The American technology company Google is lately focusing on India quite a lot. The technology giant has just instigated an all-new Q&A app in beta known as ‘Neighbourly’ (targeted at neighborhood communities) which will resolve the queries related to places and events in your community. The Android application will enable the users to ask questions to their neighbors through text or by voice and find well-grounded and admissible answers. The people can share local expert skill or knowledge, and keep updates from the neighborhood.
In a blog, Caesar Sengupta, VP of Next Billion Users Team, said, “People nearby often have the exact information you need, but they are too busy these days to stop and chat on the street or in the park. And group chats keep getting bigger and noisier – and often fill up with those ‘Good Morning’ messages.”
As stated above, we can clearly figure out that this mobile application is strictly for a purpose and not for personal messages that overpower the actual conversation. The private information such as phone numbers, full name etc. are kept hidden from the users on the app, and it compels you to sign a ‘Neighbourly Promise’ which includes three questions that are answerable before its usage.
The Q&A app uses English and eight other languages. The information on Neighbourly can be viewed by swiping left or right, and the neighbors can view the answered questions for reference. Also, the app allows an interesting feature of following someone else’s question if it is similar to what we have to ask, and get the incoming answers further. The services of the app are at present only available in Mumbai but other users can join the waitlist and invite their neighbors.
Woodward told that Google could add business accounts and amalgamate other Google services into the app, but as of now, the sink-or-swim challenge is to create a footprint. The users need to have smartphones running on Android 4.3 or above to download this application. Neighbourly works offline and is less than 7MB in size. The app is available on Google Play Store from today. Google has been launching various initiatives in our country like Tez payments app, Google Areo, Google Station, Youtube Go and now its turn for the local knowledge sharing app to make an impact.