Neighbourly – Your Friendly Neighbourhood App!
Back in May 2018, Google quietly launched the Beta version of their hyperlocal app – Neighbourly. This app, developed exclusively to help people find goods and services, is a hidden gem among the many apps that are on offer to the people. This is a city guide on your mobile. We can call this a community Q&A app for the people.
Imagine sitting at home & wondering where you can get that amazing new spice or some fresh exotic ingredient. Imagine getting answer to the question – “ Where can I get new headphone cushions for my perfectly working headphones?” Or “where can I get the best swimming coach nearby?”. It is exactly these and many other questions that has lead Google to develop the app Neighbourly.
In a media statement, Caesar Sengupta, VP, Next Billion Users Team at Google, said:
“In cities across India, it’s getting harder to get good answers to these questions because cities keep changing, including the people who live there. People nearby often have the exact information you need, but they’re too busy these days to stop and chat on the street or in the park… That’s why we built Neighbourly, a neighbourhood app that helps you ask your neighbours questions, share local expertise, and keep up with your neighbourhood.”
We all know Google doesn’t always come up with the best search results when it comes to something very local. What do you do then? You ask your friends or neighbours, right? Neighbourly allows you to do exactly that, via an intuitive and interesting interface. People do prefer apps now a days, so this app does have an opportunity of gaining traction.
Let’s take a tour of this hyperlocal app now.
Installation & Set-up
Visit the Play Store and install the app here.
Once installed, follow the initial set-up instructions like choosing your area & agreeing to the policy for app usage.
Now you’re ready to explore the app.
Browse through interesting questions and answer them if you can or just read through the answers that you have questions too!!
Features
- It can process questions in English & 8 Indian languages.
- It even accepts Voice Inputs as questions.
- Available in Mumbai, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, Mysore, Vizag, & Kota.
- Questions are displayed as separate cards that can be swiped. You can choose to answer the question by tapping on the Answer button.
- To read the answers, tap on the card.
- Questions can be followed if you want to keep a tab on the answers for future reference.
- You unlock medals with every engagement. These medals determine the type of neighbour you are.
- If you ask a lot of questions, you get a ‘Curious’ medal. If you answer a question within an hour of posting, you’re given a Speedy medal.
- There are other options that you can explore like Blocking a User, Sharing a Question etc.
- You can change your neighbourhood.
Google says, “Since 20 percent of users tap to speak a question, we’ve improved the voice input experience with better controls so you can ask and respond to questions in your spoken language.”
Google says even the users are eager to help their neighbours.
“From what we’ve seen, neighbours from different backgrounds and ages are eager to help each other by answering questions. In fact, some of our ‘Top Neighbours’ answer over 100 questions per week,” Google revealed.
Who & Why of Neighbourly
People who have moved to a new city recently are the one who can make full use of this hyperlocal app. Since Google hasn’t yet put any limitations on number of questions that can be asked, you can ask as much as you’d like to know.
The core concept behind the app is the trust we put on word-of-mouth promotions, specially our neighbours. Personal experience is, after all, the best review you can get.
If you are a marketer looking to promote your product, you can browse through the many questions and answer for any relevant question.
Google has launched another app Bolo, about which you can read here
