高级阅读_29 Huddlr, New Party App, Launches at Yale

29 Huddlr, New Party App, Launches at Yale

“What the hell is going on tonight?”

That was the tagline of purple flyers posted around Yale University's campus last week.They were a part of a guerrilla marketing campaign for Huddlr, a new mobile event application that allows users to view the location of on-campus parties—and see which of their friends are in attendance.

Co-founded by Yale alumni Ivan Fan, William Zhao, Tong Zhan and Xiaosheng Mu, Huddlr is trying to carve a niche for itself in a competitive market.

“What really separates us from similar apps like Foursquare is we're very much focused on showing you real-time location information for your friends,” Fan said.“It's a lot more social-oriented.”

Huddlr was officially released on Saturday at Spook'd, Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity's annual Halloween party.As part of the launch, there was a raffle of exclusive access to Huddlr as well as two iPads and two large, stuffed penguins—a nod to the application's icon.

While Zhao says the launch party boosted interest in Huddlr, the app is still only available to a subset of the undergraduate population at Yale.

“We wanted to make sure that the product was perfect before we opened it up to more people,” he said.

Zhao says the team plans to expand the app to the rest of the Yale community as well as other East Coast universities in the coming weeks.

For now, though, they are focused on “iterating,” or updating the application based on user feedback.

“When you're programming, you're really in the weeds and trying to solve technical problems,” Zhao said.“You really need your users to tell you what they want to see from the product.”

Vincent Mitchell, a junior American studies major at Yale and a member of the Huddlr Community Team, explained that one of the product updates would be the way parties are registered on the app.

“For now, they're having to submit them to [the team], but we're currently working on ways for people to register parties by just having their phone and just saying, ‘There's a party at this location where I'm standing or at this address,'”he said.

A senior chemistry and economics double major at Yale,Bechir-Auguste Pierre was one of the first students to test the beta version of Huddlr.He was pretty pleased with the app.

“It's pretty easy to use to be honest,” he said.“As soon as you open the app, it brings you to a map of where you are and on the map, there will be different indicators, showing different events going on in your area.There's an additional screen from which you can add friends—so this would be the screen where you would see which of your friends are at that event.”

Pierre added that the application also allows users to hide their location.

“I think it's a pretty new kind of app and especially with the raffle that they did at Spook'd and just some of the funny posters that have been put up around campus, the buzz has been—there's been a lot of curiosity and a lot of interest because people want to see what this app is about,” he said.

But some students on the East Coast have expressed concerns.

Hannah Orenstein, a senior journalism and history double major at New York University, pointed out that Huddlr operates on a spur-of-the-moment model.

“I could see someone more Type B than I am liking that Huddlr allows you to meet up with people at will, but I don't think I'd use Huddlr since I like to make plans in advance,”she said.“My friends and I are busy, so when we want to see each other, we make sure to coordinate our schedules ahead of time.”

Orenstein was also skeptical about the utility of the app given that NYU is an urban campus.

Alexandra Figueroa, a senior biology major at NYU, says she thinks the app might help students better navigate the social scene on the sprawling campus.

“There are a lot of things going on in NYC, so it would be nice to know what my friends are doing,” she said.“There is one downside that the parties might get too crowded and congested, if everyone knows where they are.”

Hannah Landers, a senior journalism major at Boston University, saw potential in Huddlr.

Landers, who primarily hangs out with her roommates, says she's always somewhat hesitant to go out with a different crowd because she worries about not knowing anyone else at the event.

“Being able to have that tool and see if people I know are going to be there and if I'll have someone to talk to, that would be incentive for me to get out of my apartment.”