Bruce Yang and his friends woke up the morning after his bachelor party and checked their phones to make sure they hadn’t posted anything embarrassing on social media. That’s when Yang decided to create the app, Sobrr.
The app encourages users to “live in the moment” by posting photos, videos and making “friendships” that all get deleted within 24 hours, said Ryan Koehn, the app’s marketing and communications generator. Users can keep the friendships if both parties agree.
Now, Sobrr is being used by young social networkers across the U.S. and even internationally, Koehn said. The developers now want to focus on the college market.
He said the app is intended for “socially active” people aged 17 to 35 and those who are tired of the current state of social media. The actual demographic includes 40-year-olds because of publicity in publications such as in VentureBeat, Business Insider, Social Times and The Daily Dot.
He said it’s different than Snapchat and Instagram, two popular photo-sharing apps, because it offers different features such as the friendship feature and the fact that it allows users to connect with others in their area.
“Bruce had grown tired of the state of current social media where there’s a vicarious element to it. It doesn’t inspire you to act, but rather, it’s a mindless act of scrolling through the experiences of other people,” Koehn said.
“What he was looking for was something more sincere that encouraged people to go out and live their lives.”
Sobrr protects users’ privacy and information by deleting everything in its server 24 hours from when it’s posted, he said.
“We’re very strict about privacy. That’s something that’s very important to us,” Koehn said.
Joey Friedman, UF alumnus and the president of Uber Promotions, compared the app to the iPad mini, saying he doesn’t know if there’s a real need for it.
He said that because Snapchat deletes the images and videos right away and Facebook keeps the media, he doesn’t see a point for there to be an app for “in-between.” Facebook allows people to go back and look at media a couple of days later, he said.
He added that he thinks the social media market is becoming oversaturated.
Dixie Smith, a 20-year-old UF applied physiology and kinesiology junior and Gainesville nightlife promoter, said she thinks people under the influence might use the app but otherwise thinks UF students are pretty careful about what they post on social media.
“Whatever we post is never truly lost,” she said. “And we all have futures to think about.”
She said she thinks the app will get repetitive.
Koehn said that since the app launched in June, it has received more international attention than they were expecting. They have users in countries like Dubai and China and are trying to encourage more usage in the U.S. because that’s where they’re based.
The app is free and available in the App Store.
[A version of this story ran on page 11 on 7/24/2014 under the headline "‘Sobrr’ app seeks college users"]
