Yik yak

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yik Yak was a mobile social media - application for smartphones and on the operating systems iOS and Android available. The app allowed its users to post and have discussions with other users within a 5 mile radius (these messages were referred to as "yaks" by the app). The app differed from similar providers like Whisper in that it mainly focused on sharing content with people in the local area.

All users could contribute content equally by writing individual yaks, replying to the yaks of other users and being able to “up-vote” or “down-vote” them (rate them as positive or negative). The app developers, Tyler Droll and Brooks Buffington, are graduates from Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina . Their collaboration began when they attended the same seminar on iPhone app development. After graduating from Furman University, they decided to focus entirely on their yik-yak project. Droll dropped out of medical school shortly after it began, and Buffington suspended his career in the financial industry. The two founders launched the app in November 2013, and twelve months later it was the 9th most downloaded social media app in the US. Droll and Buffington continued to develop the Yik-Yak app to improve it.

On January 20, 2016, Yik Yak announced the availability of a web version. An update in August 2016 removed the anonymity that had prevailed until then and introduced user profiles. From October 2016 the app was also available in Germany.

In May 2017, Yik Yak ceased operations worldwide.

History and funding

Yik Yak was launched in 2013 after CEO Tyler and COO Brooks graduated from Furman University. Yik Yak was originally funded by Atlanta Ventures and Firms based in the Atlanta Tech Village, the city's main incubator for startups. On April 22, 2014, the company announced that it had received $ 1.5 million in grants from various companies including Vaizra Investments, DCM, Kevin Colleran and Azure Capital Partners. This happened just five months after Yik Yak was founded. This funding should improve the app and increase user numbers both in the US and overseas. On June 30, 2014, about two months after the first $ 1.5 million, Yik Yak raised another $ 10 million from previous investors, Renren Lianhe Holdings and Tim Draper. During the fall of 2014, after exponential growth in users, Yik Yak raised over $ 60 million from Sequoia Capital and other investors. This made Yik Yak worth over $ 350 million less than a year after it was launched.

function

Yik Yak worked through a combination of GPS and instant messaging technologies that enabled users to communicate with other users who are in the same environment. Before messages were displayed, the Yik-Yak app determined the location of the user and grouped them with other users in a radius zone of 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers). Within these zones everyone could publish “yaks” themselves and read the yaks of other users. Yik Yak was essentially a digital bulletin board.

The developers used a technology called geofencing to cyberbullying to minimize. Geofencing makes it possible to "fence off" certain areas, such as American middle schools and high schools, using GPS technology and thereby block the app in these areas. Yik Yak enabled small communities to offer real-time commentary on events. When Senator Ted Cruz gave his speech at Liberty University in which he announced his presidential candidacy, it was assumed that the university's conservative background would prevent protests, but this did not prevent the mockery of Yik Yak.

properties

  • Yakarma : Yakarma is a value to measure the active success of a user. The value increases and decreases depending on the reaction of other users in the same environment to the user's yaks. A user's yakarma changes depending on the number of upvotes or downvotes and comments on the user's posts. Getting downvotes has a negative effect on a user's yakarma, whereas upvotes increase yakarma. A user's yakarma is also influenced by their upvotes and downvotes of other yaks.
  • Upvote / Downvote : These are actually user reviews of yaks. If a post is popular, it receives more upvotes than downvotes; a positive number is displayed next to it. If the downvotes for a post reach a value of −5, it will be permanently deleted.
  • Peek : This function allows users to anonymously peek into the feed of other communities. Originally it was only possible to “peek” in American and international colleges. With the update from October 20, 2014, however, users could then take a look at every college and city in the world. If a user looked at yaks in other communities, he could read them, but could neither up- or downvote, nor write and post yaks himself. Users could only post in their local yik-yak community.
  • Other Top Yaks : This showed the results of the Google image search for the search term "Yak". Usually these were pictures of real yaks (the animal).
  • Photos : With this feature, users could include pictures in their yaks. The company announced that photos would be moderated and that no inappropriate or illegal content and recognizable faces would be allowed in the local feed. More specifically, this shows a collection of popular photos uploaded by people in a particular area.
  • Hidden Features : Yik Yak included a word filter. When a user tried to post a post that contained a certain "bad" word, they would be reminded that it was an offensive word and asked if they really wanted to publish the post. It could happen that the user was able to publish the post, but it was deleted after a while.

