#Yakyak yak full#

It’s the perfect social media application for a campus environment, one that harnesses a dense network full of people with plenty of common interests. The founders took the Facebook approach, focusing entirely on spreading through colleges first. That’s where Yik Yak’s execution has worked well. Apps like Popcorn have tried it – if there isn’t a critical mass of people on the app near you, it’s useless. It’s the sort of thing that wouldn’t work at all without huge network effects. It looks much like a Twitter feed, except geographically relevant.

“College students don’t use Whisper.”Ī user is greeted by a news feed that shows posts, but only posts sent within a 1.5 mile radius of your current location. “We’re taking business away from Twitter,” Buffington tells me. In their mind, they’re not competing with the anonymity app sector as much as with social media giants. Buffington and Droll (their names sound like a novel’s preppy British detective duo) walked me through it. They told me they’re building Twitter for the next generation.Īlthough I’d heard Yik Yak mentioned in passing, usually grouped in with Secret and Whisper, I hadn’t actually explored the app. They were out visiting the Valley recently, only their third trip so far, to shake hands and kiss babies. I wouldn’t call them bros, exactly, but “brogrammer” wouldn’t be too far off the mark. They channel an inner Evan Spiegel vibe, as former fraternity members who seem unfazed by their product’s rise to prominence on college campuses. Secret’s US iOS app store popularity, according to App Annie, since its inceptionįor two first-time founders, both 23-year-olds fresh out of Georgia, Brooks Buffington and Tyler Droll are remarkably composed. Whisper’s US iOS app store popularity, according to App Annie, for the last year Yik Yak’s US iOS app store popularity, according to App Annie, since its inception Secret has made it to the coveted #1 app store spot in far more countries than either of its competitors and Yik Yak hasn’t made a dent abroad…yet.

It is worth noting however, that internationally the game is a bit different. Surprised nobody has written about that.” Josh Miller, the person reportedly building Facebook’s new anonymity app, tweeted and then deleted, “The real tech story is that Yik Yak is blowing up, not Secret or Ello, specifically at college campuses. Secretary of Homeland Security had something to say about it, calling out Yik Yak on C-SPAN. The Today Show called it “ the new home of cyberbullying.” “How do you solve a problem like Yik Yak?” asked The Washington Post. The tech scene may not have been paying much attention, but as the adolescents of America got sucked into Yik Yak’s addictive grasp, the rest of the country started to notice. Rampant, nasty gossip on high school campuses. With that power came problems, akin to what Whisper and Secret were dealing with, but with a healthy added dose of adolescent angst, pranks, and cruelty. Unbeknownst to most of Silicon Valley, a Georgia-based anonymity app called Yik Yak was building a devoted following on college campuses, growing virally through word of mouth much like Facebook did. While the tech community was frothing and fretting over the likes of Secret and – to a lesser extent – Whisper earlier this year, a dark cloud was brewing out east.

Yakyak yak