SOUTH RIVER – Finding the liveliest party at any given moment may become easier than ever when entrepreneurs Vincent Michelino and Francisco Miranda launch the “Jabbr” app.
“Jabbr will be a real-time social migration app that locates the hottest spot on college campuses and follows the party throughout the day and night. Think of it as an event-seeking utility that gamifies the experience of finding hotspots for students,” Michelino said.
“We’ve been best friends for 11 years since I moved to New Jersey from Brooklyn, New York. As it turns out, we were neighbors and began a friendship almost immediately,” Michelino said. “The biggest thing we both have a common interest in is having a great time and going out to find an electric environment. We love the chase and sharing fun stories together when we rehash them the next day.”
Coming of age in the borough, Michelino said, “We absolutely loved growing up in a small close knit town like South River. Everyone knows everyone, so in a way each and every person is kind of a local celebrity. It’s made for a lot of fun memories and we’re all still close friends with many of the same people we grew up with.”
Michelino and Miranda launched a Kickstarter campaign on July 31 to raise funds to complete the development for the app.
“…The hope is that we meet our goal of raising $20,000 on Kickstarter, which would allow us to launch this fall sometime. If we meet our goal, we intend on launching initially at Rutgers University, New Brunswick campus,” Michelino said.
The other two university launches will be determined based on the Kickstarter backer rewards, which will allow backers to decide at which school they’d like to see Jabbr launch. If they meet their goal, they can choose the other two schools based on the tally of which ones had the most votes, according to Michelino.
“I’m a Rutgers alumnus, and I worked and interned in sports marketing before landing at my current job where I’m a marketing content writer and corporate storyteller. Francisco is a full-time hair stylist at Liquid Hair Salon in East Brunswick. We were both neighbors and close friends growing up, and very socially active together. It’s through these experiences that allowed us to conceive Jabbr together,” Michelino said.
Miranda said, “being best friends, this idea spawned from us just hanging out and brainstorming. Since we work so well together, and utilize strengths and weaknesses that compliment each other, it makes for a great relationship.”
Integrating with Google Maps, the app will rely on an algorithm that tracks the large scale migration patterns of users using geolocation. That hotspot is supported by an anonymous chat-feed filled with pictures, videos and messages specific to that hotspot, Michelino said.
When patterns shift and a new spot takes domain, the previous chat-feed collapses and its content disappears. The plan is to limit eligible hotspots to select locations so that they are always relevant, while safeguarding privacy restrictions, according to Michelino.
“The concept was simple. We wanted an app to instantly reveal the hottest spot in our area and get a peek as to what’s going on there. But as people migrate from bar to bar to party, etc., we wanted something that would follow the herd and always depict an accurate picture. Since this concept works so well on college campuses, and being a Rutgers alumnus, it seemed natural to use New Brunswick as our perfect launch site,” Michelino said.
He said that the concept has been developing for three years but has been more seriously created in the past 18 months.
For more information about the Jabbr app, visit www.jabbrapp.com or the app’s Kickstarter page.
Contact Vashti Harris at [email protected].