SMINQ is one of the new app to come up with the mission, ‘Live Now’.   The app enables people to get real time update about some of the events/activities happening around the city.  The feeds could be any data pertaining to – Seats availability in a Restaurant, wait period at pubs, Queue at the nearest KEB/Electricity office, Wait period at Booking counter, Number of people waiting outside Stadium to get/watch matches and many others.  The real-time updates will benefit all users that have the app installed and registered by giving the city preference.  People can refer the data and decide to go ahead with the plan, delay or even cancel it accordingly.

Bloggers Meet

The founders of the app recently setup a Blogger meet (at Café Felix) to get update from Influencers across the city.  Shachin Bharadwaj, one of the founder interacted with each us and took various inputs.  We all got an opportunity to explore the app and shared our feedback.  The inputs given were taken note of and some of the good inputs will come up as a feature in future.

Apart from the discussion related to app, we also discuss on many new trends in the city, country and across the globe.  We came to know that the app has become popular in San Francisco (USA) to get various updates.  Some of the updates that people look out for including – seats available in a pub, musician performing at a wine-place, live concert happening in the city and many more.

About the app

It’s one of the light weight apps loaded with multiple features.  I was not impressed by the first look and feel of the app.  But as I started exploring the app functionality and understand the features (live-updates) better, I was impressed.  Let me share few details about the app from my experience.

• First screen shows updates by users across country.  One can select the city preference and update shared by users in the local city would be shared.
• If a user wants to put up a post, one needs to select the location, take pictures, add description and upload it on the app.
• Pictures can be directly taken on the camera or uploaded from the gallery.  Its advised to post live pictures to share real-time data to other users.
• Users can select for updates in specific categories like – Entertainment, Food, Service, Store and others.
• The info available can also be shared with others.  So, if one wants to plan with more friends, the info can be shared with everyone.
• Video uploads are currently limited to 15sec long.
• App is currently available both on Android and IOS platforms.
• SMINQ plan to have the concept of Local Community and assign some of the users the privilege to a Local Guide.  People getting this role will have special roles to setup meets, moderate posts, get special discount and many more.

There are many more features about the app that can be mentioned. The founders are constantly taking inputs from users from across the globe.  They plan to bring many more changes soon, so this will become one of the preferred app for real-time-updates.

History

Sminq is on a mission to help the world know what is ‘Live Now’ at places around the world. It was founded in 2015 by the trio Shachin Bharadwaj, Santhosh Nagarajan and Sheldon Dsouza, with an aim to make your wait 100% transparent.

Sminq initially tested waters by making doctors/clinics places live; broadcasting live status of the patients in queue. This continues to be operational in Pune, Mumbai & Nasik at 150+ premium clinics and has a user base of 500,000+.

Sminq now wants to broadcast real time information from not only clinics but all places around the world.

The vision for Sminq is to create a real time information network of places around the world for and by people globally.

Sminq as a global platform allows users to

• Discover which places are trending around the world and around you at this hour
• Follow places to get the latest updates of their most visited places
• Peek into a place virtually and make/modify their plans accordingly
• Help others with a snippet of the place you are at
• Mark information to be helpful or toss them off as irrelevant or incorrect
• Share what’s new with friends, family and peers across the world

Overall Experience

It was a great experience meeting with one of the founder of SMINQ, Shachin and get insights.  The app looks very interesting and alive.  As the app adoption increases, the real-time data shared by multiple users will become extremely users. In due course of time, it has the potential to become the most popular app.  It will displace many app which give advance info rather than the live update.  The look & feel and navigation across the app looked pretty good.  We need to wait and watch to see how the app evolves over the period.

My rating on the app is 4.0/5.
Look & Feel – 3.75/5
Features – 4.0/5
Navigation – 4.0/5