HiHo is a face-forward social app for meeting interesting people and having great video conversations. With asynchronous replies and infinite threading, everyone can participate at any time. The app offers both public forums as well as private DMs.
Hi Product Hunt! I’m Gregg, one of the co-founders of HiHo. Thank you to @rrhoover for hunting us!
HiHo is an idea I became obsessed with immediately after selling my prior companies, JibJab (in 2018) and StoryBots (to Netflix in 2019). People were more comfortable than ever with face-forward video for communication (Zoom, FaceTime, Instagram Stories), however the world’s largest public discussion forums were exclusively text-based.
What if we could build a platform that enabled asynchronous video discussions organized around an interest-graph? In other words, an app like Reddit or Twitter with a TikTok-esque video interface.
My co-founder @bracco and I spent months working in Figma, solving for every single pixel of the experience to allow for swipeable video navigation, infinite threading, group creation, and more. In June 2020, we were joined by our third co-founder, @gustavo_barcena, and we couldn’t be more excited to now share our work to this incredible community of builders.
Building a social network in 2021 comes with a great deal of responsibility. Aside from all the amazing features we’ve packed in, we’ve also made a number of important decisions around what to leave OUT of the product: like buttons, view counts, camera filters, and predatory algorithms. We want HiHo to remain a place where people feel un-judged so that a diverse group of people feel safe and comfortable participating.
Key features:
🗣 Face-forward video discussions
🧵 Infinite threading like forums
⏰ Asynchronous, not real-time
🤩 Interact with fascinating people
👥 Groups help you find great topics
🚨 Trust and safety tools built-in
🚫 No likes or view counts
Our efforts to build a more civil social experience seem to be paying off. We’re proud of the kindness, positivity, authenticity, and deep human connections HiHo has already facilitated. Seeing the other person you are talking to promotes empathy, understanding, and civility. Our early users have already experienced this magic for themselves (https://bit.ly/3GLBQSF).
We’re incredibly excited for you to try HiHo. Please come give it a spin, meet interesting people, and engage in great conversations. And if you have any feedback or thoughts, please feel free to DM me in the app (search for gregg). I’d love to meet you and have a conversation.
From the entire team at HiHo, thank you!
-Gregg
🎅🏼⚡️ P.S. For a limited time, we’re offering free Santa chats with a world-famous Santa!
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@rrhoover@bracco@gustavo_barcena@gregg_spiridellis1 Gregg -- I've been using HiHo for a few months and sincerely love it -- I'm more of a lurker, but have found myself getting more comfortable with recording my own videos day-by-day. Congrats on what the team has built -- I'm excited to see it evolve!
I've known @gregg_spiridellis1 for a bit and @bracco even longer since their JibJab days. Note how HiHo has a similarly sharp two-syllable sound, although it's missing dancing elves... at least at the moment. 😉
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This app is friendly and fun! I love the team and mission! ❤️
Very cool! The idea is awesome! I found it very nice, and very friendly! Especially at the moment when the whole world is shifting... Keeping connections, and building new ones - seems to be more important than ever! :) Congratulations on the launch! ^_^ Is it possible to connect with people directly on the platform individually or it is more group-based? :)
@maria_brm Hi Maria. We offer DMs in the app, so it is possible to have direct, private conversations. We intend to launch additional features that support smaller, more intimate groups in early 2022, so stay tuned. Thanks again for your kind words!
@gregg_spiridellis1 Great! *_* Thanks a lot for the answer! Fingers crossed for the next versions and features update! ^_^ I wish you a joyful holiday season and a lot of inspiration and success in the incoming period! ^_^
Just putting it out there that I’ve seen people make deep, lasting personal connections on this platform with unprecedented ease. It’s the closest thing to IRL human networking and interaction I have witnessed digitally.
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Amazing product and team, and this is my favorite paragraph by Gregg above during these times and as the co-founder and CEO of a social platform myself in data.world:
"Building a social network in 2021 comes with a great deal of responsibility. Aside from all the amazing features we’ve packed in, we’ve also made a number of important decisions around what to leave OUT of the product: like buttons, view counts, camera filters, and predatory algorithms. We want HiHo to remain a place where people feel un-judged so that a diverse group of people feel safe and comfortable participating."
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