htmlOn October 12, a social app called "Gas" quietly topped the free list of the US App Store without large-scale promotion, and continued to dominate the list, interrupting the strong momentum of the anti-ins social app "BeReal", which was previously popular in the United States, in the United States. As of press time, Gas is still firmly at the top of the social free list, but it is incredible that this top social app is currently only open in 7 states across the United States ( Pennsylvania , Missouri , Illinois , Wisconsin , Ohio , Indiana and Michigan ).
(Gas's App Store free list ranking trend in the past 7 days) What kind of magic does
have to make such an unknown app able to continue to dominate the list with famous names such as "TikTok" and "BeReal" for several consecutive days when the target user's market scope is disadvantaged for several days?
What is "gas"?
"Gas" is an anonymous Q&A game application launched at the end of August. The initial version of the application was named "Melt", and the latter version 1.1 was renamed "crush" and continued to be used until September 29, and finally renamed to the current online version of Gas. Moreover, its application classification was finally classified as a social application classification after it topped the free list.
Image source: Diandian Data
In terms of gameplay, "Gas"'s anonymous Q&A seems to be similar to the previously popular "NGL", but it seems completely different under its further requirements for "anonymity". As stated in "Gas"'s positioning of itself - the anti-cyber bullying application, the problem comes entirely from the official editor. Users can only choose the most suitable friends based on the problem, and users cannot directly send messages, etc.... Through the settings of each link of the gameplay, "Gas" always adheres to this positioning. It is quite simple to substitute
into the user's perspective. That is, after downloading the application, select the middle school you are in to join. After adding friends, the application will start to push a series of questions to you. All you have to do is to match the person who is most suitable in the subjective impression of the problem among friends. At the same time, you will also appear in their list as an option for your classmates. Once someone chooses you, you will receive a notification, but this notification will only show the gender of the person who chose you and the grade.
Currently, "Gas" only has a monthly subscription fee model for membership subscriptions, named God Mode, and is priced at $6.99 per month. After turning on God mode, users will be informed in the notification that the first letter of your friend has been selected and the privilege of displaying the full name of your friend twice a month. In addition, they can also get the option that friends have set you as a priority display as soon as possible, enjoy double gold coin rewards and the qualification to enable full anonymous mode.
It can be said that God Mode cannot even obtain more priorities except for obtaining more information and demonstrating autonomy. It can hardly affect the normal operation of the application's own gameplay. "See who likes you" may also be to encourage users to purchase subscription services.
"Gas" is popular?
One of them is also about choosing the crowd. "Gas" chooses high school students as the entry point, but in fact it is because anonymous social apps and even new things are more attractive to young users. Judging from the experience of developer Nikita Bier in making social applications, compared with mainstream social applications such as Facebook, the target user is that the younger the user is, the more conducive to the dissemination of the application, and the spontaneous dissemination of the user is the key to determining the life of the application for anonymous social applications.
Image source: Twitter
At the same time, compared with college students and adults, targeting students who are still in high school is also more cost-effective in marketing costs. And compared with the unstable users and information sources that originate from socially unstable, the relatively closed environment of campus can also eliminate and reduce the chance of online humiliation to a certain extent.
The second is to insist on anonymous socialization. Overall, Gas is indeed maintaining its anonymous character as much as possible. Whether it is to completely avoid users' previous free contact in terms of gameplay settings, or to control the privilege scale in member settings, the "anonymous" attribute of "Gas" anonymous social networking is always regarded as the first priority.
Interestingly, the developer wrote his username "Find Your Crush" and the application name "Crush" in several previous versions of "Gas", which originally originated from the crowded social gatherings or dances in the 19th century. The definition of crush by the Urban Dictionary is: "When you are with someone, you feel extremely attractive and unique and strong desire." In short, it is more beautiful and romantic than like, so it is translated as "heart-moving".
