Prominent communication theorist Marshall Mcluhan talked about the global village years before the Internet was commercialized, saying that digital technology will contract the world into one community. Decades later, we have seen this come true in a sense. A new app is contributing to this concept by letting you help strangers and vice versa through the power of pictures and mobile connection. Will uCiC (you see I see) become your new best friend?
uCiC is a location-based service that will help you get answers from people who are actually there in a certain place you need to go to or need something from. Of course you need to turn on your location on your smartphone or tablet to be able to use it. On the app’s map, you select a point of interest and you’ll be shown other users who are also in the area. You then type in your request and it will be sent as a push notification to those who are in the area and have chosen to turn that option on. They can respond by taking a picture and putting a caption and sending it back to you.
Those who help other people will earn karma points and you can then use these points to make new requests. Some practical examples would be if you need to know if the subway is crowded at this time, or if you need to buy something from the indie bookstore a few blocks away but don’t want to waste your time if it’s not available there (and if the bookstore doesn’t have a social media account).
If you’re worried about your privacy, the app guarantees that users will remain anonymous and that you don’t need to “friend” or add people as contacts in order to communicate with them. Of course, recent security breaches on various apps will still cause some uneasiness for some users. But if you feel like you trust the developers to protect your information and if you really need to have your math problem solved by someone from MIT, you can download uCiC from the Google Play Store for free.
Thanks for the great article!