Imho (‘in my humble opinion’) is a social networking iOS app, which allows a user to receive objective, anonymised, reviews or ratings on their social networking posts, past and future. It's a lighthearted way to escape from the social media echo chamber. The concept for 'imho' came about two years ago when I was watching a celebrity interview, where the difficulty of staying grounded when living within a ‘hollywood bubble’ was posed by the interviewer. This was the spark for the idea behind 'imho', where it was recognised that many users on social networks exist in something of an ‘echo chamber’ or ‘social media bubble’ of their own with objective feedback rarely received on posts. We all have friends who ‘overshare’ on Facebook, or those who post deliberately cryptic posts ‘vaguebooking’ with the aim of inviting friends to ask what’s going on. Facebook users will get plenty of feedback on positive, funny or cute posts and pictures, but much less so for negative or offensive posts, and rarely is it objective feedback. On Twitter, the median number of followers for an average user is much less than one hundred, and with the ability to block or silence, most posts will get little or no feedback more often than not. The imho app is designed to be a lighthearted way to get objective feedback on your social networking posts outside of your usual friend circle. You can get feedback on things you've already posted to Facebook or Twitter, or write posts natively within the app with the aim of getting feedback before you post to a social network. It's a bit like quick and dirty market research, where the products being tested are your (very) public, and permanent broadcasts to the world.
