Global Chat Release With New Features

At Jodel, we strive to build engaging hyperlocal communities and we believe that the result of that is not only a feeling of belonging but also a desire to connect with each other on a personal level. That’s why we launched the Beta version of Chat around 1 year ago to allow users to connect privately with each other. Whether to help a neighbour out, buy or sell something on Jodel or simply have a nice conversation with someone directly, the exchange of private contact details wasn’t really easy in a Jodel world without Chat.

After getting lots of feedback, improving the performance by reducing the amount of errors and issues significantly, adding some frequently requested features and counting more than 5 million Chat messages exchanged each day, we are rolling Chat out everywhere today with some new features.

If this is the first time you hear about a Chat feature on Jodel, here’s how it works:

• If you engage in a Jodel (as OJ or as a replier), you can now click on the replier of the user you want to chat with
• That user needs to first accept your request to chat
• Chat conversations can be found in the Chat Center in the Notifications tab on iOS and in the List view in the Me page on Android
• You can disable receiving chat requests globally (under the Dark Mode button in the Settings) & now also per post

This is new:

To give your frequently used Chats a more personal touch, from today you can give Chats a customized name. Simply click on the context menu in the upper right corner within a Chat and select the option to “Rename” the chat. The name you choose will be only visible for you.

An often mentioned request was to control the possibility to receive chat requests on a post level. This is also possible from today on. Simply click on the 3 dot menu within a Jodel and select the option to turn chat requests on/off for that post.

Additionally messages within a Chat can be copied and also pasted now and we adjusted the look of various components slightly. Let us know about what you think about the improvements by using the Hashtag #chat and stay tuned for more exciting Product updates in the future.

Happy chatting,

Your Jodel HQ

Dark Mode

Hey Jodelers!

Finally the time has come and we are proud to present you the new, complete darkmode for Jodel! 🎉🎊

For quite some time now, the darkmode was the most requested feature in your #feedback. Therefore, we had developed the dark feed for you some time ago, with which you could already use Jodel much more comfortably in the evening and at night.

However, as we continued to develop it, we quickly reached technical limits. In the last 6 years Jodel has evolved and new features like the channels, numbers on replies or most recently the chat have been added. But one thing remained almost the same: the typical design of Jodel.

Therefore, we decided to make some internal invisible changes to the app’s code first. Even though it took longer than planned, the effort was definitely worth it:

• With the changes, it was much easier to further develop the darkfeed into a complete darkmode - completely without annoying white bars.
• With the new dark mode, not only your eyes will be happy: On smartphones with OLED displays, you will also save battery from now on!
• In the feed view, we have given Jodel a fresher, more modern design.
• In the future, there will be many more small improvements to the design in order to further optimize and modernize the usability of Jodel. Stay tuned!

You can activate the darkmode in Me/My Karma > More > Darkmode .

⚠️ The darkmode requires iOS 13 or higher on iPhones.

We know that changes are always a bit unfamiliar at first. Try the new darkmode for a few days and leave us your #feedback!

Manuel & the Jodel Team

Jodel Premium & Boosts

Dear Jodelers! 🧡

Recently, we have been working on a couple of features that include in-app purchases, features that are directly being paid for by our beloved Jodelers.

We like the concept, because the features are very native to Jodel and create value to users and the community while allowing us to pay our bills and hard working Jodel employees. As you can imagine, Corona hit our revenues due to advertising budgets being cut. So this form of monetization provides important security and risk diversification for our business. And, of course, we don’t have to put ads all over Jodel but can remain this on a lower and more qualitative level.

Which are these features that we recently built? Please note: some of those might not yet be available in your area yet.

Color change!

Already since a few weeks, you can color your Jodel in a fancy ultraviolet 💜 and a bold black 🏢. You can give a personalized touch to your Jodel and gift joy to everyone interacting within your post by purchasing a color pack. You can do this by tapping the color drop in the post creation screen.

Boost!

Boost is a feature that is already available on Jodel since a long time and used by advertisers but also users already occasionally. Now, it’s possible to boost any Jodel, meaning it will be shown in your local community in the 4th position in the feed, for very little money. You want to give more visibility to that funny post you saw or the hot Jodel the entire community is talking about right now? You want everybody in your community to be aware of the event that Jodelers discussed in a post? Or you want to give a boost to your offering in @buyandsell or to the post looking for help in @neighborhoodhelp? This is now possible. You can buy credits to boost a Jodel by tapping the little rocket in the top right of a post.

