Life Before Us, LLC, has created a new messaging app designed to send one message: Yo.
The app was created by Or Arbel, who made and coded it in just eight hours, according to CNET.
"People think it's just an app that says 'Yo'. But it's really not," he said. "We like to call it context-based messaging. You understand by the context what is being said."
The San Francisco-based company stated that the app is "the simplest and most efficient communication tool in the world," CBS News reported.
In order for the app to work, users must download it and choose the friends they want to receive their "Yo" greeting. The friends will then receive a push notification on their phone.
"The 'Yo' itself is the message," Arbel said. "'Yo' is a very generic word that can mean anything."
The idea of the "Yo" app was born when Moshe Hogeg, Arbel's boss at the time and head of image-sharing app Mobli, asked Abel to find a way to communicate with his assistant without calling or texting. While having conversations with his friends on WhatsApp, Arbel noticed that "Yo" was a conversation he had with his friends. He then decided to create a simple app that users wouldn't have to type on, CBS News reported.
"It's lightweight and you don't have to read the notification," Arbel said. "You can choose to ignore it and there's nothing to open."
So far, the Yo app has been funded with $1 million from a group of investors led by Hogeg, CNET reported.
The app has received over 50,000 downloads, and over 4 million "yos" have been sent.
Arbel said the app has over 150,000 users since it launched in April, CBS News reported. It is available to download for Android and iPhone users.
Arbel is looking to have companies use the Yo app in the future to send their messages.
"It's very simple. It's a new way to communicate," he said.
