An undercover app. Internet innovators have for some time been trying to cash in on the public's mounting desire for anonymous messaging platforms, with varied success. As we recently noted, at least 11 students at colleges around the country have been tracked down and arrested for threatening violence on the purportedly anonymous messaging app Yik Yak. Now, the entrepreneur behind OneOne – the latest app to hit the anonymous messaging market – claims that his product will succeed where Yik Yak's has apparently failed. That's because, OneOne founder Kevin Abosch says, while other so-called anonymous messaging apps rely on strong encryption to protect users' data, OneOne actually ensures that messages sent using the app are not traceable back to the message sender's or receiver's devices. OneOne users aren't required to establish OneOne accounts, and can begin exchanges by sending a recipient a link. The thread at the link can be deleted at any time, and automatically disappears after 24 hours. Abosch expects that OneOne will be popular among professionals who typically discuss sensitive information.
App trapped. Instant messages are on their way to becoming the modern-day equivalent of lipstick on a collar, at least in Italy. According to the Italian Association of Matrimonial Lawyers, nearly one-half of all divorce proceedings in Italy involve evidence found in messages sent using Facebook's recently acquired messaging service, WhatsApp. While Italian men aren't necessarily more likely to be unfaithful than Italian women, they are more likely to unwittingly disclose their infidelity via WhatsApp messages. That's because men are more likely than women to save photos and messages so they can revisit them, the association's president says. Maybe these folks should have used OneOne?
A like from Liam. The marketing team at 20th Century Fox is using an unconventional social media platform to promote actor Liam Neeson's new flick, Taken 3: the business-oriented networking site LinkedIn. Capitalizing on some of the more famous lines that Neeson's Bryan Mills character spoke in the first Taken movie – "[W]hat I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you" – the film studio is conducting a contest. The prize: Neeson, in character as Bryan Mills, will endorse one fortunate fan's particular set of skills as described on LinkedIn.
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