Jodel Premium! (Currently only on iOS, Android coming soon)

Currently, there is a public discussion around the pros and cons of advertising based models (thanks Netflix!). Although we never have and will never share any of your data with anyone else so most of the fear doesn’t apply to us, we understand that there is a concern for some people. Hence, with Jodel Premium we give you the complete power to disable any advertising on Jodel. Boosted posts can be enabled or disabled to be seen according to your preferences. Also, you will receive one free boost and one free color change every week that you can use on Jodel. You can subscribe to Jodel Premium in the me section.

**Super Thanks!
**Next to a normal thanks that OJs can already send to a great reply, with the super thanks feature everybody can send a super thanks to a replier for a very helpful or positive reply. With that, the reply will be highlighted with hearts and the Jodeler will be gifted a week of Jodel Premium for free - hence not seeing ads and receiving a boost and color credit for free.

Please note: To use most of these functionalities, you will have to update to the latest version of our app.

There are a few more ideas we are currently playing around with and we will be testing those in the future to make Jodel an even better place to exchange with likeminded people around. And don’t worry about too many paid features. We will probably build a handful of features and potentially take less relevant ones away again in case we find a better one. The most important basic features of Jodel will always be free to use to everyone of course.

Next to the making money part we are also working on some exciting new features that will be coming out soon, so stay tuned! :rocket:

Much love from Berlin, be nice to one another and stay safe.

Tim and the JodelHQ

Language Filter

Dearest Jodelers! 🧡

Today we want to announce the release of a new feature we have been building over the last few weeks: language filter 🌍

Globally, millions of Jodelers are already connecting to their local communities. We are especially proud that we are part of an international community that is spread across multiple countries, cultures and languages. With language filter we are trying to improve the following cases:

• Internationals are currently unable to use Jodel due to a lack of knowledge of the local language. However, also for them it’s very relevant to connect to fellow internationals and meet new people around.
• Local communities will be able to prosper even in frequently travelled places that currently are having a big amount of posts in international languages.
• Create more relevance in our global communities that consist of a diverse amount of people connecting in different languages.

You might have experienced one of these cases when travelling internationally.

How it works: In the top bar menu, where you access your hometown, you will be able to switch off languages you don’t understand. Please note that for the language detection we not only tag the post but also the device language of the user for very short posts and pictures. That way, a post is always reaching the relevant user base. We will also launch two new default channels:

• ✈️ Are you travelling in your current or to another country and want to know what are the best experiences around? In @Traveller you can engage with and meet fellow travellers. Let’s hope for a prompt Covid-19 recovery, so that this channel can start becoming useful.
• 🌍 You are living abroad and want to connect with fellow internationals nearby? You just moved to another city and want to get to know like minded people? @Expat is your community.

The filters will apply for all channels and replace the international feed. We will start adding more languages over time, especially for our friends from the Nordics, France and Italy.

Access the @traveller channel of your area: https://shared.jodel.com/8ZejpnpWh6

Access the @expat channel of your area: https://shared.jodel.com/8ZejpnpWh6

Spread the word, especially to your fellow international friends that can now also engage with relevant Jodelers around. Use #languagefilter for well, your feedback about this feature. And most important: stay safe!

From Berlin with love 🧡

Happy birthday, Jodel!

Hey Jodelers! 🙋 🙋‍♂️

Hard to believe, but today Jodel celebrates its 5th birthday!

We want to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of you:

• Thank you for all your loyal support over the years!
• Thank you for all your funny or sometimes sad experiences that you share with us and your communities every day!
• Thank you for all the help and support you give every day!
• Thank you for all the exciting or often controversial discussions!
• Thank you for all the friendships, relationships and even Jodel babies!
• Thanks for your feedback, no matter if praise or criticism!
• Thank you for being part of our community!

It’s thanks to you that Jodel has become what it is today. It’s hard to believe, when we think back, what problems we had to struggle with in the beginning and could only solve with a lot of improvisation, passion, maybe a little bit of luck and your great support.

