Grab your galentines, this app connects female friends
It can be difficult trying to develop friendships when you're an adult. There's no school recess forcing you make friends.
New app Hey! Vina is a Tinder-like app that lets women swipe their way to friendship.
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Hey! Vina was created by two Silicon Valley women, Olivia June Poole and Jen Aprahamian, who met at the General Assembly computer programming school. Says Poole, they wanted to help introduce women to friends wherever they are in their lives, all over the world.
"Vina" comes from a Scottish girl's name meaning "beloved" or "friend."
The app is currently on limited release in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
In order to try and keep this a safe space for women, the app requires users to sign up with Facebook, which helps ensure authenticity of accounts. Poole says eventually the app will allow users to only see "friends of friends," so you can personally verify someone before meeting up.
Users sign up and then are prompted to answer a few personality questions: What stage of your life you're in, what activities you enjoy, are you more of a "meet up for coffee" or a "meet up for wine" person. Then you can swipe through and find women with similar interests and meet up — just like a date.
The idea came about when Poole was using the dating app OkCupid and noticed it had a "women similar to you" nearby feature. "They looked like really great potential friends."
This, combined with the idea of Ladies Who Vino, an offline networking club (read: wine drinking club) Poole had formed in San Francisco, and Hey! Vina was born.
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Topics Apps & Software Gender
Chelsea Frisbie was interning at Mashable as the Lifestyle Section Intern. A SUNY Oswego Alum, she graduated with a degree in Broadcasting and Mass Communication and a minor in Gender Studies, and while there received several awards for her three talk shows and work in local news. Her favorite pastimes include watching Dr. Phil, practicing her Emmy acceptance speech, and subtly sneaking feminism into her daily conversations.
