kuschku 10y ago
Actually, you on your campus might want to try out Jodel – it’s basically a German YikYak clone, but it still has all the anonymity in it.
- pantalaimon 10y ago
  It also has a channel feature that works somewhat like subreddits which spawns pretty nice little communities

theveloped 10y ago

Following some of the comments from HN I've just started a small test by temporarily increasing the range.

Xeoncross 10y ago

How do they get wifi or bluetooth to extend to (1k/3,200ft) when standard wifi or bluetooth is less than 400ft? Are they taking control of the wifi chip and making it so the packets are allowed to take much longer to arrive to cover the greater distances?

Faaak 10y ago
Simply by using the phone's GPS and sending all messages to a centralized server which then broadcasts it to the "in the area" participants.
- Xeoncross 10y ago
  So they use paid cellar data then and it's not really limited to location other than the app enforces this. Much less interesting now compared to actual proximity apps.

blitzo 10y ago

You know your product doing great if it blocked in China.

Johnny555 10y ago

How anonymous can a service be that sends messages through a central server and uses your phone's GPS to know where you are at all times? You're only anonymous to each other, but the server in the middle knows all. When I saw the headline, I thought this used some sort of ad-hoc Wifi network with MAC spoofing and couldn't figure out how they got 1km of range.

andrewstuart2 10y ago
GPS + Tower location + SRC/DEST IP + MEID, etc. The metadata is the problem for true anonymity, not the amount of information that individual users can see, or that the server stores in its database.

wheelerwj 10y ago

Cool idea, not anonymous even a little bit.

red_anorak 10y ago

Interesting. I built a website a few years back called LampNote, which was based around the idea of "virtual noticeboards" approx every 100m apart from each other. In an earlier incarnation of that project I had considered solving the same problems using anonymous geo targeted messages, either using an app or email. I quickly discounted that approach, as it seemed like it could become a magnet for all sorts of dodgy characters, and a potential headache legally. The end product I arrived at was something quite different, so I'll be interested to see how you get on with zonemessenger. Good luck!

williamle8300 10y ago

Did you make this with Ionic? Pretty smooth UX

theveloped 10y ago
Jup. It's build using the Ionic framework. What gave it away?
- williamle8300 10y ago
  When you click on the logo the "slide down" animation feels very web-y. The rest of app is really nice though. Everything feels really slick for a HTML/JS app. The keyboard show animation could a little work, but I know that's not easy to do.

daveguy 10y ago

I wonder how this compares to an app like YikYak. I checked out YikYak for a few days (really a weird feeling with a bunch of random anonymous people posting messages). This seems similar except maybe only one-to-one rather than message thread based? Also YikYak seems to have about 5 mile radius zones (8km) rather than 1km.

csydas 10y ago
I haven't used Zone but I know YikYak caught on pretty hard with college aged folk and college campuses, so the discussions and posts tend to be a bit different. I worked at a University in tech and due to the harassment issues with YikYak was told to keep an eye on it and determine if we need to request a Geo-Block from the YikYak team. I would imagine Zone can probably break free of the age association and maybe grab people with the same sort of "town bulletin board" feel, but it's going to have a lot of conflicting user bases, and probably lots of trouble with harassment in local areas. YikYak had tons of issues with the harassment [0] problem until the user base took on a much more serious approach to moderating. The few times I was told by a student that there was something bad on YikYak, it had already been moderated out of visibility. I don't know how Zone's posting works or if it has moderation or not, but hopefully the user base takes a similar approach. [0] To expand on the harassment, it wasn't just nasty messages being written, it was stalker-ish comments tracking individual's activities, threats against persons, calls for vandalism, and so on. On a smaller University campus, it's taken a lot more seriously. We also had issues with student workers abusing access privileges and leaking private information to YikYak, which was dealt with appropriately by the administration.

ToasterOven 10y ago

I put a decent amount of work into something similar and had a fairly polished mobile app with a good number users in a few concentrated communities using it. And it was a disaster. Anonymity plus a shared reference point of being near each other (mine was 400ft) produced either random attempts at discussion that never matured into a conversation, or focused vitriol at real people. We ended up discontinuing the app as it was hard to overcome the double network effect (needing people you actually want to chat with, and needing them to be nearby), and the only times where it did was because of a pretty reprehensible use case.

azaydak 10y ago

Doesn't seem to be out for android yet.

rezashirazian 10y ago

For anyone interested I built something similar (anonymous chat within a radius) as part of a pokemon go app A few months ago. It's an iOS app built, written in swift with a firebase backend https://github.com/kingreza/Social-Go https://github.com/kingreza/Social-Go

bahjoite 10y ago

This isn't anonymous messaging, but pseudonymous messaging.

pareidolia 10y ago

It seems pointless to me to limit the functionality to an application that requires installation. A webapp would be a better choice. Count me out as an (interested) user because I'm on Ubuntu Phone now.

fapjacks 10y ago

I think it would be more interesting if the radius was variable and dependent upon the population density of your area. This way, your neighborhood in the city (SF) is roughly a kilometer out, but in Wyoming, you're going to talk to a relatively similar number of people. I think anyways it would be more useful for the kinds of tasks I would see myself using this app for.