I read an article recently that top managers of Tencent such as Ma Huateng invested in Yo, a plain mobile app. It is really astonishing that such a boring app could involve so many users and raise so much investment. It is said to be launched on April Fool's day as a joke, and it turned out to be so popular. Basically, it could do nothing but send your friends a signal 'Yo!' So if you miss your boyfriend, you send him a 'Yo!'; if you try to wake up someone, you continuously send him 'Yo!'... You can send a "Yo!" whenever you want to draw attention without saying anything.
The phenomenon raises two questions: 1. why people like it? 2. Why business invests in it?
That people like it seems to indicate a trend that the social media is getting lighter. From long blogs to 140-character-limit Twitter, and to the no-word-at-all Yo, people are getting lazier in typing and outputting. It is like a hand wave or a 'hi' greeting in real life; people do not need to say anything essential to appear friendly. However, I doubt how far people would go with it as they cannot customize their message. Sometimes people do want to chat after greetings, right? Maybe the function should be integrated into an IM app, say, by tapping the portrait of a friend, you send him a "Yo"? Isn't it similar to QQ's function ‘shaking your friend'?
Then why business is optimistic about it? The article I read contributes it to the notification system. Yo has the potential to take over the notification system of the cell phone. Indeed, the notification is the first see when a phone is waked. The notification is able to push key information to the user. For instance, markets could push sales information by sending a 'Yo'. It is like a horn signal or a sales banner in reality. The signal succeeds to convey the necessary information without requiring response. This is important as it does not necessarily interrupt the user's on-going activity. The idea is similar to activity awareness. On the one hand, you need to keep your collaborators aware of your activity; on the other hand, you do not want to be interruptive. The design of notification is part of the design of technological support of activity awareness.
I forgot to mention that we moved into our new home last week. It is a two-floor townhouse, with two bedrooms. This place is really perfect for us, and for our coming baby. We put a lot of efforts in designing and decorating our new home. Actually we should enjoy the process much more than the result itself. To design is to imagine the sweet scene we will be in the future. This is, perhaps, similar to the design of technology.
