Pingstr - New Social Micro Poll app attracts users in six continents

LOS ANGELES, April 24, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Need your friends' help to make a decision? "Should I buy the red shoes or the black ones?" "Are we going to wine bar or the pub for happy hour?" "Which movie are we watching tonight?" "Who is coming to poker Friday night?"  If these questions sound familiar to you, then you should take a look at Pingstr, a new social micro-polling app.

(Photo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130424/LA00287)

Pingstr focuses on private groups of friends.  After a user creates a private group, anyone in the group can send a 'ping' (i.e. a photo and question combination poll) to the other group-members.  These other members receive alerts and can respond to the ping with a couple of taps on their smart-phones regardless of whether they have downloaded the Pingstr app.  Poll results can be available in seconds.  A user may also post his or her ping on Facebook to get answers from a wider audience. 

"We were surprised how quickly users from around the world downloaded our app," said co-founder Parag Patel, a Yale and UCLA law graduate.  Pingstr attracted users from every continent, other than Antarctica, within a week of its soft launch.

"We came up with Pingstr because we got tired of hitting 'reply all' and scrolling up and down a long email to figure out who wanted what," said co-founder Malik Magdon-Ismail, also a Yale graduate (and classmate of Patel's) who went on to receive his PhD from CalTech and is now a tenured Computer Science professor at RPI in Troy, New York.  "As with most social networks, we think the early adopters will be students, but we've added features, such as Pingstr Pics, that should appeal to parents and grandparents."  Pingstr Pics are pings that ask everyday questions (e.g. Where should we eat? Where are we meeting?) and let utility-seeking users get answers without a photograph.

The Pingstr app is currently available on iPhones, Android phones, Windows phones, Facebook (users may post and reply to pings on Facebook) and on the Pingstr website. 

CONTACT INFORMATION: Parag Patel, 310 403 5811, [email protected], http://www.pingstr.com

SOURCE Pingstr