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So on Saturday a bunch of friends and I had a two hour hackathon that required us to use the Yo API.

Yo as an app is incredibly stupid. They say that it’s for “context-based communications” but the reality is that it’s just a little more than a Facebook Poke (a friend and I just spammed each other with constant Yo’s). Yet, somehow, it has raised funding for a further $10 million valuation. How is this possible?

It isn’t a messaging service. It’s an alert & notification service.

As mobile users, alerts and notifications are a pain. We see a tiny box of text pop up and end up having to spend time reading through it. In small amounts this isn’t really a problem, but it gets overwhelming when you have too many of them. What makes Yo great is that it’s not only simply stupid but stupidly simple. Anyone is able to make use of its API and make alert systems from rain warnings to basketball game alerts to missile updates. Although it may be a fad right now, Yo has the potential to grow into something huge.

Whatever happens, software developers and designers should learn a lesson from this and try to have unobstructing notifications.

~ Brian Chuk