<p>Let’s say the app’s called Mango. It allows you to send messages to people, just like texting, without giving away your real number. People you add on Mango are kept separate from your regular contacts list, and you can block a Mango contact at any time. Targeted at bar-goers.</p>
<p>Scenario:</p>
<ul>
<li>You’re at a bar.</li>
<li>A guy asks you for your number. (Or if you’re a guy, a girl asks for your number.)</li>
<li>You offer your Mango number instead. (They also need to have the Mango app installed.)</li>
<li>You can now text each other like normal, except all messaging will be done through the app. At no point is your real cell number revealed (unless you choose to reveal it later), and you can block the person at any time.</li>
</ul>
<p>Texts sent through Mango are free and the app is free to download.</p>
<p>If this app existed, on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 = I couldn’t care less and 10 = I need this desperately, how likely would you be to download it?</p>
<p>It’s better to work with what people already have than to require them to manage an additional network in order to use a new product.</p>
<p>You’re describing a chat service and a client for it. (Data doesn’t just go from phone to phone; it passes through a server on its way there.) It’s extremely unprofessional to couple a server to a client. A well-designed server has a published, stable API so that anyone can write a client for it and people using different clients can communicate with each other via the same protocol.</p>
<p>The most prevalent protocol, SMTP, already makes it easy to have multiple accounts on multiple servers. I myself have several email accounts that all forward to a single Gmail account, and my Gmail account is set up to be able to send emails through any of those accounts (hiding the fact that I even have a Gmail account). I also have some sophisticated filters and I could easily create a filter to send an unwanted contact’s emails straight to trash if I wanted. e.g. I have <a href="mailto:aidmbsa@live.com">aidmbsa@live.com</a><a href=“%5Bb%5Da%5B/b%5Dccount%20%5Bb%5DI%5B/b%5D%20%5Bb%5Dd%5B/b%5Don’t%20%5Bb%5Dm%5B/b%5Dind%20%5Bb%5Db%5B/b%5Deing%20%5Bb%5Ds%5B/b%5Dpammed%20%5Bb%5Da%5B/b%5Dt”>/email</a>, which I use to register for fishy websites, which forwards to Gmail. In Gmail, I have a filter that makes emails matching “to:<a href="mailto:aidmbsa@live.com”>aidmbsa@live.com</a>" skip my inbox and go to a “possible spam” folder.</p>
<p>There are already mobile Gmail clients (and generic mobile email clients) that allow account-management of this caliber. Also, emails are so fast these days that they’ve eliminated the need for real-time chat applications.</p>
<p>So if I wanted to give new acquaintances a way to contact me separately from my “main” lines of contact, I’d just give them an email address.</p>
<p>1- I’ld never contact anyone on my cell or let anyone contact me unless I know them very well and already trust them</p>
<p>
I’ve never understood this. How is a cell phone different from a laptop? With the right email client, you can use a whitelist so your phone only notifies you when you get an email from a trusted contact, but still lets you check your untrusted contacts at your leisure.</p>
<p>I have no incentive to give someone I don’t know well my number for one, what’s in it for me? plus email is simpler. things go directly to spam, and I can delete an email even after I’ve opened it. with a phone, I can’t just hang up on someone as easily, and, to be honest, hearing a ring just to find out it’s nothing is sort of annoying.
even with email, I don’t give it out unless I know the person or unless I have to contact, say, a teacher.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure there are apps where you can just give them a username and you can chat. Kik for example?</p>
<p>It doesn’t sound too practical to me. Suppose that you did want this person to be able to contact you, to see if further interest could be sparked…but you don’t want them to have your number…this seems like a fairly good option, but what if this person doesn’t already have “Mango?” Do you now have to tell them what the situation is…that you want to talk to them again, but don’t want them to have your number yet…so “hey, download this app so we can talk without having each others numbers yet.” That seems slightly offensive to me.</p>
<p>It’s an interesting idea in principle, but the implementation of it seems a bit impractical.</p>
<p>Personally, I’d have no interest in it. I’m not shy about giving people my phone number. If they aren’t comfortable giving me theirs, then it probably isn’t going anywhere anyway. There’s always facebook too. It’s more or less the same principle as what you’re getting at with this app.</p>
<p>I feel like it would just be awkward: no I don’t like you enough to give you my real number but here’s my mango</p>