If there’s one thing college students of the 21st century absolutely love, it’s apps. New apps are released left and right, and San Diego State students are not only downloading them, but creating them as well.
SDSU alumnus Alessio Avellan is the creator of tellM, an app where users can anonymously post statuses and pictures with their phone contacts. There’s no adding friends or creating a profile. Instead, tellM automatically connects you to people from your contacts who also have the app.
The concept of the tellM is “freestyle sharing,” so users can post whatever their hearts desire. The app never reveals the identity of its users—the only indicator of who’s posting is a girl or boy raccoon icon. Even the photos are blurred until selected, preventing screenshots.
“The app will be really fun for college students,” Avellan said.
Of course, with anonymity comes the concern of inappropriate or hurtful posts. The app has a feature where users can flag posts. Any post flagged twice will be removed and the user will be banned from the app altogether.
Avellan, a German student who studied at SDSU for one year, developed the idea here, but it wasn’t until moving back to Germany that he started taking action to make tellM a reality. Avellan felt the app would be more successful in America than in Europe, so with the help of Martin Brostrom, a Swedish student who studied with Avellan at SDSU, the app was launched here in San Diego.
Since the app is brand new, they’re working hard on spreading the word. The entrepreneurs are holding competitions on campus with different organizations see which can get the most downloads. Avellan said each organization and chapter has a download code they can share, and the tellM team tracks the number of downloads for each code. The competition lasts until Friday and the winner gets $600.
Although anonymity makes it so you can post whatever you want without worry, you should still be smart about the content you’re posting.
“People are becoming more aware of what they post on social media,” Avellan said.
Avellan’s future goals are to launch the app in Germany and other countries around the world. But for now, he hopes tellM gains popularity around SDSU and other college areas.
