{"id":9348,"date":"2017-09-22T23:48:29","date_gmt":"2017-09-22T23:48:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/how-tbh-hit-1-by-turning-anonymity-positive.html"},"modified":"2017-09-22T23:48:29","modified_gmt":"2017-09-22T23:48:29","slug":"how-tbh-hit-1-by-turning-anonymity-positive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/how-tbh-hit-1-by-turning-anonymity-positive.html","title":{"rendered":"How tbh hit #1 by turning anonymity positive"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201cIf we\u2019re improving the mental health of millions of teens, that\u2019s a success to us,\u201d says Nikita Bier, co-founder of tbh. His team has scored a surprise hit, rocketing to the top of the App Store by letting teens send each other compliments anonymously. While most anonymous apps like Secret and Yik Yak have devolved into cyberbullying, Bier explains that \u201cYou don\u2019t necessarily need the ability to say whatever you want but to be able to say what you feel to others.\u201d<\/p>\n

The innovation of tbh, teen-speak for To Be Honest<\/a>, was getting rid of the typing. Whether asking or answering questions, open text fields invite abuse when combined with anonymity. Even an innocuous question like \u201cWhat do you think of me?\u201d can lead to mean-spirited comments if responders don\u2019t have their names, and therefore any accountability, attached.<\/p>\n

So tbh writes the prompts for you, and purposefully allows only those that are tough to bend toward bullying. Open its\u00a0iOS app <\/a>(Android is in the works), upload your contacts and you\u2019re instantly answering multiple-choice questions where a random four friends are the answers. \u201cBest to bring to a party?\u201d \u201cTheir perseverance is admirable?\u201d \u201cCould see becoming a poet?\u201d<\/p>\n

tbh\u2019s team says, \u201cWe worked backwards from the content we wanted to see, which was nice comments about ourselves \u2014 a product you\u2019d open and it\u2019d tell you all your strengths and things you\u2019re good at and make you happier and more productive.\u201d<\/p>\n

You get notified when you\u2019re selected as who \u201cdoes the most\u201d or is \u201cthe biggest underdog,\u201d though who chose you is kept anonymous. tbh saves all the answers, so at any time you can browse the positivity sent your way. tbh\u2019s sunny little questions are so addictive that the app only allows you to answer 12 per hour, so you never get sick of it and always want more.<\/p>\n

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\u201cOur goals for anonymity are much different than\u00a0most apps [that emphasize]\u00a0the ability to say things without repercussions,\u201d the tbh team explains. \u201cThis is more about the ability to tell people more of the things that make them happy.\u00a0One is more targeted toward harassment while ours is more targeted towards making people better off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clearly teens are craving this positivity. tbh has only officially been around since August, and blew up this month after launching in California. It now has more than 2 million daily users and has been the #1 free U.S. iOS app for more than a week, passing YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram.<\/p>\n

The hard road to honesty<\/h2>\n

tbh might have only taken two weeks to build, but the team had to fail for seven years first. Bier started Midnight Labs<\/a> back in 2010, eventually raising a seed round from a few investors, including social app guru Josh Elman at Greylock. Midnight Labs built a personal finance app, a work time tracker, a college chat app, a personality test.\u00a0\u201cWe probably built 15 products,\u201d the team tells TechCrunch.<\/p>\n

\"\"Nothing quite flourished, but the five-person team purposefully kept its burn rate low to maximize its runway and get more chances to experiment. \u201cWe\u00a0never spent money in any ways that would be considered lavish.\u201d But after years of trial and error, \u201cWe were running towards the end of our runway. We only had maybe 60 days left.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when Midnight Labs got philosophical. \u201cThe big milestone of the last social apps was the ability for open discourse [like on] Twitter. That was a great achievement\u201d the team explains. \u201cWe\u00a0think the next milestone is thinking about social platforms in terms of love and positivity. We think that\u2019s what\u2019s been missing from social products since the inception of the internet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the \u201cTo Be Honest\u201d fad had blown up with teens on Instagram. Users would offer to send \u201cTBH\u201d compliments to people who Liked or commented on their photos. During the tumultuous and sensitive age of adolescence, kids were showing how eager they were for a dose of positivity.<\/p>\n

