March 21, 2014
With the ever increasing world of social apps encouraging us to connect friends and family, the new app, Cloak has been developed to specifically help you avoid people you don’t want to see…think exes, co-workers and the guy who likes to stop and chat. It has been dubbed the ‘antisocial’ network.
The brainchild of Brian Moore and Buzzfeed’s former creative director Chris Baker, Cloak works by using location data to make it easier for you to avoid your connections. It connects to Instagram and Foursquare to let you know where all your friends, ‘friends’ and nonfriends are at all times so you never have to run into that special someone.
Why not Twitter? The company explains: “The location data just isn’t there. Most users have it turned off and even when it’s on, it’s quite vague.”
“Personally, I think we’ve seen the crest of the big social network,” Baker wrote in an e-mail to the Washington Post. “Things like Twitter and Facebook are packed elevators where we’re all crammed in together … I think anti-social stuff is on the rise. You’ll be seeing more and more of these types of projects.”
So what do people think? One user left the following review on the iTunes store:
“I love this app! I use it all the time to avoid my personal acquaintances. For example, if I want to get a bacon cheeseburger at Buddy’s Burgers but my ex-wife and kids are there. Now I know! Then I can just walk around the corner to Burger Bistro for their mushroom Swiss burger but then Cloak would also warn me if my boss is there (mean old Mr Edwards), so then I can just jump on the bus and make it on over to Harlan’s Hamburgers and Hot Pies instead!”
Curious? Then give it a go…as the owners suggest…use foursquare, or make a dummy instagram account to follow people you don’t want in your actual feed…Cloak will still work its magic. However the question remains as to how much of a parody of ourselves we have actually become…