Hey Makers and Hunters! š
Iām really excited to share Oom with you all, a chat app thatās designed to skip the small talk and help you get to know people like never before āØ
Over the past five years, myself and my co-founder, Ed, found that we were posting increasingly less to social media and spending more and more time in group chats and DMs. But while most chat apps are useful tools for staying in touch and sharing links, theyāre all largely the same! We were having the same conversations with the same people in the same kind of environment across five or six different platforms.
We started building Oom because we felt that it was high time for something new. Our mission is to create the most fun and engaging place to chat with friends, new and old.
Hereās how weāre doing it:
ā” Chats are loaded with thousands of prompts that break the ice and drive the conversation forward.
šļø By answering prompts, you level up your chat and unlock new topics and features.
š± Every chat contains a creature called a Fini that represents the relationship between the two users and evolves as you stay connected.
š² Our new āRoll the diceā feature lets you meet new people in an anonymous format. Youāll have 3 hours to chat to a mystery user before deciding whether to reveal your identity or end things there.
You can download Oom today on both iOS and Android at https://oomtogether.com. Itās totally free for anyone to use.
We're just getting started and would love to hear your feedback, comments, and feature ideas! š
Happy Ooming,
Sam
Hey Sam, I love that the Oom team is attempting to gamify chatting / friendships by including some sort of character that grows with your chat and relationship. I appreciate making group chats / personal chats more unique as the core idea and will check it out. I can do without the random connections as that part seems a bit more Chatroulette to me.
What has been the biggest technical challenge in developing this?
@joseph_natoli Hi Joseph! Thanks for the comment and kind words! Point totally taken about the random chats. We have plans to allow users to filter those as the app grows, so it wouldn't be nearly as random.
As for the biggest technical challenge, it has probably been the trade off between having interactive 3D elements and special visual effects with more table stakes stuff like silky smooth text input (obviously very important in a chat app!). We opted to build the app in the Unity game engine to facilitate the former, and this has also allowed us to develop for iOS and Android simultaneously, but it has inevitably presented different challenges compared with a more native solution.
@samspike Great response, and thanks for the info.
You know, seeing the 3D character I was curious what the stack was, and I did not have Unity in mind (not sure why, but as a former game dev... that makes total sense).
Really would like to keep in contact over on linkedin.
Hey Sam! How do you see Oom evolving in the future, both in terms of functionality and user base? Have you thought about B2B direction? For example, team members can use it to build better relationships.
@anastasiia_stepko Hi Anastasiia! Thanks for your comment :-)
Regarding functionality, there's a lot we can do to improve both the prompt content (currently limited to text-based multiple-choice questions) and the interactivity/customisability of the character that populates the chat (it should be something that people feel a genuine attachment to as an extension of their unique bond).
As for user base, the B2B direction is definitely something we've considered! It's a very interesting application. In the near-term we are focused on refining the 'meet new people' feature such that you can filter to meet people in your city or friends of friends, and that may entail exploring the dating side of things a little bit more.
I really like the design here. Overall, you are a really creative team.
Is this like an animal farm for chat groups?
I perceive this as a gamification of chats.
Clicked that upvote. But I've gotta ask, how do these prompts steer clear of feeling, I dunno, kinda forced? And what about the flow of conversation when using these prompts? Is Oom slick enough to ensure the chat doesn't turn into an awkward Q&A session? Keen to see how it works in the wild!
Super into the ideas behind Oom and was lucky to test an earlier version. My wife and I have become avid fans, motivated by the goal of unlocking new levels and the extra and unexpected benefit of adding to table conversations. Excited to see how the product develops!
hey guys, very interesting idea you have cooked up here. when I tested it it accelerated my chat many times over!! super interested to see where you guys go with this one.. congrats
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