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Remember when social interactions – a flirtation in a park, an intimate chat with a trusted friend, or a wild Friday night on the town – took place in relatively safe, private way and then faded into history, where it wouldn't have to define our future selves? Eric Bencomo, the founder of ebb, does. His app is designed to allow social sharing to exist in the moment and then fade away, the way things used to.
ebb sprang from a three-year-long research project at USC, where Bencomo sought to combine sharing and privacy. Bencomo's team published a paper about image sharing on Facebook and received immediate interest and accolates. That's when they got to work on ebb, an app that allows users to share self-destructing, encrypted photos, chats, and other ephemera that not even ebb's tech people will ever see.
There are obvious Snapchat comparisons, which don't seem to bother Bencomo. “Snapchat started becoming popular around the time we were starting to work on private image sharing. Seeing how a new image sharing concept has become so successful has definitely inspired us in the sense that it has shown that, even in a crowded space such as image sharing, users are open to new and exciting ways to communicate and share. On a different note, the fact that Snapchat was able to succeed based in LA has also inspired us to stay in the city.”
[ibimage==33812==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-center]The similarity of ebb's value proposition means that it will have to work hard to stay competitive. To that end, ebb is continually beefing up its encryption, seeking funding, and planning to expand its team. Snapchat appeals largely to the young; ebb prides itself on its ease of use, even for those uncomfortable with social media.
So far, things appear to be going well. ebb has made it to the final round of the ADC Best in Apps competition, powered by AppCircus, and will present on stage at the LA Convention Center on November 3rd. And Bencomo said that more and more people are getting hip to it through channels he doesn't even know about.
“The other day, a friend of mine who currently lives in Germany sent me a text message explaining how someone had been telling her about this 'very cool app to share images privately' that had just come out,” said Bencomo. “You can guess that this app they were talking about was ebb. With the vast amount of apps out there, it is really gratifying to see that people are finding your app and liking it!”
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