Rate The World Around You With Oink
Oink (Free) by Milk Inc. is the first app from the new startup founded by Kevin Rose. In short, Oink is an app that allows users to rate and rank things around them, rather than just an overall place.
The biggest thing that drew me into this app (since I learned of its existence) was the interface. Put simply, it’s just beautiful. Everything about it is slick, and it’s also extremely fast. Whenever something is loading, you will be notified by the small bar at the top with a green orb that goes back and forth, and the entire thing just fades away when new data is loaded. I guess this replaces that spinner that we’ve all grown to love (or hate), which is a nice change and much appreciated. Clearly, the folks behind the development of this app didn’t skimp out on detail.
To use Oink, you’ll first have to request an invite via email address, or use Facebook Connect or Twitter OAuth. Yes, I know, I was a bit annoyed with this signup too – release a product, and then expect the users to request an invite to use said product. However, I got my invite fairly quickly (within the hour), so with a little patience, you’ll be able to use the app too.
The first thing you’ll want to do once you get your invite is to find friends to follow (this is a social network, after all – there isn’t a point to use it if your friends aren’t going to!). Oink can search through your Twitter or Facebook friends and find other users, or even go through your address book.
Part of this social network is building “cred” in certain areas. For example, I love coffee, technology, and Apple products. I will want to build cred in these areas – you can have up to eight areas of expertise on your profile, which you will see when you are able to begin building your Oink profile. There are a few pre-defined ones, but you can add your own if those don’t fit you.
Oink has five options in the bottom navigation bar: Following, Discover, Oink, Cred, and Your Profile.
In Following, you will see the items that people you are following have rated. Items are organized by day, separated with a ribbon on the right side to signify Today, Yesterday, etc. The app automatically will load more items once you reach the bottom of the screen, which is great if you just like to browse. To see more items, just do the pull-to-refresh gesture – it may not be visible like in other apps, but when you do, the progress bar comes back at the top.
When viewing the Following tab, you will see the photo of the item, and whether or not they love it, like it, think it’s ho-hum, or straight-out dislike it. If the item is tied to a specific place, then the location will appear in the bottom right corner of the image. Additionally, if the item is tagged in the user’s area of expertise, you’ll be able to see their level.
If you’re in the mood for discovering new things local to you, then checking out the Discover tab is your best bet. Of course, since this is a social network, the usefulness of this feature is dependent on how many people in your area are also using Oink. You can search by Popular items, Places nearby, or even just view the Global Live Feed.
Whenever you tap on someone’s oink, you can rate it too, and it will appear in your activity feed. There is also the option to add a comment or mini-review when rating an item, and you can send it to Twitter, Facebook, or even Foursquare. Items can be added to your own “to-do” list if you want to try it at a later time.
The Cred tab is where you will view your current levels of cred. Each oink of an area of your expertise will earn you points, and you can see your progress. The more you oink, the more cred you get.
Now, the most fun you’ll get out of Oink is rating everything you feel like rating. The Oink tab will be where the fun is. The first thing you’ll do is pick a location – either by searching or picking a local spot. If the item you want to rate isn’t location-specific, just say so. The next step has you naming the item and adding tags. Finally, you can add a photo, either by snapping a new pic or importing one from the device photo library.
Oink also comes with a few different effects that you can apply to your photo, though they are very basic (this isn’t Instagram, after all). Once the photo is uploaded, give it a rating and then it will show up in your profile.
I had been waiting for Oink for a while, and I’m pretty pleased with the experience. Aside from the silly invite-only method of signing up, I had no problems. The app looks great, is fast, and fairly addicting.
If you haven’t checked out Oink yet, you should. As a free download, it’s hard to pass it up – now get rating!
