Show HN: Peeps – Send selfie video messages to groups of friends

itunes.apple.com

7 points·tomcavill··6 comments

How exactly does this work? Are the videos being sent to (and maybe saved by) a central server? Are you collecting the phone numbers for later advertising (or other) use? There are potentially a lot of bad privacy implications with this program/service.

It seems interesting, but I'm wary of it for now.

Hi there, co-founder here. With Peeps, you can start a conversation with a group of contacts without needing to know if they are already signed up. The phone numbers are used to let people know via SMS that you have sent them a video message, and they can view it online to verify that it is, indeed, you. Videos are saved on the server for this purpose and so that recipients can view the message when they log in.

Hi all,

Brief intro to the app. This is something I've made with fellow HNer Alex Edge (@edgeman27). The idea is to make a more personal messaging app, that combines the convenience of texting with the emotional connection of Skype.

Would be interested to hear your feedback or questions. Thanks.

I hear Snapchat is quite popular these days...

But, in all seriousness, how is Peeps different from Snapchat, where I can choose who to send videos and photos to?

Well it's quite different in that it functions more similarly to a traditional messaging app than SnapChat. In other words -- messages are stored indefinitely so you can view them back; the app's homescreen is a list of your existing messages; and the item you can send is limited to front-cam video only -- there's no choice between back cam, front cam, video or photo. This is in order to make it a very fast way of communicating.

Is it there on Android ?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com