But not only the shortage of money was a permanent threat for our servers. Because more and more Jodelers joined our communities, they had been running far over the limit for a long time. Our developers called the server the “Box of the Pandorra” because nobody knew if and how long it would last before it completely imploded. Even though we had to improvise a lot at times (Rest in peace, little potato server!), our developers took on the difficult task and managed to convert the server monster into a lightning fast system. It’s like converting an old, rickety Trabbi into a Porsche during full speed. Good job!

While everyone in the HQ was fighting with the server-beast, Alessio and Tim were on their way to find us suitable investors. Countless times the two crept secretly into VIP areas at fundraising events and were thrown out again and again. Until sometime the day came when they actually made it and got into conversation with some investors. Jodel was saved and could become what we know today.

We could tell you many crazy stories from the early days (the Jodel logo almost became a cow! 😱 ), but we’d rather save it for the next birthday.

Thanks for the last 5 years and we are already looking forward to the next 5 or 10 or preferably even longer. Celebrate with us in the most colorful yodeling feed of all times!

Manuel & the Jodel team

PS: We are often asked about the first Jodels in each country:

Germany / Austria / Switzerland / Finland / Sweden / Norway / Denmark / USA / Great Britain / The Netherlands / Ghana

New Feature: Polls

Hey Jodelers! 🙋‍♀️ 🙋‍♂️

We’ve been listening to your #feedback and today we’re releasing one of your most asked-for features: Polls on Jodel!

From now on you can poll your local community in real time. Ask a question and create up to 4 answer options to see what your community thinks on any topic.

How can I create a poll?

When creating a new Jodel you will find three buttons at the bottom:

• The flash to post a Jodel to the digital ad column
• The camera icon to take a picture
• The poll icon to create a new poll. After selecting the poll button, you can type the answer choices into the input boxes.

How long are polls active?

Polls always run 24 hours. After that, only the results are visible.

Where can I post polls?

To avoid spam and keep the polls topic-related, you can only post them in channels other than the @Main channel.

As always, give us your #Feedback on this new feature and have fun with it!

Manuel & the Jodel Team

The story of Jodel

Hey Jodelers!

I’m Alessio, 28, and I am the founder and CEO of Jodel. Whenever I meet Jodelers they always ask me very similar questions. What’s the story behind Jodel? Are you actually a user and if yes, how high is your Karma? What’s it like working for Jodel and what the hell are you guys doing all day?

As I feel these answers might be interesting for a lot of you I want to share them in today’s Community News.

About five years ago, during my studies, I spent a year abroad in the US. At that time I developed the idea of a messaging app for friends but without public profiles. The main social network at the time was Facebook (Instagram was just becoming mainstream in the US and Snap was just beginning to gain traction with early users ). Everyone used FB but almost none of my friends shared anything. I remember one friend who hadn’t posted a status in 3 years, despite logging in every single day. It was all about polishing your image rather than talking with each other publicly. I wanted to create something different. I wanted a place where everyone is sharing again. Where you immediately get a feeling of what’s really happening around you right now.

Together with a few friends we got to work and developed an app called tellM. tellM showed you posts from the contacts in your phone. But it didn’t show you who posted what. Since we took away profiles, we expected plenty of posts about all the random, funny, helpful and intimate things that we care about. We imagined people would finally be able to share again.

When we launched it in the colleges of California, people were super excited about the idea. They loved it! Unfortunately, they didn’t continue using tellM after just a few days. Most of our users simply had not enough friends using tellM in their phonebook. Their feed had almost no activity.

We used this opportunity to talk to many of our early users. In each interview one question dominated: Why do I have to have everyone’s phone number to see their posts? There are lots of people I kind-of-know that I don’t share phone numbers with! Why can’t I just see everyone in my area straight away?

Back in Germany, my co-founders decided to work on other projects or go back to University. We had almost no money left, but after receiving so much positive feedback, I was convinced we were on to something, even if the numbers didn’t show that yet. So I talked to our first main investor (shoutout to Christophe!) to support us to give it one last try.

With Alex (currently working on product), Niklas (currently working on community) and Tim (currently working on monetisation) I found a new team of friends ready to make things happen. Together, we set out to make our updated vision become reality: A super simple app which allows you to instantly connect with the people around you. We worked hard and spent a lot of nights improving ideas, features, launch-plans. Lots of sweat, blood and yum yum soup was involved until we launched our first version of the hyperlocal community app you all know as Jodel today.