It is not difficult to see that Nikita Bier loves anonymous social methods from the inside out. Its initial starting point may be to use this app to help users find this subtle and beautiful experience. At the age of fifteen or sixteen, you are looking forward to a beautiful age. Perhaps only when you are in anonymity and are curious but unknown to each other can you feel this subtle emotion and achieve the beautiful expectations of the author "Find Your Crush".
The third is also in terms of gameplay and some details. The most core answering session of "Gas" is displayed according to the screenshots of the application. There are only 4 first-time options available for each question. Although users can randomly reassign unlimited batches of friend name options by clicking the out-of-order option below, it is more advantageous to be in the priority batch, especially the first-time display of the four options. So in order to solve the problem caused by randomness, "Gas" introduced a mechanism for gold coins, and users can increase the priority of their names in the friend options using gold coins. The only way to obtain gold coins comes from answering questions from the core gameplay of the application.
The biggest benefit of this mechanism is to encourage users to answer questions more, that is, to improve user activity. With more friends joining, the benefits of this mechanism are even greater.
Finally, it depends on the positive intention conveyed by the application itself. Anonymous social applications have been accompanied by some difficult-to-solve problems since their birth, among which the most difficult to solve are user information security issues and even the existence of cyber bullying. And for the application "Gas", which is aimed at adolescents, the risks faced are even greater. However, in terms of target group selection and gameplay setting, it has begun to prevent and control these problems.
First of all, it is about user privacy and security issues. "Gas" has published a large number of interpretation articles on the official website and even the official account of social media, and has continuously emphasized and given security suggestions.
Image source: Twitter
Secondly, it is targeting cyber bullying situations. The definition given by "Gas" is an anti-cyber bullying application. At the same time, in addition to firmly grasping the right to ask questions, the questions in the application will also be positive, interesting and praiseworthy. From the developer's perspective, his original intention and his longing for anonymous social interaction also make this app almost unrelated to negative information in content. In addition, the setting of prohibiting users from sending messages to each other allows parents to rest assured about the controllability of this application.
In addition, the popularity of "Gas" may also be related to the name change. After all, "gas" is a very popular word in the world at this stage. In the words of developers, this is luck.
Image source: Twitter
From "Gas", it is the trend of social applications
From "Gas", it is the development of social applications from refined to diversified and realistic. Among them, what we can see is the successive popularity of "Locket Widget", "LiveIn", and "BeReal", and the social approach is becoming real. Perhaps people are tired of being controlled by "labels" and "portraits".People have too many labels on various social software, which makes both parties who communicate on these platforms influenced by each other's labels and definitions, thus losing the expectation and beauty of knowing strangers and new friends. This also makes it difficult for people to feel the subtle feeling of "Crush" when they first met, and now they are back because of their yearning.
The need to "make friends" goes online, from slowly losing something, to slowly finding something through technological progress and gameplay exploration, the end point may be to return to reality.
But now, maybe there is a new answer - the meta universe. As a replica of reality, the significance of the metaverse to social interaction is nothing more than giving the latter a brand new beginning, a platform that allows all users to start from scratch and write their own. These seem to be consistent with the current development trend of social applications.
Looking forward to socializing above the metaverse, users don’t have to worry about the impact of tags and stereotypes on them. They really come together because of their interests and hobbies. The characters above the metaverse are either the same height as them or are completely deviated from them. But in the metaverse, this is not important, because what attracts each other is not the preferences brought by appearance, nor the stereotypes defined by labels, but pure similarities in interests. It starts with talent, and may really be realized in the meta-universe era. After all, only from scratch can one have the possibility of a heartbeat. Isn’t exploring the unknown the driving force of social interaction?
Finally, anonymous social and stranger social interaction bring equally goodness at the beginning. It allows people to see the kindness of strangers. This kindness that does not seek any reward is the biggest reason why this social approach is loved. This is the meaning of Gas and even anonymous social emergence.
I watched a Japanese drama called "Tram Man" a long time ago. The warmth conveyed in the anonymous chat room has invisibly become the author's motivation to use social software, applications and even surf the Internet. I hope everyone can "Find Your Crush" as they wish.
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