iPhone App Reviews

Flit

T.J. Brumfield | Jul 17, 2009 Social Networking

User rating: (4 votes, average: 3.75 out of 5)

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OpusApps has put together their second offering called Flit. Flit is a new social networking concept with an interesting proposition. You have something to say, but you don’t have an audience. You’re not Ashton Kutcher, and you don’t have a million Twitter followers. Maybe you are Ashton Kutcher and you’re looking to take over every social network on the planet. Frankly, who is going to stop him?

Flit’s concept is that messages are simply thrown in the cloud for anyone to see. Except in this case, messages are pretty butterflies. Each butterfly has a color which denotes the category of the message. If I want to view a message, I tap the butterfly. Upon reading the flit, I am prompted to vote the flit up or down.

Frankly, I am generally of the opinion that I don’t need more social networks. But I really like what they are striving for here. I just don’t think they are there yet. There are no user names. All messages are anonymous. That could be fine if you wanted random anonymous thoughts. Certainly sites like PostSecret and FML make their living that way. But what I’m looking for is a way to find intelligent and interesting people whose thoughts I want to digest. I also want to find an audience for my thoughts.

When a flit is voted up or down, the user is awarded positive or negative Qi. But I can’t see the Qi value of a poster when I read their flit. Nor does Qi seem to affect which flits are more visible. If I could use Flit in its current state to find random posts, but then track specific people I like, I’d be a happy Flit user. Would that make me a flitter?

As the network gets more posts and is busier, I presume they will broadcast flits with higher Qi ratings to more users, and flits with lower Qi ratings to fewer people. Social moderation and reputation will trim spam.

I did see some people post links in their flits, but I can’t open the links in Safari via the app. Nor can I browse for a specific category, filtering all others. If I’m looking for Sports flits, I just have to keep an eye out for that color of butterfly.

I also noticed several users posting that they were not receiving any messages at all. I saw plenty of butterflies for me to open. But some of them contained old breaking news, such as the death of Arturo Gatti, which leads me to believe that old posts are being sent as new posts. Is that a bad thing?

It depends how flits are meant to be used. If flits are generic thoughts as opposed to timely breaking news, then it shouldn’t matter that someone posted last week or last month that Ayn Rand is a horribly overrated writer. (I need to go flit that now). If the network remains anonymous, people might share more private and honest thoughts that they wouldn’t with a user name.

I saw some post tweet-like-flits, such as “I’m going to see Harry Potter and I’ll tell you later if it is worthwhile.” In its current incarnation, I wouldn’t be able to see follow-ups, so the message is worthless. Sometimes I’d see answers to questions before I read the question. Others like to comment that others aren’t commenting, or that they see spam, or that they are bored. There is certainly some chaff to be avoided, and when the Qi system is implemented more, I’ll be able to avoid it.

I also saw several messages that I was ambivalent about. I didn’t want to promote or demote the message, but it seems like I had to make a choice before selecting another butterfly. I fear that this will lead to unfair moderation. People might just default to demoting everything, or promoting everything except a few select flits. If I was unsure, I tended to promote. But then frequent posters who hadn’t necessarily posted anything of worth might be “grinding” up a high Qi score.

One feature I really want to see in new versions is an aggregate list of the highest rated flits for the day.

Flit right now is a giant chat room without the linear nature or structure of a chat room. It is and will be what the community makes it. I like to use it for recommendations and stray brain nuggets.

I do want to note that the developer, one Bodie Grimm, seems to be eating his own dog-food. He was on Flit, posting frequently. He seems to sign many of his messages, answer questions people have about the app, and try to provide support from within the app. He frequently posted his email address and suggested that people send him feature suggestions. I’m not sure he knows where Flit is headed in the future, but Bodie seems eager to take that journey.

The question is, are others interested in joining him? If so, OpusApps has thankfully offered us 4 free promo codes.

Tags: $1.99, social networking, T. J. Brumfield