Facebook Developers Whowish Discuss E-Commerce Apps

BANGKOK, THAILAND, April 20, 2011 (Press-News.org) Described by ZippyCart as app developers with a future where "the sky's the limit," the new tech firm Whowish has launched four Facebook applications during the past two months, quickly establishing the company as a significant player among Facebook platform developers. The Whowish team recently sat down with members of the media to discuss its new Facebook applications, in particular its innovative e-commerce applications SwapSquare and CollegeSwap, which industry observers are saying could one day mount a serious challenge to auction sites like eBay and online classifieds such as Craigslist.

What notable apps has Whowish developed besides SwapSquare & CollegeSwap?

In early April we officially launched 2Meet4, which is a new Facebook app that helps people arrange get-togethers with friends, or schedule meetings among professional colleagues. You could call it a Facebook scheduler app or online meeting wizard. The application can help SwapSquare and CollegeSwap users arrange meetings for swaps. But, more than that, it is a handy Facebook application for anyone who wants to schedule the date and time for a fun get-together, business meeting, or tele-conference. Within the next week, we will also be launching Squeks, a Facebook polling app and website that lets you share what you love and hate among your Facebook network or anonymously to the rest of the world. We are now beta testing Squeks at Squeks.com. So people are welcome to visit and check it out.

Whose idea was it to create SwapSquare & CollegeSwap?

The original idea for these e-commerce apps started with Whowish co-founder and CEO Sam Kittayapong, but there have been a lot of developments, additions, and revisions to that original idea. So, it has really been a collaborative effort among all the founding members of Whowish, which include Tanin Na Nakorn (CTO), Tanun Niyomjit (VP of Product Design) and. Nilobol Ariyamongkollert (VP of Engineering).

Where did the idea stem from?

The founders of Whowish have all graduated from university during the past five years, so they remember quite clearly what it is like to be a student on a shoe-string budget. They knew that they would have loved to have a resource like CollegeSwap which could have helped them swap for stuff without the need for cash. So, they decided to build it themselves to help today's college students. As CollegeSwap was being completed, we realized that all Facebook users could use such an app, so we reworked CollegeSwap into SwapSquare to target the local zip code areas of users.

Why develop apps like SwapSquare and CollegeSwap when there are sites like Craigslist, eBay, and Chegg, performing similar services?

There are several significant differences between our applications and the big e-commerce, classifieds, and auction websites. The big one is that no one else is leveraging the Facebook social network platform like we are in our applications. Our users have great freedom to control who sees their postings and who they conduct a transaction with: friends only, friends of friends, and public.

According to the latest Internet Crime Report from the FBI and IC3, complaints regarding non-delivery of payment and merchandise still ranks #1 when it comes to online crime. With SwapSquare & CollegeSwap, people can reduce the risk of being a victim of online e-commerce fraud by conducting transactions only among friends and friends of friends, or by arranging to meet at a very public place in their community.

Another reason we developed these new Facebook apps as an alternative to eBay and Craigslist is that sites like those don't facilitate and promote the swapping (i.e. trading/bartering) and purchasing of second-hand goods and services well enough at the local level. By targeting individual colleges (with CollegeSwap) and individual zip code areas (with SwapSquare) with our new Facebook applications, students and area residents can much more easily exchange products and skilled services within their social network and locally. That is why we like to refer to SwapSquare & CollegeSwap as "go local" apps. We want to encourage local commerce and likewise sustainable lifestyles.

What's a typical day like for whowishers?

Our office is located on the outskirts of Bangkok, which means a morning of dealing with the city's infamous traffic jams! On the plus side, it is much quieter where our offices are, so it is more conducive to doing creative work without distractions. Our typical day now consists of brainstorming new ideas on how we can make our existing apps better, more useful, and more fun, and doing the necessary work to bring the previous day's ideas to life.

What's your main goal behind developing apps like these?

We have two primary goals. One is to help people on a tight budget get the products and services they need without cash or at a much lower price. The other goal relates to the fact that everyone at Whowish believes in encouraging sustainable development, eco-friendly lifestyles, and local sufficiency economies. We want to make it easier for people to "recycle" (exchange) second-hand merchandise with others and establish relationships with individuals and small businesses who make products and deliver skilled services locally.

Where do you see the company in five years?

Within five years we expect to have the financial and human resources to quickly deliver on any new product development idea in the shortest amount of time and introduce it to the widest possible audience. We have a lot of cool ideas in the vault, so we have much work ahead of us.

What are some goals for Whowish this year?

We would like to have at least 1 million users combined between SwapSquare and CollegeSwap by the end of 2011. One way we hope to achieve that figure is by signing up an official meeting place partner in each college town and zip code in the United States. This partner would likely be a coffee-house or cafe. They will advertise our app inside their establishment and we will promote their business within the Facebook application. That way we will be driving more customers to them, and they will be driving more users to us. Likewise, we hope to have 1 million users combined between our other two new Facebook apps, 2Meet4 and Squeks. Lastly, we want to introduce at least 2 more Facebook applications by the year's end.

ABOUT WHOWISH LTD

Whowish is a new technology firm dedicated to creating social media applications that make life easier, more productive, and more fun. Rungrith (Sam) Kittayapong, an alumnus of Cornell University, is CEO of Whowish. Tanin Na Nakorn, an alumnus of the University of Edinburgh, is Chief Technology Officer. Tanun Niyomjit, a graduate of Srinakharinwirot University in Thailand, is VP of Product Design. Nilobol Ariyamongkollert, a graduate of Thailand's Chulalongkorn University, is VP of Engineering.

Website: http://www.whowish.com