Gossup wants your secrets about Kansas City and Lawrence – anonymously, of course
Got some gossip that you’re dying to share? Then download the Gossup app – created by Kansas Citians Eric Miller, a social-media strategist with Barkley; Kevin Bradford, an app developer; and Jeff Schroer, an art director at VML – and post it in complete anonymity.
“A long time ago, we saw a gap in what you can do with social media,” Miller tells The Pitch. “Facebook and Twitter as your audience limits what you can say. So that’s why we went the anonymous route.”
The app launched Thursday (you can find it in Apple’s app store or on Android). Miller, Bradford and Schroer, developed the app over the last year, working with the startup incubator BetaBlox and the KU Entrepreneurship Club.
Miller admits that anonymity can bring out trolls. So Gossup mimics the moderation platforms used by Digg and Reddit, allowing users to vote posts up or down.
“This is nice because you can have people say, ‘that comment is crap’ or ‘remove it’ or if it gets down voted enough or doesn’t get any up votes, then no one will ever see it,” Miller says. “So it kind of uses a Facebook-style algorithm of that default nearby of what’s been posted recently, what’s the most up voted and what’s the most closest to you.”
Users can post gossip to either a place (Barkley, the Bulldog, Bazooka’s Showgirls, etc.) or a neighborhood (the Crossroads, Power & Light, downtown, the West Bottoms, etc.). They can also follow those places or neighborhoods to get the latest dirt. Users get “sway” points. The higher the score, the more influence the user has on Gossup.
The app is exclusive to Kansas City and Lawrence, but Miller and company hope to take it national. Miller tells The Pitch that Gossup is targeted to millennials and young people.
“What we’ve seen in Lawrence is they’re going crazy to have technology like this,” he says. “It’s an alternative that you don’t have to tie yourself to. It’s temporary. You’re not going to get in trouble with some HR person or your mom because they won’t know you posted something.”