Controversy

One of the biggest criticisms of social media is their risk of cyber bullying . Due to a number of cases of bullying via Yik Yak, the app was banned in several schools - including in several districts of Chicago, at Norwich University in Vermont, the Eanes Independent School District in Texas, the Lincoln High School District in Rhode Island, the New Richmond School District in Ohio, Shawnigan Lake School in Canada, and Pueblo County School District in Colorado. Tatum High School in New Mexico banned cell phone use because of yik yak, and the Student Government Association at Emory University in Georgia attempted to ban the app on campus, but failed due to massive student backlash.

On May 13, 2015, Santa Clara University President Father Engh released a statement to all students after some racist remarks were posted about Yik Yak. He wrote: “Hate speech, not to be confused with free speech, has no place at Santa Clara University as it violates the dignity and respect with which each of our members deserves to be treated. Hurting comments aimed at individuals or groups demean us all and create a divisive atmosphere full of suspicion and suspicion. "

On October 3, 2014, the Huffington Post published an editorial by Ryan Chapin Mach entitled “Why Your College Campus Should Ban Yik Yak” claiming that Yik Yak's anonymous messaging boards “are like toilet cubicles with no toilets. They are useless, they are sources of useless or hurtful conversation and not a pretty sight. "

As a means of combating bullying in American middle and high schools, Droll and Buffington adapted the app and added geofences in the background. These invisible boundaries prevented the app from being used in specified areas. At first these limits were installed manually by the developers, but support from external service providers was soon necessary. This support was provided by the Vermont-based company Maponics. Maponics "builds and defines geographic boundaries." These had already mapped 85% of American schools, making it easy to block access to Yik Yak at them. The blockades were in use until the very end, mainly to deactivate the app at all middle and high schools in the country. When the app opens in one of these areas, the user will see a message with something like the following: “It looks like you're trying to use Yik Yak in a middle or high school. Yik Yak is intended for people of college age and above. The app is deactivated in this area. "

The incidence of bullying on Yik Yak may have been exaggerated by media reports of specific events. Studies showed that Yik Yak was mainly used as a positive tool to deal with ethnic and sexual identities and to develop a sense of community on campus. Others have found that Yik Yak gives disadvantaged students a voice on campus.

In 2015, Yik Yak caused a stir by preventing a suicide attempt at the College of William & Mary . Yik Yak has been both lauded and criticized for preventing attempted suicide. On the one hand, it offered people a platform to share their thoughts on and, in many cases, received support to seek help. On the other hand, due to the anonymity, the possibility to help is limited. There has been controversy over the legality of anonymity and what role Yik Yak should play in sharing this information. In December 2014, security experts staged a potential attack on the service in which the profile of a Yik-Yak user would be exposed and de-anonymized (the identity would be revealed) if an attacker uses the same WiFi network.

Use in American politics

Precision Strategy digital director Matthew McGregor suggested the 2016 presidential election could be a "yik-yak election."

