Hello Product Hunt community! I am a co-founder of Drop Messages and we are excited to share our free, award-winning iPhone app with you!
Our mission is to make your world come alive! We let you know when friends or geo-tagged photos are nearby. We do this in a simple, automated and relevant way. All you have to do is download Drop Messages and we will do the rest.
We built the product because we are very social and love exploring as we always want to know what is happening around us. Are any friends near me? Have my friends been here before? What did they do when they were here? This is what we try to solve!
We have a new feature where you can follow a venue (like JFK Airport, Staples Center, Time Square, etc) and we will send you alerts anytime your friends or family arrive at this location.
Our Drop Messages community is in over 85+ countries and over 150+ U.S. College Campuses and our members are using the app to get social and photo alerts that are relevant to them. We would love to have you join our community and we really appreciate any feedback, questions and suggestions!
Cool product, do you have some kind of restrictions, like: Unlocking the picture only if you're in the area. Or is it already like this ? It would be fun, leaving some surprise pictures to friends or family etc.
@tsunaze Thanks for your feedback! Currently how it works (in terms of photos) is if you arrive at a venue (e.g. a new restaurant or a hotel) and one of your friends has posted before, we will send you an alert so you can see what your friend did when he was at this venue. We are experimenting with hidden drops and expiring drops! Would love any other ideas or feedback and my contact email, if you have any questions or ideas is zach@dropmessages.com. Also -- check it out and "Follow a venue", you will get alerts when your friends on the app visit that venue :)
@zacharydewitt Do you still need to validate the concept or are you working on an Android version? (I don't take picture with an iPad, it looks ridiculous)
@zacharydewitt Congrats on launching your app! This is obvious in the social app category. So, quite crowded. I have a question: how do you see your app differentiate from Connect? Cause when come to connect with friends nearby, people might immediately think of Connect.
@elaineluyi Thanks for the note! There are many differences between Connect, but the main one is Connect relies on someone to post e.g. I will only get an alert that a friend is in SF with me if they post on social media. We send you nearby alerts regardless of if you or your friend posts. Same goes with a venue following. If you follow a venue, e.g. an airport, we will send you relevant alerts when a friend visits that venue (without you or the friend having to post on social media). Does that make sense? Connect basically sorts your social media by location whereas we alert you when friends and photos are nearby without requiring people to post to social media.
@zacharydewitt@elaineluyi Thanks, Zachary! That's definitely a big difference and a convenience for users. But, if your app doesn't need a social post to identify who at where, how does it work? Do you need both you and your friend sign up on your app and allow tracking? If so, in terms of privacy concern, will you allow people to turn off the tracking in case they don't want to be followed for a specific venue or period?
@elaineluyi Everything you said is exactly correct! You both need the app and you friend each other so their is a mutual handshake. We are building in a stealth mode so you can avoid specific venues. We also don't track your background or report your whereabouts (unlike Find my Friends), but only alert friends for relevant visits. Privacy is our biggest priority so we are spending a lot of time and effort on this.
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