We've all been there. You have that friend or follower on social media who clutters your news feed with their political opinions and ramblings. Instead of logging onto Facebook and seeing how your family members across the country are doing, you're getting a daily dose of your old high school friend's take on what's wrong with the country and the Democratic Party.
Well, Sean Parker may have just come up with a way to preserve your news feeds and timelines from political talk with a new app called Brigade.
Parker, along with Matt Mahan and their team of engineers, have released a private beta of their app, Brigade, which is an app that's geared toward giving people-even those who aren't as well-versed-an outlet to discuss, debate, and examine politics.
With Brigade, Parker continues his contribution to the tech world. You may remember him as the co-founder of Napster, a file-sharing music service, the first president of Facebook, and a hefty investor and board member of the streaming music service, Spotify.
The Brigade app is set up with stacks of political cards in which users can simply agree or disagree with a position, and if they're more engaged in the topic, they can then expand upon their position by supplying their reasoning. When a user takes a position on a certain political issue, they'll then see a polling chart that shows the percentage of users in the app who either agree or disagree. Users can also write their own opinions and then poll their friends to get an idea of their positions on the topic.
Brigade CEO Matt Mahan Interview from Brigade on Vimeo.
According to TechCrunch, there are 13,000 members of the private beta, and the average user takes 90 positions, which seems to be a high level of engagement and thus presents hope for the success of the project.
As users become more engaged with the Brigade app and take more positions, they'll create a profile that can then be stacked up against their friends on the app. And if your reasoning on a position is so strong that you sway your friend to come to your side, you'll get social credit on the app for it.
Perhaps the biggest issue facing the Brigade team is getting people to consistently use the app. I can't tell you how many apps I've downloaded because they sound cool, used them once, buried them in a folder on the second or third page of my phone, and haven't used since.
On top of that, there are a lot of people out there who feel that politics shouldn't be discussed publicly, let alone socially. I do, however, think this app will be successful to the hardcore political lovers, who love to debate politics no matter the platform.
There's no official launch date for the iOS and Android app, but to get access to the beta, head over to www.brigade.com and request an invite.
Image via Shutterstock