The best way to explain how PopBy works is by showing what it doesn’t do, because that’s what makes it unique in many ways. (If you want to cheat, you could say it’s a combination of Pokémon Go and Instagram.)

With PopBy:

  • You can only connect to places you physically visit
  • You can only write a message on the place you are visiting for others there to see
  • You can only see content and reply to messages posted by others who have been to that place
  • You can only see the profile and send a connect request to a person who has shared the same place you have

That’s it. Reality validates any and all interactions in PopBy.

Explaining how PopBy works by explaining what it doesn’t do is a better way for anyone to understand what makes it unique (you can cheat and say it’s a mix between Pokémon Go and Instagram).

PopBy is not a place where everyone from anywhere can connect; it’s made for the real world and designed to make the places users visit more valuable and social.

PopBy isn’t about followers and creating generic content to appeal to the widest amount of users; it’s made for local influencers who want to share the best places and things in a neighborhood they know well.

PopBy isn’t created to consume the most amount of time for our users, but instead to be the most valuable tool for someone wanting to connect to others in their neighborhood or wanting to get the pulse of a place they just traveled to.

How It Works

In PopBy, users connect to real-world places they visit - this could be a country, a neighborhood, or in the future a specific place like a café or a church.

In the app, users will see a menu of available places the app believes you are physically close to.

Once connected, users can see content posted there by other users who have visited a place - a feed of content posted by others that have shared the same reality at some point in time.

Users will be given the familiar options to rank someone’s post, to reply to a message, or to post their own message for others in that place to see.

We are huge believers in real-world connection, and we want to allow users to send friend requests when they find someone that shares or has shared a place that feels extra interesting. This will need to be approved by the other user, and if approved, users will be able to DM.

If you are curious to read more, check out why we made PopBy and why we think the world needs PopBy.