Hi Product Hunters,
We're excited to introduce you to Cinch, our newest iPhone app. Cinch is an image-based polling app that make decisions between you and your friends fun, easy, and visual.
The way it works should be familiar, but surprisingly simple. You select a set of photos or screenshots from your camera roll, set the question, and send to a select group of friends from your contacts. Friends vote in a single tap and then use the integrated messaging service to discuss the results and attach alternatives. You don't need the app to vote, so anyone can vote from any device. The vote tally is revealed only after the user votes to make sure your loudest friends don't influence the group.
What inspired Cinch? We built Cinch after seeing people use our original product, Nifti, to poll their friends about whether or not they should act on a price alerts. We weren't serving this use case well, and the more we dug into the problem, the more we realized how annoying the process of gathering opinions is for most people. There’s nothing fun or easy about emailing endless lists of links, texting photos one-by-one, and then synthesizing your friends' responses.
We're super excited about it, in part because we can already see how useful is to our team in testing mobile UIs and tag lines.
What are your thoughts? Who do you think this will be most useful to? Ask me anything in the comments below.
@eriktorenberg We're seeing three main use cases:
Fashion - Lots of pictures taken in the mirror asking "Which one of these should I wear tonight?"
Design - Screenshots from Pinterest / Etsy for the little details of events like weddings to ask "Which flowers are your favorite?"
Fun. Dropping a series of photos you'd like to share to ask "Best snapshot from last night?" This one is especially popular when you have more than 3 photos to share and want an excuse to share them.
@eriktorenberg We plan to monetize through premium and sponsored accounts. For now, the service is peer-to-peer, but we have plans for it to evolve into a platform for image-oriented advice. Users will be able to connect with design professionals and planners, and brands will be able to connect with specific audiences using a credit system.
@kwdinc Tons of activity in the space - and more on the way, I'm sure!
Cinch differentiates itself through its emphasis on private decisions between you and your friends. We found that the questions you'll ask your friends and family in private are very different from the questions you'll ask your Facebook friends or a new community within an new app. Those more public use cases are still huge, but we're more focused on creating a better experience for the decisions that are currently being made over email or text message.
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This app would have been a lifesaver back in my sorority days to help streamline planning events, themes parties, t-shirt designs, etc. I am using it now to plan a bachelorette party and reunion weekend with college friends. I find that I send polls both to get opinions (e.g. where should we go, what should I wear) and to get people excited and engaged (e.g. What should our trip's theme song be? If this wedding were in a movie, which movie would it be?).
I could see it being helpful at work to get quick opinions on things like ad copy, tag lines, promotional items, marketing photos, mailers, etc, any thoughts on email integration or web application?
@brig42 Email integration is going to be key, especially because people are so hesitant to allow push notifications these days.
As for web applications, you can currently vote in the mobile browser - you just can't create through the web. Once we nail the right formula for mobile sharing, we'll expand into web.
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