Humbled from our first experiences launching a product, we expected a few posts per day for the first 30 days. Maybe a couple of hundred users. But this time it was different: Jodel quickly exceeded all expectations. After only a few days promoting on the campus of RWTH Aachen, Germany (Alex, Niklas and I studied here) it seemed like everyone had heard about Jodel or was already using it. When I saw a guy next to me in the bus casually checking Jodel for the first time I couldn’t believe my eyes…Wow!

From people telling us that Jodel is the craziest name and it can never succeed, from getting cloned and attacked left and right, from almost running out of cash countless times, it’s been an unbelievable journey thus far.

Today, Jodel is being used by millions of people in Europe and the Middle East. Countless travelers and active communities use it all around the world. Always staying loyal to our mission, we have evolved from a few friends, to a team that works hard together to win. Winning here is making sure our hyperlocal communities are as funny, helpful and interesting as possible to as many people as possible. Every day we are receiving so many amazing stories from our communities. Groups of friends meet on Jodel, relationships start here and even Jodel-Babies have been born! Tons of laughs and insider jokes are shared and create a unique feeling of belonging to our local communities. And all of this is done by you, our community.

Our vision is that in the next few years you can open Jodel at anytime and anywhere in the world, to easily talk to and connect with like-minded people right around you.

You will be able to fully explore the city you live in, listen in on all its vibrant communities and connect with your peers. No matter if it’s other pet lovers nearby or the local techno crowd: Jodel allows you to share memes and jokes, get news, ask questions and simply have fun. You can discuss everything from new hypes to modern-dating. Organize help for social causes. And by doing all that you might even get to know new amazing people in your area.

Jodel will be closing the gap to easily share a togetherness with all the people you see in the physical world. As this works in your hometown, so it does when moving somewhere else. Whenever you’re traveling, you can be certain there’s people around you that wonder about the same things. Is it still worth it to go to the FullMoon party here in Ko Pha-ngan or what are the best tricks for negotiations on the Marrakech Market? And maybe, one day, you think about moving to New York so you teleport to its local feed and explore……

We are fully aware that there’s still a lot to do. Jodel has evolved beyond students and some of you think it shouldn’t be this way. We know that sometimes people are not helpful, but rather the opposite. We hear you. But change is the only constant and we are here to make this change a great one. Jodel is the worlds’ hyperlocal community and hyper-local communities are for everyone. We believe that connecting you with your local community can only work with an open system, not a closed one.

We know that rules, systems and tools have to evolve with scale and everything comes with trade-offs. It’s on us to make sure you can have the best experience possible at any time. Communities are living organisms and living organisms have flaws. There’s a necessary discourse to help them evolve. We therefore invite you to share your comments on this article through using #jodelblog in your posts. I will read them all (English, German and Spanish are the languages of choice here 😙). Last, but not least, I can promise you that our team is fully committed to leaving no stone unturned to find out what’s best for helping our communities evolve.

One important piece in the puzzle to do all of the above is to become financially more independent. Right now we can only plan ahead in short periods. Yet executing our vision requires some long-term planning. Therefore we currently focus on making sure we can do so soon. As we are users ourselves you can rest assured: To generate cost-covering revenues we will not compromise on our values, or the quality of the user experience. And despite some people wrongly assuming it, we don’t sell data and we will never do so.

Even though Jodel is growing every day, we are still a company that calls `playful & friendly` one of its core values. We still love discussing and brainstorming about Jodel. After long party nights, a nice dinner with friends or after a football match of the legendary Jodel FC, ideas about how to improve the experience are always a topic. The Jodel team has grown and evolved in the past years. We are experiencing new adventures and learning from new challenges. Using our passion, we are working hard to make Jodel for everyone better every single day. 🧡

Despite Jodel being a ²⁴⁄₇ project, I still love to jodel myself, no matter if it’s here in Berlin, somewhere else in Germany or while traveling. Whenever I have some time I open Jodel and love to read your witty stories, join interesting discussions and get in touch with some local Jodelers. And sometimes I even drop a selfie too. If you have seen me somewhere, feel free to comment and we can have a chat ✌️

We, the Jodel team, created the platform and possibility for you to get in touch with others around you - but the true heart of Jodel is our community. You make Jodel to what it is today. So everyone of you is a member of the Jodel team as well. I’m really proud to see what we all created together. Jodel is such an amazing place and I can’t wait to shape the years to come together with all of you.

We’re just getting started.

Alessio