Students are criticized today more than ever for their dependence on phones, tablets and laptops. Facebook and Twitter have us glued to our screens and refreshing feeds while apps like Snapchat have become substitutes for being in the same room with friends.
“It’s called social media, but it’s very antisocial,” said Dani Gálvez, Boston University College of Arts and Sciences alum and GoBe Groups founder.
Gálvez, who graduated from BU in May, is preparing to launch the beta version of an app that he hopes will bring users face-to-face. On the GoBe Groups team are College of Communication seniors Eunkyung Park and Ou Sheng Chen, as well as 2013 COM graduate Sean Finn.
GoBe Groups, named after the interdependent relationship between the goby fish and the pistol shrimp, allows users to create and join local groups that match their interests.
Gálvez describes the app as a “platonic Tinder.”
“Will you be my pistol shrimp?” read the subject line for an e-mail that Gálvez sent to friends, introducing his app to receive feedback.
The app syncs with a user’s phone contacts, allowing the user to invite contacts to start using GoBe Groups and join the groups — some private, some public — within the app. Groups that have been created within a designated radius will show up on the “discover” page, which can be sorted by categories like athletics, games, lifestyle, quick jobs and more. Users can create groups with a specific location, description of the group, start time for various activities within the group and maximum participants allowed.
“The possibilities are endless,” Gálvez said.
For safety reasons, app users won’t be able to see details such as exact location of the group until the group leader approves their request to join.
What makes GoBe Groups unique is its reliability ratings. Based on user attendance in previous groups, group leaders can see how reliable the users are who requested to join the group and can then decide whether to approve or deny their request to join based on this measurement.
GoBe Groups will be available for iOS at the end of September and available for Android in October.
But GoBe Groups isn’t the only app designed by BU students to bring people together.
Downtyme, co-founded by College of Engineering juniors Barron Roth and Luke Sorenson, aims to connect users with Facebook friends close by.
The app, which launched March 2014, started as a final project for Sorenson and Roth’s Introduction to Software Engineering course with classmates John Moore, an ENG senior, and Timothy Chong, an ENG junior. Downtyme takes advantage of the user’s calendar to match their free time with the free time of their Facebook friends.
“No one likes eating alone,” Sorenson said. “No one likes doing anything alone.”
Students are only meant to spend a minute or two on the app, so they can spend less time online and more time doing things with friends in the real world, said Roth.
Within the app, users can also create lists of friends for mass invites and change the type of activity from a simple hangout to something more specific, such as working out or getting coffee. If users are looking for some “alone-tyme,” the app also offers a “hide” feature.
Although there are apps such as Merge and Ufree with calendar sync functions similar to Downtyme’s, Roth said they are only available on iOS systems. Downtyme is built for both iOS and Android.
Based on user feedback, Roth and his team are already making improvements to the app for the full version they plan to launch in Jan. 2015. He wants to add a messaging feature in place of users responding yes or no to requests as well as the ability to see an individual’s exact location when meeting up with them.
Both GoBe Groups and Downtyme have been successful so far in their development.
Downtyme’s team placed first in ENG’s third annual Imagineering Competition in spring 2014, winning $2,500, and was also featured in Product Hunt’s “Best of Boston” category.
GoBe Groups already has plane tickets to Dublin for the technology conference Web Summit in November. Gálvez and his team are invited to the Summit’s BETA program, attended in the past by start-ups such as Uber, Spotify and Dropbox.
The concept of meeting face-to-face is present in both apps, and both seem to be a step up from Facebook events or texting friends en masse to hang out. However, Roth said he doesn’t believe that apps like his will become major forms of communication, but rather a planning tool directed at students with busy schedules.
“It’s something you use when you need it,” Roth said.
If anything, these apps instill hope that our millennial generation can break free from technology, if only for a few hours. As the Downtyme co-founders put it, these apps will “save you from your smart phone.”
For more information on GoBe Groups, e-mail info@gobegroups.com.
For more information on DownTyme, e-mail founders@downty.me.
