Kevin Simler's profile on Product Hunt

Kevin Simler

#862634@kevinsimlermeltingasphalt.com

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Yada!

Turn pictures into conversations

iPhone

Joined on April 13th, 2017

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💬

Hi, I'm one of the developers of this product. Yada is kinda like a cross between iMessage and Snapchat. Similar to Snapchat, it lets you send photos to your friends. Unlike Snapchat, however, the photos don't disappear. Instead, Yada's gimmick is that your friends "reply" to a photo by drawing and piling emojis on top of it. And selfies — lots of selfies. TBH I'm not sure if this product has legs. But it's a fascinating example of a constraint that produces interesting types of interactions. In this case, the constraint is that everything happens *on the photo itself.* By the time a few people are done replying, the image tends to get crowded, so there's no more room to add things without trampling everyone else's edits. This might sound like a bug, but it's actually a feature, in that it prevents conversations from lagging on indefinitely. Other neat features of this app (IMO): — A 'reaction' camera which lets you take selfies and post them back on top of the original photo. This is a first-class interaction in the app, just as easy as replying with text or an emoji. The result is that you get to see your friends' faces a lot more than you would otherwise. After using this feature for a few weeks, I'm surprised it's not available in more apps. It's very fun and addictive. — Conversations tend to be silly and very spontaneous. It feels a LOT like improv, where you have to say "Yes, and" to your partners' offers, building off of them rather than rejecting them and building off in a different direction. No joke — playing around with this app has made me a better conversationalist. — Tapbacks (similar to Apple's tapbacks in iMessage, or to FB's 6 'reactions'). Our two innovations here are (1) you can tap back with any emoji, vastly increasing your expressive range; and (2) you can tap back at a specific location on the image, allowing you give one part of an image a 'thumbs up' while 'poop'ing on another part. (Tapbacks aren't available yet, but are coming in an app update in a day or two.) Anyway, we'd be delighted if you played around with it and sent us some of your thoughts. All feedback will be appreciated. As a friend of mine once said, we'd prefer feedback in the form of a "sledgehammer" rather than a "scalpel" :). Thanks! (btw, I'm new to Product Hunt, so apologies in advance if I'm breaking any norms of the community. Helpful pointers welcome.)

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