PING: The Future of Making Friends at College

Graphics by Anika Dua

Do you ever use Find My Friends like it’s a social media app? Because we see you and we understand you. It’s fun to check in to see where everyone is, even though it may seem just a little stalkerish. But as fun as that is, you can’t really interact with the little dots scurrying around in your Find My Friends app.

So… what if you could?

A new social app called Ping is spreading through SU like wildfire. This is how it works: you get notified when your friends are nearby and the app gives you points for hanging out with them IRL. You can give them a “PING” and let them know you’re down to hang. You can also send fun messages like “charge your phone” or “wyd” to annoy them. Personally, we love spamming our friends with whatever chance we can get, and this enables that behavior. It’s fun to see “‘X is Nearby!’” when walking around campus, which fuels our Find My Friends behaviors. 

Now here’s the real kicker: the points you collect from hanging out will get you prizes. Yup, you heard us correctly. There’s prizes like free coffee, pizza, movie tickets and even a chance to win T-Swizzle Eras Tour tickets (to which we will eat up, as Swifties and as broke college students). The app is a way to encourage hanging out in person and even get free items along the way. 

And if privacy is a concern (which it definitely is in this day and age), there’s nothing to be fearful of. Co-Founder and CTO of Ping, Kyle Venn, explains Ping “was created with maximum privacy and safety in mind.” Users can customize who they want to be friends with and what they share, so specific locations are not disclosed. 

To download the app, use the Syracuse specific link: https://ping.rlly.com/Syracuse and become a Pinger!