A New Way To Connect With Locals Who Share Common Interests

ATLANTA, Jan. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Lohalo, a mobile and web-based location-specific social messaging application that allows users to communicate with others in their local area who share common interests, announced today the release of their platform.

The app is designed to connect users based on location as well as hashtags or keywords. By including a parameter that limits message availability to users within 10-mile maximum radius of the sender's location and recipients notification based on hashtags or keywords in message, Lohalo ensures that messages are hyper-relevant to a local audience who share common interests.

The Lohalo platform provides an alternative to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram where users receive all posted messages simultaneously and often find themselves buried by a constant flow of irrelevant posts and updates. Lohalo also offers an improvement in peer-to-peer communication over location-oriented sites such as Craigslist.  

"The biggest value that Lohalo offers versus traditional social networks is our ability to cut through irrelevant noise and help people engage with others in super-applicable ways as it relates to their interests in their immediate surroundings," said Lohalo founder Mirza Asghar. "And what better way to do that than by connecting to your actual neighbors and fellow community members?"

The local focus is particularly useful for those looking to connect with others who want to engage in or are interested in a similar activity -- such as seeking participants for a recreational sport such as tennis, creating awareness for a charity event, posting or searching for anything from roommate listings to yard sales to lost pets, and many more.

To find others with like interests, users simply add hashtags or specific keywords to their post -- like #YardSale, #GoHiking, or #DogFound, for example -- along with a photo, if they choose, and users in the vicinity with similar tags receive notifications in real time. Users have full control over their notification options, with the ability to add or remove tags at any time so that they only receive notices that directly relate to them.

Lohalo users can receive notifications for multiple registered locations and are not required to disclose their identity with other users when posting on the app, nor are message recipients able to view the sender's exact location, just their city/state or zip code. To promote socially responsible messaging, Lohalo does not allows anonymous or unregistered users to post any message. Only a confirmed email address is required to post messages.

Another notable feature is a Lohalo "shout-out," or "shout-down" which functions similar to a "like," or "dislike". Shout-out helps promote individual messages while also expanding the radius that a message can travel from the sender and shout-down compresses the radius. The ability for users to collectively "shout-down" negative messages helps maintain a positive vibe across the platform and help Lohalo to identify and take action if needed.

When asked to describe why people should consider choosing Lohalo over the leading names in social media, Asghar said, "Lohalo creates valuable opportunities to open doors socially by driving face-to-face, community-based engagements. While channels like Facebook are great for making the world as a whole a smaller place, they're not really as conducive to facilitating connections with those right around us."

The Lohalo mobile app is currently available for iOS & Android and may also be accessed via the web here.

For more information about this story, contact:

Mirza Asghar, Founder
Lohalo, LLC
[email protected]
404-403-5359

SOURCE Lohalo