Mediaboss Marketing

A new application called Shout is offering a twist on location-based mobile social networking, with a newly launched app that lets you post messages shared with those in your immediate vicinity, or even citywide.

The idea is similar in some ways to the popular anonymous social app Yik Yak, which also lets you post things to be shared with those nearby, except for a key difference: On Shout, users are not really anonymous. Instead, you have to sign up using yourphone number before posting to the app, which encourages accountability.That change differentiates Shout from Yik Yak and others like it, because it helps createa different kind of community, explains Shouts founder,Charlie Mullan.

Were not anonymous and we dont want to be becauseI think that ultimately hurts the value of the content that can be shared over the course of an apps lifecycle, he says. While he believes that the trend toward anonymous social networking, popularizedby apps like Yik Yak, Secret and Whisper, is more than a flash-in-the-pan, he also thinks it dictates the kind of community that results.

I definitely think it encourages a certain kind of information, and you have to make the decision: is that the kind of information you want to be shared and you want your users to share? he says.

With Shout, the goal is to get users to share information they wouldnt have otherwise posted elsewhere, but without the trolling and abuse anonymous communities face.

For instance, you could post messages that are only visible to you and others in your own apartment building. But you can also share to larger geographic regions, as well. In the app, when you post a Shout, you drag your finger across a slider that ranges from 25 ft. to 25 miles, allowing you to choose exactly who can see your content.

The system isnt perfect, though. Its hard to exactly isolate a neighborhood or college campus, for example, because the map only lets you editthe circular radius around your exact location. And theres no option to choose a locationfrom a pre-populateddatabase, either. ButMullan admits the map element is still something of an MVP meaning they still have work to do on that element.

Shout, he tells us, grew out of his earlier efforts with location-based social networking with an app called Spangle, which is backed by $2 million in angel funding.

Designed to offer a real-time feed of trending events on college campuses, the olderSpangle app, launched last fall, was overly complicated and it was difficult to get users to post events, Mullan says. Shout initially was a new feature added to Spangle, but one which users responded to, he explains.

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Shout Offers A New Take On Location-Based Social Networking By Ditching Anonymity