Wanna be happy? There’s an app for that.
Well not exactly, but an app with the ambitious goal of making the world a happier place has just launched: Freehap.
The app, developed in Bangkok by two college buddies from the Faculty of Economics at Chulalongkorn University, allows users to update their happiness level on a 5-point scale (very happy, happy, soso, sad, very sad) and broadcast that to other users in their area. Users can add “special ones” and then be alerted when they are sad (so they can give them a pick-me-up call or message) and also check the entire country’s happiness level collated with data from Freehap – “Thailand’s happiness level is 58% today, +3% from yesterday.”
Besides their happiness levels, users can post citizen news reports with the I Report button; recommendations of books/movies/music/whatever with the Recommend button; and stuff for sale with the Selling button. They can also call for help (whatever the problem may be) with a Help Me! Button and aspiring Clark Kents can make themselves available with the I Help button. Users must submit their blood types upon registration and there is a function of the app allows a user to put out a calls for blood donations in the event of an emergency.
The app is completely integrated with Facebook – better than nearly any app around, say founders Mr. Natee Jarayabhand and Mr. Khanit Aramkitpota. You must sign in with Facebook, all your friends in the social network become your friends on the app, and when, for example, someone likes your happiness update through Freehap that “like” will show up on the Facebook post.
Natee and Khanit hatched the idea while they were doing unfulfilling office jobs after university and read a study about low happiness levels in developed countries. “We wanted to try to make a platform for people to live a happier life. There’s no other app with the mission of making the world happier,” says Natee.
The pair took their idea to the Global Social Ventures Competition at UC Berkeley in California in 2010. They didn’t win the contest but they say they got a lot of good feedback, especially from judge Paul Herman, founder of socially responsible Silicon Valley investment firm HIP Investor. Natee says that Herman foresaw a world where happiness indexes are reported alongside stock indexes and the weather.
So they came back to Thailand, raised some money from their friends and family, and put a team together to fully develop Freehap. The app finally went live on iOS and Android last week and is currently only available in Thailand, Singapore, and Hong Kong. They plan on testing and tweaking the product with user feedback from these markets before trying launch it globally. They’re also looking for new funding. In future versions they’d like to launch realtime map of people’s happiness status updates, amongst other improvement.
Refreshingly, for the Asian tech community where entrepreneurs seem to be too focused on monetization too early, the Freehap team is focusing only on improving the app (and people’s happiness, in theory) for the foreseeable future. They do have some ideas about how to monetize when the time is right, including sponsored “happiness campaigns’, premium emoticons, and advertising.
But ultimately, “we believe that if we can improve happiness for people, then money will follow,” says Natee.
This story originally appeared on Tech in Asia.