Uniting the team\u2019s philosophy with this trend, tbh was born. \u201cWe shipped it to one school in Georgia. Forty percent of the school downloaded it the first day. The next day it was in three more schools, and then the next day it was in 300 schools,\u201d the team recounts. That\u2019s even more impressive because tbh doesn\u2019t spam your contacts with unexpected invite messages. \u201cUser trust is really important,\u201d the team declares.<\/p>\n

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Following in the footsteps of Facebook, tbh wasn\u2019t launched publicly. At first it was locked down to just a few states. That was to keep it from crashing as Midnight Labs scaled up the infrastructure. But also because tbh only works if lots of friends are on it. Throttling the rollout keeps demand pent-up so when tbh\u00a0launches somewhere new, like New York state this week, it becomes the talk of classrooms and teens download it in droves.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s to be?<\/h2>\n

\u201cMy inbox is the who\u2019s who of Silicon Valley,\u201d Bier says, sounding more stressed out and under-slept than arrogant. \u201cNow we\u2019re having investors breathe down our neck.\u201d Yet tbh isn\u2019t taking the money being thrown at it. \u201cWe\u2019re\u00a0focused on scaling the product without raising some headline-grabbing number.\u00a0Often, social apps get caught up in saying they\u2019ve changed the world before they actually have, and there needs to be a little bit of humbleness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"tbh\u2019s next big task will be figuring out how to harness this momentum into sticky new products before the next viral app usurps it. But the team is adamant about avoiding abuse vectors. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to develop products where you want to ensure positive communication,\u201d says Midnight Labs. \u201cWe have to be really diligent in how we think through how users interact with each other. We can\u2019t have any oversights in how we design features.\u201d<\/p>\n

Writing its second act may be tough if it stays away from typing, which would disqualify the usual additions of private messaging and status updates. It could try new types of polls, like questions where you assemble groups of friends, like \u201cWho\u2019d make a great super hero team\u201d or \u201cWhich of your two friends should have a sitcom about living together?\u201d It could let you send virtual gifts to people, or use voice-changing effects and augmented reality masks to let you send anonymous audio and video compliments. With teens being fickle, tbh can\u2019t ignore product as it grapples with growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t really thought too much about monetization . . . or in-app purchases,\u201d says the team. It\u2019s laid the foundation, though, as you earn a gem each time you get a compliment. tbh could let you spend those on in-app purchases, like cosmetically enhancing your name when it appears in answer boxes, or bypassing the dozen questions per hour limit.<\/p>\n

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For now, though, it\u2019d be silly to obstruct growth with any monetization. tbh should concentrate on retention and seeing how big it can scale its user base and its mission. Until it reaches escape velocity, it\u2019s vulnerable to Facebook\u2019s copy-cat factory. Still, the team is confident, saying \u201cBy the time we have a clone, we\u2019re 10 steps ahead. We know what product and experience people want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Secret imploded due to bullying.\u00a0Yik Yak\u2019s anonymity meant there was little locking people into the app. tbh<\/a> will have to marry the freedom of expression that comes when your name isn\u2019t attached with a sense of community that keeps kids committed.<\/p>\n

\u201cImproving people\u2019s self-esteem \u2014 that\u2019s been the most rewarding aspect of this product,\u201d Bier concludes. \u201cRaising a ton of money, all that other stuff, it\u2019s just an accessory to the goal. The goal is, can we make this generation happier?\u201d<\/p>\n

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Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/3tlGf5AHp7E\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIf we\u2019re improving the mental health of millions of teens, that\u2019s a success to us,\u201d says Nikita Bier, co-founder of tbh. His team has scored a surprise hit, rocketing to <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-9348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t