HPU students make new strides in social media

By Ryan, October 1, 2015

By Alexis Ancel, Staff Writer//

With social media growing exponentially more popular, some might find it hard to keep up with the many apps and websites, all with different uses and purposes.
With this in mind, High Point University Students Reza Moghtaderi Esfahani, Michael Newton, Nick Zayatz and HPU alumnus Thomas Douglas have designed and created a new form of social media called “Zipsy” that combines the best features of various social networks in one app.
This app brings together the temporary aspect of Snapchat, the anonymity of Yik Yak and the instant photo sharing of Instagram into one new and unique social network.
On Zipsy, all posts are anonymous to the general public. However, each user choses at least three friends to “trust,” and each person trusted can then see which photos are posted by that particular person. This makes it possible to combine anonymity with a sense of accountability for the person posting the photo, a concept that was very influential in the way the app was designed.
Each photo only stays posted for 48 hours before it is automatically deleted. Unlike Yik Yak, which is also location specific, Zipsy does not allow posts to be made to one location’s feed from another without physically being there. This ensures that all photos in each location’s feed were taken in that area, creating a sense of consistency.
Similar to liking a photo or post on Instagram or Facebook, users “react” to photos by leaving a comment or choosing between four emoticons that represent like, dislike, surprised and cute.
Zipsy was released at midnight on Sept. 1, and within 24 hours gained over 300 users with roughly 60 photos posted and nearly 600 reactions to the photos. Moghtaderi noted “I like to think of it like a two month old baby. It’s clumsy, it’s underdeveloped, but it’s full of potential.”
In fact, the creators already have several possible versions planned out with various changes and updates. Newton remarked “I’ve learned a lot from making it and we’ll keep working on it and adding new features.”
User feedback has been predominantly positive thus far and will be a huge factor in determining what direction this app will take. “We want to let the community define how to use this,” Moghtaderi. said
The team of creators first gained experience in building apps and with the App Store through a class project in economics, but this type of work in social media was new to all of them.
Douglas noted “I enjoyed having to think about how a user will experience the app and how that made the problems more interesting and enjoyable to solve.”
Zipsy was built using the most up to date technology in Cloud computing available through Amazon Web Services, one of the top Cloud computing platforms in the industry.
“So far it has been clean and interesting to look at,” Moghtaderi said. “We want it to stay a clean, fun and exciting way to see what’s going on around you that’s fair and open to everyone.”