An update for a phone app made solely for UF students is now available.
Meerchat has been a startup project for Nick Vinson, Carlo Pascoe and Jonathan Burnett for almost a year. The group co-founded Bafit LLC and began working on the app that was released on the Apple App Store on Jan. 6. A new update hit the app store Thursday.
Meerchat is currently only available for iPhone users, but an Android version is being developed. Co-founder Burnett said they hope to have it released by the end of summer.
Vinson, the 23-year-old Bafit CEO, said he got the idea for the app as he was watching “Meerkat Manor.” After the animal caught his attention, he looked them up and read they die out when they become solitary.
“They need community,” he said. “They need this sense of belonging in order to thrive.”
Burnett, 22, said from that point they set out to create a social media app that would help connect UF students with one another.
Users can post live videos three to 10 seconds in length. To contact other users, one has to respond with another live video. The option to include text opens once an initial connection has been made.
“Forcing people to use video is really the secret sauce,” Burnett said.
The app requires a GatorLink email and connects to a user’s Facebook account for security, but there are no profiles. The video is the user’s identity, Vinson said.
“We’re Gators,” Vinson said. “We made a social network for Gators.”
[A version of this story ran on page 4 on 3/27/2015 under the headline “Gators create new social video app”]
