You can now send a direct (i.e. private) reply to another Vibe user allowing you to continue a conversation on a one-on-one basis.

To send a direct reply to someone, note their sequence number in the conversation (0 for original poster, 1 for first respondent, 2 for second, etc.), then start your reply with @@ (double at) followed by that user’s sequence number.

For example, to reply privately to the original poster, start your reply with @@0 and to reply privately to the 5th respondent, start your reply with @@5.

Two rules to keep in mind:

1. You must already be part of a conversation (have replied to it publicly) before you can send a direct/private reply to someone in it.
2. The @@ symbols must be at the beginning of your reply for it to be a direct/private reply, otherwise it’ll be public.

Note for Android users: Vibe for Android doesn’t yet display participant sequence numbers, so other than @@0 (which always goes to the person who started the thread), it won’t be clear which participant you are sending a direct reply to.

@@ replies are handy to continue a conversation privately, exchange contact info with another user, set up a private communication channel on Vibe via a shared secret ## tag, etc.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

“Vibing”—A New Social Phenomenon in NYC Parks

First mobile app using GPS technology to allow users to customize a geographic radius around them for an otherwise impossible interaction with their surrounding social community

Contact:
Lauren Randall
pr at zami dot com
@vibeapp

New York, NY (July 14, 2011) – Vibe™, the communication by location iPhone app is changing the way people communicate in public places, particularly in the city’s parks. “Vibing”, the anonymous communication via smartphones with nearby people whether in the park, at a concert, or a movie is adding another dimension to enjoying and discovering public places around Manhattan.  Not only are Central Park, Washington Square, and Union Square great places to sunbathe, read a book, exercise, and people watch, but they’ve also become great locations to “vibe” with others whether anonymously exchanging gossip, jokes, location tips, pictures, or even flirting.

Vibe gives users control over the reach and duration of their messages, unlike other communication platforms.  People can “whisper”, “speak”, “shout”, “yell”, or “bellow” their vibes (Vibe-speak for messages that have a reach of 160 feet, 1,600 feet, 31 miles, 311 miles, or worldwide reach).  Users also choose when their vibes disappear ranging between 15 minutes and 30 days.  Vibe’s unique combination of anonymity, distance, and duration encourages people to be more open and honest in their participation, whether asking a stupid question at a conference, sharing their real opinion during a movie, or discussing relationships with complete strangers.

Vibe at NYC events
At the recent Hudson River Park River Flicks outdoor screening of The Social Network on July 6^th, many in the audience were “vibing” before and during the movie rather than posting to their Facebook friends or Twitter followers.  Vibe allowed the audience to share their real thoughts and feelings with everyone around them and in the same setting.

“Vibing” also proved to be a huge hit at the July 9^th Frolic Festival in Central Park.  The vibes at the festival ranged from asking where the after parties were to bartering food and drinks for frisbees and board games.

“I’m very pleased to see the many different ways people are using Vibe in New York, especially in its public spaces” said Hazem Sayed, Vibe’s architect.  “Though we are all intrinsically social beings, we are also socialized not to approach strangers or to be wary of approaches from strangers.  Vibe breaks through the social barriers while maintaining people’s privacy and safety through anonymity and so it’s enabling otherwise unlikely conversations and communications in public spaces”, he added.

About Vibe
Launched at Techcrunch Disrupt NYC on May 23, 2011, Vibe is a mobile social multi-media messaging app that allows users to instantly share text, photos, and videos with others within a selectable 160 foot, 1600 foot, 31 mile, 311 mile radius or even worldwide.  Vibe allows individuals to share thoughts, opinions, and ideas similar to the way they would share on Facebook or Twitter, except it is anonymous sharing with people in their vicinity rather than with friends or followers.

For more information please visit http://facebook.com/VibeApp

To download Vibe, please visit http://zami.com/vibeapp

About Zami.com
Zami.com is a New York based startup and developer of the AskLocal™ communication by location platform.  Vibe is an example of a mobile app built on the AskLocal platform.

# # #

Recently, Vibe was used at Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. Many people talked about the beautiful weather and the amazing street performers in the park. There were jazz groups, A Capella groups, bird watchers, and people just relaxing, enjoying the beautiful day. The highlight was the Tic and Tac All Stars who put on an amazing show, wowing the crowd. Best of all, everyone was talking about it and posting pictures and videos of it on Vibe.

