Yo.
Yo is a social media app that allows you to send the letters 'Y' and 'o' in that order to your contacts. Yo. You can also send links and your location, and there is an additional 'yo status' that allows you to display your status in one emoji.
It is described by the developers as a "a single-tap zero character communication tool".
It has been describe by my friends as "annoying", "this isn't Facebook chess", and "this app has a half life of 5 hours: in five hours time the chance of me deleting this app increases to 50%"...
... but I think that they are wrong.
Not all messages we send need to be essays. "Text me when you get back". OK, I will. I'll send you a 'yo'.
Yo allows you to convey meaning without actually saying anything. Yo REDALERTISRAEL to get a yo whenever a missile is launched from Gaza. Subscribe to LARGEEARTHQUAKE to to a yo whenever there is an Earthquake larger than 6 on the Richter scale.
Yo.
You need to tell your friend where you are. Send a Yo with your location.
In a time when we are drowning in email, Yo is a very refreshing service.
If This Then That...
You get more power to your yo when you integrate with a service like IFTTT. IFTTT let's you set triggers that invoke some sort of action.
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| A custom IFTTT. |
With IFTTT I've got my yo history saved to my Dropbox. When I get a yo I also get a twitter notification send to my Microsoft band 2.
Send me a yo now (my username is SUPERDECADE) and you will see it gets tweeted to my timeline.
You can send a yo to IFTTT to act as the trigger for almost any action. Send a yo - it turns on the lights in your house. Send a yo - it creates a new page in OneNote. Someone posts a picture on Instagram with a specific hashtag - you get a yo. The list is almost endless.
IFTTT works with the yo status app as well. Here I am working on automating my status. At night it shows me as asleep. When I wake up, the emoji is a cup of coffee. I post something to my pocket then it shows me reading. It even changes to a birthday cake on my birthday.
I think that I have only just scratched the surface of Yo. When you think of this app as a trigger it becomes much more than an 'annoying' messaging app that you will uninstall in five hours. There is also a developer API for more fun and games.
And remember a 'yo' can mean anything!
Yo.
Send a yo to me now. I am SUPERDECADE, then roll your eyes and look at some of these other posts. #yo