Everyone feels the need to have their opinions heard, but sometimes you want to share those feelings without fearing repercussions. Over the last couple of years, a number of apps for sharing secrets and posting quasi-anonymously have emerged as more people desired places to share that don’t require a real name like Facebook.
Tweakle is a new iOS app from Stanislav Bykovskiy that bills itself as a “crowdinforming platform” that users can embrace to share anonymously. Whether it is local news and information or the opportunity to vent about your boss, Tweakle wants to be the platform for all discussions.
Setting up your Tweakle account is easy enough. The app requires your phone number in order to get set up with a verification code and requires you to select a user name — either a real name or a pseudonym. The app states it does not use your number for anything other than this code, but it’s up to you how much you trust the app developer to look after your data.
Once you’re in, you’ll see the main sections of the app which all center around your ‘hubs’. You can create your own hubs for a particular topic or location, or follow pre existing ones. Posts within hubs appear in a few feeds on the main page— Feed, Best and Nearby. Feed is a stream of posts from hubs you are a part of, Best shows popular hubs and Nearby shows the hubs nearest to your location.
Hubs can be public (great for sharing useful local information) or closed (great for setting up a secret space for chatting within a team or group privately). Public hubs can be found by anyone in Best or Nearby, but closed hubs are invite-only. Tweakle suggests the public hubs are great for interest topics of current events in particular locations and the private hubs are great for teams, classmates or colleagues.
While the UI and general polish of Tweakle is of a high standard, it does still have some bugs (creating a hub just would not work for me, for example) which need ironing out. Bugs and errors can be easily fixed, though, but the real issue Tweakle faces is the lack of users outside of its home country. Most of the posts in the app are in Russian, this being the nation the app was created in. I struggled to find more than a few hubs that were available in any language other than Russian rendering the app essentially useless (my nearest hub was 832 miles way…).
The main draw of an app of this kind is the ability to chat and share with others, but this is not possible if others do not get on board. As it stands, Tweakle is lacking in this crucial area.
For an app providing crowdsourced local information, Tweakle is currently not up to scratch in terms of users in enough locations. However, if you and a group of friends are simply looking for a platform to share with each other privately or to discuss a certain topic in your area, Tweakle is a viable solution if you can get others involved.
Check out Tweakle in the App Store where it is available to download for free.
