Love and fear are probably the most powerful emotions humans experience — and Peeple makes a cocktail of the two in its upcoming social app.
Say you're preparing for an important job interview: you check Google Maps to know where you're heading, read on LinkedIn about would-be coworkers, and type the name of your potential new boss into the Peeple app. A two-and-a-half-star rating appears, alongside long personal descriptions. You read on and on, feeling the motivation for the prospective workplace drain out of your body.
The app is more or less like Yelp for people, and is expected to launch in November.
Peeple allows users to review everyone they interacted with, from colleagues to friends and romantic partners. Whether they have ever logged in on the app is irrelevant — the one-to-five-star rating system applies to all.
In an interview with The Washington Post, co-founders Nicole McCullough and Julia Cordray insist that they created the app with the best intentions.
"As two empathetic female entrepreneurs in the tech space, we want to spread love and positivity," Cordray said. "We want to operate with thoughtfulness."
The entrepreneurs claim that bullying and trolling will be almost impossible. Users can review you only if they have an established Facebook account, are over 21 years of age and use their real names. To criticize or praise someone who doesn't appear on the app, you must provide the person's mobile phone number. They will then receive a text explaining that someone added them on the Peeple app.
If you receive positive reviews, the app updates immediately. By contrast, if you face negative press, a 48-hour window is given for disputes to be settled, during which the review will be stored in a private inbox.
"People do so much research when they buy a car," Cordray told The Washington Post. "Why not do the same kind of research on other aspects of your life?"
A reality web series on YouTube shows the two developers working on their idea. Peeple Watching features episodes such as "Peeple: If Facebook, LinkedIn, and Tinder had a baby."
Regardless how similar or different two individuals are, the most important thing is how other people see them. At least, this is what Cordray had to say in the last episode.
Despite good intentions, the Peeple app could be today's equivalent of Pandora's box: a social dirt bomb filled with indiscretion, skewed perspectives and hurt feelings just waiting to break out.