AskLocal™ [FREE on the App Store]

AskLocal is a revolutionary location-based message system that lets you post messages in your neighborhood or across the world while controlling who can see and reply to them based on their distance from your messages.

AskLocal is great for announcing events, voicing opinions, gathering news, conducting polls, buying/selling stuff, advertising services, and even crowd-sourcing work.

Imagine if you can post a message that only people in a limited physical area (say Paris) can see and reply to.

That’s what AskLocal lets you do.  You “pin” your messages anywhere in the world and you pick how far from that point people can see or reply to your messages.

Imagine using this to announce a block party that only people in your block can see, or posting a question on a college campus that only campus people can reply to.

Imagine using this to sell something locally or across the country…

Imagine the possibilities…  Buy/sell, job postings, announcements, questions, polls, etc.

Using AskLocal is easy, quick, and requires no registration or login!

Download AskLocal to post and reply to location-based messages anywhere in the world.

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HelloWorlds reappeared on the App Store a few hours later. Hopefully for keeps this time.

Our latest and greatest app, HelloWorlds was approved by Apple on 11/18 (6:42 am PST email said it was “Ready for Sale”). Typically that means it a appears on the App Store with 24 hours, but 31 hours later, it still wasn’t on the App Store.

We sent a couple of emails to Apple and shortly thereafter (whether by coincidence or because of the emails) HelloWorlds became available on the App Store…. for about 30 minutes. It’s gone again, with no explanation or reason…

Stay tuned as we await word from the lord almighty in Cupertino.

iMacworld 2.1 is now available on the App Store.  iMacworld is a the official directory of Macworld 2010 Expo and Conference with directories of exhibitors, products, conference sessions, and nearby businesses and services.

iMacworld is free and available via the Apple App Store!

Within 5 days of being submitted (including the weekend) our two iPhone apps GoThere and QuickTxt were approved for sale on the App Store.  Thanks Apple!

GoThere

QuickTxt

After 15 months of being “In Review”, AppLauncher was rejected by Apple on December 16, 2009. AppLauncher was submitted to the App Store on September 11, 2008, and had been languishing in what one might call Apple’s Gitmo for iPhone apps:(

AppLauncher is a free utility for launching apps from an alphabetical list.  It worked within the published iPhone SDK and so its functionality is limited to those apps that supported being launched by other apps (i.e. implemented a “custom URL scheme”).  AppLauncher is no different than viewing/launching your applications “by name” on your Mac or other computer.

The reason given for the rejection is that Apple doesn’t want users to access iPhone apps other than through the interface Apple provides (swiping through iPhone/Touch screens to find an app or typing the app name in the search widget).

That we got a phone call from Apple on the 9th followed by a re-examination of AppLauncher prior to the decision to formally reject it is appreciated.  Certainly an improvement over the few “Your application is requiring unexpected additional time for review” emails received in the intervening months.  Perhaps Apple has taken to heart Obama’s campaign promise to close Gitmo before the end of the year…

We developed AppLauncher for our  own use to quickly access apps we were developing and that Xcode and iTunes were putting all over the place within the 10 visible screens or beyond.  We submitted it as a free app to the App Store so others can make use of it.  Though a relatively small number of apps support launching via the custom URL scheme, most developers we contacted last year said they would support it in their next rev once AppLauncher was available.  Sigh…

In any event, AppLauncher is a very handy utility and we hope that Apple will incorporate its functionality in a future iPhone/Touch OS  as the current UI has become unwieldy for managing the tens of apps that many users have.

September 11, 2008: Version 1.1 of MyStreets became available on the App Store.  New features are:

1. Displays contacts that have an address but no country under *No Country -> City Name -

2. Various stability and performance improvements.

If you have any questions or issue re this version, please let us know.

August 24, 2008: Version 1.0.1 of MyStreets became available on the App Store.  New features are:

1. Allows browsing your contacts by country in addition to city and street.

2. Infers the country of a contact based on their telephone number.

3. Handles common country name variations.  So now treats United States, USA, and US as the same country.  Similarly for United Kingdom, Great Britain, and UK.

July 25, 2008: MyStreets™, the iPhone application for viewing your contacts by city and street, became available today on the App Store.

Read about MyStreets.

Download MyStreets from the App Store.

MyStreets is Free!