Hey product hunt,
We are the creators of @swipe from two years ago. Remember us? Chitchat is a new product we are working on. This app was never meant to go primetime just yet. We are addressing all the complaints in this blogpost:
https://medium.com/@mfroushdy/ch...
The aim of this product is is to encourage presence within a chat so that people can communicate in real time. Think about the old days when everyone was on aim. Groups form spontaneously and disapear when they become inactive.
Hope you enjoy it and we are looking forward to your feedback.
@andrewwarner sorry about that. We are working on smth.
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So...I saw someone tweet about this, and I downloaded it right away (because FOMO, amirite?). I give it access to my contacts (shouldn't have), and it crashes right away. I re-open it, and it logs me in, and it shows me a list of my contacts who are/aren't on the app. Except, most of them have been renamed to "SPAM". As I scroll down to see a long list of contacts named "SPAM", the app crashes again (I managed to take a screenshot before it crashed, because yes, I know it sounds odd). Next thing I know my ex receives a message where I'm supposedly inviting him to a fun app called ChitChat. Not cool guys, not cool.
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Oh, and here's the screenshot I'm talking about, as proof.
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@fr314@mfroushdy the app won't let me login anymore, I really want to just delete my account now - what's the process for it?
@fr314 Ben I know I really really detest these immoral and unethical practices by so many of these companies, Marco Polo, Tribe, everalbulm The Telephone Consumer Protection Act passed a new rule that states any company that sends SMS marketing messages (texts to your cell phone) without prior written consent from recipients could potentially face fines of up to $1,500 per text.
Sadly these guys raised $6.5 million in funding and this won't have any consequence. Everyone celebrates this.
Spammers spamming your email inbox isn't called growth hacking it isn't called a marketing channel this isn't legal.
You are by law not allowed to do this!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Te...
This will continue to happen until the people with platforms of influence in tech actually take a stand and address this.
So far I haven't seen anyone in tech ever addressing this without celebrating it. Name one vc who's taken a stand against this, they all love it.
You also get more funding if you engaging in "growth hacking" techniques like this.
@fr314 Also this isn't new...remeber messageme before yahoo acquired them ( why I have no idea ) they spammed everyone and they got sold.
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@nicholassheriff ugh, so this is all marketing for them?! I've just checked and the creator of the product is busy retweeting praises on his personal Twitter account. Meanwhile I'm having to deal with the thought of who else may have received a spammy text from "me" inviting them to this "super fun social app" called ChitChat. My aunt is grieving the death of my cousin who passed away a couple weeks ago, I seriously hope she's not received this spam me. Also, I shouldn't have to think about who may or may not have received spam from me just for testing a new app out. All in the name of "growth hacking", huh... Thanks for the info Nicholas, I really appreciate it ✊🏾
The CEO has already addressed the issue, saying an update is on its way.
That aside, this is basically a text-based version of Houseparty, which I'm totally down for.
A few things to point out:
The invite screen makes it look as if your friends in your address book are already on the app and all you need to do is ADD them. However, these users are NOT on the app and tapping the ADD button sends them an SMS (not via your number) This needs to be removed / updated.. maybe that's what is being worked on.
I believe the app runs in the background and sends your friends who are on the app a push when you are active, encouraging you to chat. Not sure if it is somehow identifying when you are active IN THE APP or just active ON YOUR DEVICE in general. If it is the latter, this is a new an interesting engagement tactic.
I think there's something here in the execution. The question is whether it will survive beyond the first spike generated by short term sneaky tactics. It's never advised to take a long standing UI element (adding friends who are already on an app) and hijack it to server as an invite tool.
But... would we all be taking about this had they NOT done this? Still, I'll always associate the app and founders with a spammy tactic unfortunately.
@dflanegan thank you for the feedback. We only send a push notifications when a user actually gets on the app.
This app was no where near launch. Invite feature was still being tested. We got a lot of feedback today and we are working on things like limiting the no of invites rhat people recieve, ability to stop recieving more invites, better coppy, etc..
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