The #1 app in the App Store rn

Remember YikYak? What about Secret?

Both social networking apps became popular in 2014 for their anonymous nature, sparking a wave of anonymous apps in their wake. 💬

With YikYak, students could discreetly communicate (and sometimes gossip) with others nearby. It took off like crazy in universities in America. At one point, investors valued Yik Yak at $400M. In 2017, it shut down.

Secret was all about 'sharing secretly' and raised $35M in its prime. Amid controversy, the app shut down shortly after a major redesign in 2015 (which looked very similar to YikYak).

Both apps faced heavy criticism for enabling bullying and trolling, as anonymity lends itself to bad actors, well, acting bad. 😕

This week, a new pseudo-anonymous app rocketed to #1 in the App Store just a few days after its launch. It's called YOLO, and it lets users receive and answer anonymous messages from their Snapchat followers (in the Snapchat app). Users can then share responses instantly in their Snap stories.

The app was built on top of Snap Kit, and it's reportedly taking off with teens (a group still heavily using Snapchat). But, as we've seen, anonymous apps have historically gone viral with teens, only to crash and burn due to gossip and bullying.

The creators of YOLO are Gregoire Henrion and Clément Raffenoux, who previously co-founded Mindie. Mindie let users share soundtracked video clips to their Snapchat stories and was acquired by Shots Studios in 2016.

Time will tell if YOLO can maintain its momentum, and you can tell us what you think of the app (non-anonymously) here.

For more anonymity, you can check out October, which we wrote about back in November.

Try YOLO