Facebook Developing an Secret Service Anonymous App ?

Anonymity app Secret has made waves since it emerged from Silicon Valley two months ago. The app showcases startling confessions about what a person really thinks but isn't willing to share on sites like Twitter and Facebook.

According to Dailymail, Zuckerberg has had a meeting with the Secret founders. If Facebook develops its own app, the move will be a drastic departure from its current stance of not allowing users to display fake names.

Rumours of a $100 million (£60 million) offer from Facebook to buy Secret that reverberated through Silicon Valley this week were shot down by two people familiar with the social networking giant’s plans.

HOW SECRET SERVICE ANONYMOUS APP WORK?

• Secret, launched two months ago, was created by two former Google engineers who were looking for a way to let people deliver genuine feedback to co-workers. 
• The app tells users  when a friend has posted a secret — they just don't know which friend. 
• It has been especially popular in Silicon Valley and its satellite technology communities outside of the San Francisco Bay Area.
• Secret tries to add a layer of accountability to anonymous posts by showing users' secrets to their friends and allowing only friends, or friends of friends, to comment on each shared post. 
• To sign up, users provide their mobile phone number, email address or both. When you post a secret, your phone and email contacts who are also on Secret will be able to see it. 
• If they tap a heart icon indicating that they ‘love’ your secret, then their friends will be able to see it too. You won't know which of your friends is on Secret.
• Secret says it ensures security by encrypting posts and without uploading contact information to its servers. 
• The app also offers a panic button, called ‘unlink my posts.’ When a user clicks it, any link between them and all previous secrets they have posted is removed.

Steve Jones, a professor who studies online culture and communications at the University of Illinois at Chicago, believes there's a ‘significant degree to which people want to be associated with their words,’ get comments, likes and acknowledgements for them.

Anonymity apps, he says, could have a difficult time maintaining a business model because they are exposing themselves to a lot of liability.

‘I don't want to dismiss the optimistic view that the makers of these apps have,’ he said. ‘But I don't have that much evidence yet that these apps are appealing for a better nature.’

Author Venkatesh Yalagandula Follow us Google + and Facebook and Twitter