Idea: “Guess Messages” app for sending messages/photos/videos anonymously to friends timed to show sender’s name some 12 hours / 1 day / 2 days later for fun of guessing and interacting in meantime (#70)

Purpose is to inspire conversations that aren’t focused on names first and hopefully are authentic, while knowing that the person’s name would be shown after some time such as 12 hours / 1 day / 2 days.

Messages view, a conversation with someone who has not shared their identity yet, and the Stories view. Designed by D.J. Sherrets.

Anonymous apps today:

• Typically are only anonymous.
• Yik Yak is now introducing usernames that by default show usernames with the ability to opt-out of showing username.
• The app Brighten lets people send compliments and more messages to people, including some that are private and some that are visible to other friends.

Proposed idea:

1. Start on the app main screen showing conversations. Tap on “Identity shown in 12h” which is bold because there is an unread message.
2. Tap “Text” to reply then type a reply and tap to send.
3. A reply from “Identity shown in 12h” is received “Just now.” Then tap back to Messages.
4. Tap on Stories. Note that there are people where the identity is not yet shown, and there are people with names.
5. Tap on “Identity shown in 24h” which was posted “Just now.” This opens Story #1 of #4 by the person. Note that someone’s identity is tied to all of their posts that have not yet shown their identity.
6. Tap on the post to go to Story #2 of #4 by “Identity shown in 4h” which changed from 24h because Story #2 has less time left to show identity.

Comments:

• Opportunity is to encourage people to start conversations anonymously that they might not have been comfortable to start such as a genuine compliment to a friend for being thoughtful, and an opportunity to explore the intrigue and joy of discussing anonymously while having the comfort knowing that the identity will be shown after some time.
• When a conversation shows the identity of the friend, then that conversation joins the thread of messaging you have with that friend so far. And you can continue talking using your names by accessing that messaging thread, as seen with “Person 1” and “Person 3” where the person’s name and profile photo is shown.
• Alternatively, sender can decide within 24 hours to delete their message and so the sender’s name would not be shown after 2 days. A reason to delete could be for example if there is no reply to the message. This may provide an incentive for people receiving messages to reply, or perhaps this is not necessary or relevant.
• If the sender deletes a message sent that was mean, then by rule that sender’s name would be shown after 2 days anyway. This would require some review by other users or a community team.
• Alternatively, there could be some version that enables people to share messages that start anonymous on the profile page of a given friend that is also visible to other friends or friends of friends with the person choosing which posts appear on the profile or not.
• Also enables people to post photos/videos that are visible to all friends and don’t show any name until after 2 days.
• Reasoning for 2 days is that allows for more than 1 day where there is some mystery and continued conversation, and hopefully isn’t too long. However, alternatively this could be 1 day so not too long, or even 12 hours so focuses on faster interaction.
• Alternatively, enable the person to decide how long to wait to show the sender name, including 20 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, 6 hours, 1 day, 2 days, 1 week, etc.
• Stories posts are only photos/videos.
• Alternatively, send a notification to the person who views a message or Story about when the sender’s name is shown so that way the person can quickly access that and start a conversation in response to that or not. Include the sender’s name in the notification text. Example: “Guess Messages: It’s time! (Person 1) had sent you: “(Message excerpt here…).” And another example: “Guess Stories: (Person 2) posted the photo with text: “(photo text here).”
• Alternatively, don’t group all Stories by one person’s identity together because that means that the Story may not be anonymous for very long such as if there’s a post that shows identity soon and then you know that all of the other posts you saw in that Story are that person. But perhaps this works fine and encourages people to view Stories and to try to remember which Stories were associated with which people.
• Alternatively, only group Stories by one person’s identity for a range of time of about 6 hours so say all Stories visible in 24 hours to 18 hours by that person, and then a separate line for Stories visible in 18 hours to 12 hours by that person, and so on. Reason is to still provide convenience of viewing multiple Stories grouped but also try to reduce the ease of connecting which Stories are posted by which person too quickly.

Designed by D.J. Sherrets.

© 2016 D.J. Sherrets