Wildfire - Front page of the 5 miles around you

Go Bears!

Thanks for hunting us @ninarstepanov! @vinaytion, @jpatel and I are excited to be on Product Hunt today! Wildfire is the front page of the 5 miles around you. It’s a hyperlocal news app where users post about major events (from safety to a celebrity sighting) to notify the people right around them instantly. I had the idea for Wildfire after I was nearly mugged outside a library on UC Berkeley’s campus last year. I made a Facebook post to warn students, which got hundreds of views, but quickly realized that Berkeley has thousands of students who either weren’t friends with me on Facebook or scrolling through their newsfeed at that moment. We built Wildfire as a much more effective way to communicate with the people right around you in real-time. Users post about many categories from campus safety to parties and events to celebrity sightings. You select the categories you want to receive notifications for! Here are some use cases of Wildfire: • ⚠️ Safety: Wildfire alerted 4,000 Berkeley students within a 1 mile radius of a shooting, a minute after it happened (and grew by 2,000 users in the following hour). • 😎 Celebrity Sighting: 11,000 students instantly found out that Kevin Durant (Golden State Warriors) was on campus. • 📢 Protest: A Neo Nazi protest in Raleigh last week broke on Wildfire before any other social media platform. Students were posting pictures, videos and discussing the event in real-time. 🔥 Wildfire is rapidly expanding to more college campuses and cities, and we’d love to hear the your feedback! Feel free to ask us any questions about how Wildfire works, or suggest colleges & cities you’d like us to bring Wildfire to next!

Hyper-localized social networks are vital for the sustainability of communities in a globalized digital world. No one has cracked a truly valuable news/information app that's based upon a very specific location, so go crush it...

This is awesome!!! What are some of your favorite pieces of user-generated news that were shared on Wildfire? 🔥🔥🔥

Cool idea. I would make the flame itself the pin (and ditch the pin that's surrounding it). It would simplify your logo. Let me know if you want our assistance with that.

Providing a "Waze for.." is spot on for campus settings. Everyone is connected and they need to know where KD is or safety situations are. This could also be used for deals at bookstores and such. Well done!

If you're reading this it's too late.

Pros:

- Gives me real-time local news that's relevant and important

- Makes me feel safe and more aware of what's happening in my neighborhood

Cons:

- Not everyone has the app yet

Where do you have the highest concentration of users right now? I'd guess Wildfire's utility is highly correlated to the network density in the 5 mile vicinity - how are you building that network so the app remains useful? That utility seems to be really difficult for every company that has tried to do hyperlocal information sharing.

I think the demonstration video use the fear for supporting the product. Maybe you should focus by other way, because have the information make you feel more confident and work against the problem.

I hope I explained myself. Good luck by the way ;)

Pros:

OK, I considered that app is helpful because it keep you up to date about news near from where you live or where you are.

Cons:

Needs other people take part of it.

This is such a cool idea!

Really nice product but is it send a notification to the police or firefighters if something is going bad like an attack, a sexual assault or an hold-up for example?