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Legal , Yik Yak. July 14, 2015. Archived from the original on July 14, 2015. "" Yik Yak is an anonymous messaging app that allows users to create and view posts - called Yaks - within a 5 mile radius. "" 
  2. ↑ a b Yik Yak . Archived from the original on August 21, 2014. Retrieved November 29, 2014.
  3. ↑ a b Kate Knibbs: Is this the first anonymous app that understands the power of secrets? . In: The Daily Dot . March 21, 2014. Retrieved November 29, 2014.
  4. ↑ Q&A with YikYak co-creator Brooks Buffington ( Memento from October 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Yik Yak Moves Into Top 10 Social Media Apps . In: Yik Yaker . Archived from the original on December 8, 2014. Retrieved November 29, 2014.
  6. ↑ Jordan Crook: Yik Yak Launches On The Web . 20th January 2016. 
  7. ↑ Yik Yak shuts down after Square paid $ 1 million for its engineers . April 28, 2017. Retrieved October 6, 2017.
  8. ↑ https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hyper-local-social-messaging-app-120000737.html
  9. ↑ Alyson Shontell: Yik Yak raises $ 10 million - Business Insider . In: Business Insider . June 30, 2014. Retrieved November 29, 2014.
  10. ^ Diana Graber: Yik Yak App Makers Do the Right Thing . In: The Huffington Post . March 26, 2014. Retrieved November 29, 2014.
  11. ↑ Aaron Sankin: What college students are saying behind Ted Cruz's back . In: The Daily Dot . March 23, 2015. Accessed June 3, 2015.
  12. ↑ a b c d Jesse Wojdylo: How to Get More Yakarma on Yik Yak . In: Wojdylo Social Media . August 27, 2014. Retrieved November 29, 2014.
  13. ↑ Yik Yak ( Memento from September 6, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  14. ^ Fitz Tepper: Yik Yak Introduces Photos, But No Faces Allowed . In: TechCrunch , July 15, 2015. 
  15. ↑ Shaan Fye: Yik Yak: Why it Exists . September 26, 2014. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  16. ↑ Rajwani, Naheed: Yik Yak app disabled in Chicago amide principals' worries . In: Chicago Tribune , March 7, 2014. Retrieved October 4, 2014. 
  17. ↑ Associated Press : Vermont college blocks Yik Yak . In: USA Today , September 24, 2014. Retrieved October 4, 2014. 
  18. ↑ Bramson, Lindsay: Yik Yak bullying leads districts to ban app . In: NBC KXAN-TV , September 29, 2014. Retrieved October 4, 2014. 
  19. ^ Bologna, Alison: RI school district blocks Yik Yak . In: NBC 10 , October 2, 2014. Retrieved October 4, 2014. 
  20. ↑ Jackson, Curtis: School district bans Yik Yak app . In: CBS WKRC-TV , October 21, 2014. Archived from the original on October 25, 2014. Retrieved on October 23, 2014. 
  21. ↑ Jackson, Curtis: D70 officials spooked by online threat . In: The Pueblo Chieftain , October 23, 2014. Archived from the original on October 24, 2014. Retrieved on October 24, 2014. 
  22. ↑ Younger, Emily: 'Yik Yak' app prompts school to ban cell phones . In: CBS KRQE , October 3, 2014. Archived from the original on October 5, 2014. Retrieved on October 4, 2014. 
  23. ↑ Rosenfeld, Alex: Yik Yak Sows Hostility at Emory . In: The Emory Wheel , October 2, 2014. Retrieved October 4, 2014. 
  24. ↑ MESSAGE TO STUDENTS . Santa Clara University . May 13, 2015.
  25. ↑ Mach, Ryan Chapin: Why Your College Campus Should Ban Yik Yak . In: Huffington Post , October 3, 2014. Retrieved October 4, 2014. 
  26. ^ Sarah Perez: Amid Bullying & Threats Of Violence, Anonymous Social App Yik Yak Shuts Off Access To US Middle & High School Students . In: TechCrunch , March 13, 2014. 
  27. ^ Rey Junco: Yik Yak and Online Anonymity are Good for College Students . In: Wired , March 17, 2015. Retrieved December 14, 2015. 
  28. ↑ Amanda Hess: Don't ban Yik Yak . October 28, 2015. Accessed December 14, 2015.
  29. ^ On College Campuses, Suicide Intervention Via Anonymous App .
  30. ↑ Yik Hak: Smashing the Yak . December 9, 2014. Retrieved December 9, 2014.
  31. ↑ Stuart Dredge: Yik Yak hack is latest warning of the risks of 'anonymous' messaging apps . December 9, 2014. 
  32. ↑ https://twitter.com/YahooPolitics/status/664867351758696448