MavenSay, the Toronto-based company that launched a peer recommendation app of the same name several months ago has released a messaging app. Rithm is a free app for iOS that was built out of observing the behaviors of MavenSay users and focusing on using music as the foundation of a messaging platform using previews of songs from services such as iTunes, Spotify, and Rdio.
Apparently MavenSay users recommend a lot of music and to an extent they use it as a way to have a conversation, so the team decided that it’s worth making a dedicated app out of it. “We saw our users really engaging with each other over song recommendations, so it became clear to us that there was a need for a standalone app that focused exclusively on the expressive and communicative power of music”, MavenSay CEO Mike Wagman told DailySocial.
By using music, Rithm is certainly trying to differentiate itself from the rest of the field when the majority of the apps are primarily text and image based. Rithm users can send text, photo, or video messages but they’re all delivered over a song. Rithm also offers animated characters to accompany each message. Songs can also be shared to Facebook or Twitter but the emphasis is on sharing it with friends, each share needs to be directed at least to one person either through SMS or a friend who is also on Rithm.
If you’re thinking that it might sound a little like Indonesia’s own Social Play, I don’t blame you, but as mentioned earlier, unlike Social Play which uses social networks as the sharing platform and is mainly about sharing what song or playlist you’re listening to, Rithm requires you to nominate a recipient first. After all, it is a messaging app.
We’ve seen Snapchat emerge as a communications app based on images. Path, Line, and KakaoTalk all rely on stickers as a communications medium, while MessageMe leverages the use of YouTube and Google Image Search to augment its service. There is also Bubbly which is more of an audio version of Twitter. So far there hasn’t seem to be a music-based messaging app so Rithm wants to be the one to try that out.
If Rithm is aiming to get Indonesians to adopt the app, it’s a curious point that they built an iOS app first instead of Android but perhaps understandably it has to do with the recent popularity of MavenSay in the country. Back in May MavenSay reached the number one spot for social networking apps on the App Store although currently it’s no longer on the top 300 apps on the Indonesian App Store anymore. Wagman told us a little more on MavenSay’s growth and usage but that’s a story for a different time.
