With the recent announcement that the anonymous social networking app Secret will soon be available on Android, now is a good time to look at the rise of similar apps that encourage sociability but rely on confidentiality.
The current paranoid environment of online data breaches and information leaks (fuelled by recent scandals involving the NSAand Wikileaks in the US), can only further add to the popularity of apps that promote anonymity.
Such is the growing popularity of anonymous social networking that even the giants of the industry are getting involved.
Speaking in an interview earlier this year, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg indicated that some of the company’s upcoming apps would allow anonymous sign-ins.
Such a move would mark a huge step for a company that pioneered the concept of an authentic online identity.
Finally, on a purely pragmatic level, both adult and teen users wishing to communicate with friends, share information and images, may find these sites more secure than more widely used services.
[alert type=alert-blue]Snapchat[/alert]
Although it started out life as an ephemeral photo messaging app with minimal features, the popularity of Snapchat among younger users has led to it becoming much more open. We’re specifically referring to the fact that many users are now much more open to giving out their Snapchat details publicly, encouraging its widespread use as more of a social networking service than a private messaging app.
Recent updates, including the addition of video and text chat, shows that Snapchat is branching out to compete with more popular messaging apps such as the Facebook-owned Whatsapp.
For those still unaware of what exactly Snapchat does, the app allows users to send customised pics to one another ‘ with the images disappearing after a short time period.
Perhaps due to its insistence on anonymity and ephemerality, Snapchat has emboldened users to be more sexually liberal with their correspondence. Consequently, the app has increasingly been used to send sexts and sexual images ‘ with users under the impression that the inability to save images means the service is completely risk-free. Recent Snapchat hacks, that have affected millions of users, have proved otherwise.
[alert type=alert-blue]Secret[/alert]
Like Whisper (see below), Secret is an app that allows users to post their innermost thoughts, as well as images, freely and anonymously. It does this by ruling out user names and profiles and instead focusing purely on short posts alongside user-uploaded images (which often take the form of stock photos).
It may not look as polished as other social apps – including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – but that’s not the point. Like its namesake, Secret was always going to be messy.
Instead the aim here is to offer a confidential service for users to post their secrets under the umbrella of anonymity. The more other users like and interact with your posts, the more those posts will spread throughout the Secret community.
It has come under fire of late for being too addictive and not as private as it makes out, following the leak of some users’ ‘secrets’.
So much is the buzz surrounding Secret, and also Whisper, that famous media outlets such as The Daily Mail have recently used them as news sources. In fact, you could probably write a Top 5 about posts on Secret and Whisper that went viral. They include everything from a user claiming Apple was releasing a new heart-rate monitoring wearable (which turned out to be false, not before the aforementioned tabloid newspaper stuck it on its website) and the relatively true status that trouble was brewing behind-the -scenes at Nike regarding its FuelBand fitness wearable.
[alert type=alert-blue]Whisper[/alert]
Whisper is a mobile app where people anonymously post their secrets in the form of text superimposed on a picture.
Although it looks horrible – using stock photos alongside text makes for a haphazard mess – it allows its users to either privately or publicly respond to a post. Consequently, it claims to not really be a social network, because there’s no such thing as a Whisper user profile.
The company’s premise is that online over-sharing is growing tiresome, and a more authentic outlet is needed. As a way of reaching out to its core demographic, Whisper has also set up the non-profit awareness-raising organisation – Your Voice – for students’ mental health issues.
Like Secret, Whisper has also been targeted by digital media publications – in this case it was the popular irreverent news website Buzzfeed – as a source for breaking news stories.
[alert type=alert-blue]Yik Yak[/alert]
If you can get beyond its silly name, Yik Yak is an app worthy of your attention no matter what your age. The anonymous app, that allows users to post without the constraint of a username and password, recently sprung to notoriety after it caused an uproar at a high school in the states. Students at Staples High School in Westport, Connecticut were urged to delete the app after someone began posting homophobic, racist and sexist messages targeting the school’s pupils and teachers.
In terms of design, the app incorporates a timeline much like social bookmarking sites such as Twitter and Reddit, but based purely on textual posts. It’s extremely localised; anyone within 1.5 miles of a message can read it.
The fact that the network is built on physical proximity is key: If you open Yik Yak in the middle of a busy city square, it’s unlikely that the app will be of any benefit to you. If you open it in the middle of a high-school cafeteria, brace yourself.
Consequently, parents, teachers and concerned guardians will want to keep track of adolescents that are using it.
[alert type=alert-blue]23 Snaps[/alert]
And now for something completely different. Well, different in regard to user demographic anyway.
For parents who want to post baby pictures discretely, and without spamming their Facebook news feed, 23 Snaps allows users to upload up to 37 images upload an unlimited number of photos and videos and share them with selected friends and family.
Since the app is available across multiple platforms for smartphone, tablet and PC, your pictures can make it onto any screen.
