Facebook introduces gift cards for offline purchases
By Kendall Tich
BUSINESS EDITOR
Blurtopia, a new mobile phone application that could potentially change the way the entire world views and interacts with social media. For the past few years, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have dominated the charts in terms of most downloaded and used apps—but something new is coming.
Blurtopia is taking social media and social networking a step further by allowing companies and the public to interact in new ways and it is being created right here in San Diego. Because of this proximity, USD has been given a unique page where students can engage in conversations about our university.
Similar to other social media apps, Blurtopia uses basic ideas like photo sharing, connections and like/dislike features. On top of that, it is bringing in a new comprehensive side of social media that will allow for user communication and interaction.
Every day, you are posed with big and small questions and decisions. What should I wear today? What restaurant is better to take a date to? Where should I study abroad? Blurtopia has created a platform for these questions to be discussed and answered.
The questions that would apply to the like/dislike options would be questions such as “should I buy this shirt?” and the questions for which you would use the rating option would be along the lines of “how good is the food at this restaurant?”
On the USD Blurtopia page, students can post questions and pick 1 of 3 response options for other users. These options are “like/dislike”, “rate 1-5 stars” or “this or that”. For “this or that” questions, you post two different pictures that correspond with your question and people respond based on those. For example, if you were asking “this shirt or that shirt”, you would also post pictures of both the shirts for other users to vote upon.
Once a Blurt is created, you can put it into a specific category. These categories range from humor to fashion to travel and help to set users up with categories that relate to their interests and the Blurts they would be able to give the most input to. After this, you hit send on your Blurt and it is registered in your group or on the system. When people respond to your Blurt, the results of the question you posted are creatively displayed in a circle graph with percentages. This makes decision making a little less stressful and the pressure is on the users that answer your question rather than just yourself.
One of the most applicable features of Blurtopia is the group that has been created for USD. Sophomore Alex Gaggioli is currently an intern at Blurtopia and is excited for the university community to become involved in this new form of social media.
“Blurtopia is a great way for students to engage in conversations about USD and can be very valuable for day to day decisions as well as questions that clubs or organizations on campus may need answered,” said Gaggioli. “It is a way for students to voice their opinions in regards to others decisions as well as campus decisions.”
Blurtopia is currently available in the Apple App Store for iPhones and the USD conversation page is now in use. Online (Blurtopia.com/tags/usd) you can download the app and join the USD conversation page to start posting Blurts for other USD students.
The creators of Blurtopia are working to improve the application and make it more comprehensive and user friendly. The new updates that have been implemented have added a lot of new features to increase user friendliness and user interaction. According to the Apple App Store, Blurtopia currently has 39 customer ratings averaging a 4.5 out of 5 stars.
Blurtopia is a fun way to have questions answered and decisions made by others and provides users with a convenient platform to “Blurt”, or speak their minds.