Yubo (formerly Yellow) is a social media app that allows people to connect through a Tinder-like swiping system. Adding users gives them access to your Snapchat and Instagram. The question is, “should I sign up?” Well, let’s review some of the best, and worst, parts of this app and break down the best reasons to sign up.
First Impressions
If you’re a teen looking for other teens, then this app is perfect for you. After clicking the rather stylish pure yellow app logo, it’s easy to set up your profile and start connecting with teens near you.
On the downside, this app has been exploited by the worst kinds of people in this world to connect with teens in all the wrong ways. I won’t go into detail, but I’d like to take this time to remind everyone reading this that sexually engaging a minor is a felony and you should not be looking for teens under 18 on this app unless you, yourself, are under 18.
That being said, Yubo’s app design is obviously meant for younger users. The app has a bubbly feel that reminds me of Bumble or Snapchat. That might be because of the color yellow, but who knows.
Creating a profile is easy. All you have to do is give up your phone number, make a username, confirm your age, upload a picture, and you’re ready to start meeting other teens (or adults) in your area.
To be honest, the whole ’emoji’ thing makes the app seem a little over-saturated with color and kiddish feels, but let’s check out the features anyway.
Features
Swipe – Through the power of location tracking you can meet people from all over the world by swiping on their pictures either left or right. It’s essentially the same thing as Tinder where you swipe on people’s pictures to see if you’d be interested in making friends with them. If they swipe right on your pictures as well, then you
have the option to chat or add them on multiple social media platforms.
Chat – The chat feature lets you chat with anyone you’ve matched with – again, like Tinder. This is a system that is used across the board now in tandem with dating apps. In my opinion, there’s no shame in using this design feature. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.
Go Live – This is a unique feature that allows you to start a live broadcast that is viewable by any member of your friends’ list. You can also start a live stream along with up to ten of your friends at once. I’m not sure why you’d want to go live with that many people, or why anyone would want to watch all those people go live at once, but it’s a cool feature.
Those are all the features listed on the app description, but there’s much more. One of the better ideas, I thought, was letting the users disable the displayed city name that they’re in. Privacy is always important with any social media app, so I’m glad this is included.
Pricing and Membership Details
Believe it or not, this app is actually totally free to download and use. Assuming it’s using the same business model as a lot of dating apps, it’s all a system to acquire personal information about you so it can be sold at a later date.
You’d be surprised how many companies are interested in your phone number, your birthday, and even photos of you. Creepy right?
On the upside, you aren’t pinned down by loads of membership fees every month for a service you barely ever use. If you don’t want to use Yabo anymore, you can just delete your profile and then the app. Easy as pie.
It’s refreshing to see an app try this strategy out while other dating apps like Tinder and Bumble are constantly trying to shove a membership down your throat every chance they get. Looking at you, Tinder Plus/Gold.
Pros
Uploading and sharing photos with this app is easy. You’re allowed to have five photos displayed and you can even link your Instagram or Snapchat right to your profile. You can even remove photos you no longer want to display.
The overall feel on this app is really relaxed and geared toward making friends. You can tell that this is the case when you start actually talking to the people you match with because of how laid back they are about connecting. Most of these people are probably just looking for more followers, but so am I.
You won’t find any fake profiles on this app. Every single person you see is genuine and very chatty. With a lot of other ‘meeting based’ dating apps, you’ll find droves of fake profiles created by the company’s staff that serve no other purpose than to lure you into buying their service out of frustration. Yabo doesn’t do you like that.
People are saying it’s not fair to make friends based on appearance, but I disagree. In case you haven’t noticed, attractive people have attractive friends. That’s just how the world works, and this app doesn’t water that reality down.
Cons
It’s not all that popular. Most of the attention this app has received has been from angry parents and sensationalist journalists who want to make Yubo seem like something it’s not. However, the lack of users can be frustrating sometimes when you have your radius set to 20 miles, and you swipe through only a handful of profiles before you run out.
Another problem with this app is people. Human beings are inherently evil, so of course, creeps abused this platform. Honestly, they should have put in more security features like Tinder did by making you connect your Facebook or something to verify your age instead of this system that allows you to handpick your own age. Huge oversight.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, this app isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea.
You have to fit a particular age group and personality type to enjoy this app. Sure swiping on people’s pictures is always a good time, but that instant gratification runs out quickly then there are only forty people in your area.
Between a huge wave of controversy and a dwindling user count, Yubo seems like it really struck out.
I’m giving Yellow (Yubo) a disappointing 2/5 stars. I thought there was going to be more for me to sink my teeth into here, but it just seems like after all the pedos came running, this app reached its demise.