Auburn-based app claims to be the next Snapchat

Recently, Auburn’s campus has become dotted with stickers bearing an enticing headline.

“Get paid to party” is an attention-grabbing logo, and, luckily, that is exactly the kind of reaction that the creators of the app uParty are looking for.

Emmett Deen, Bryan Andress and Ben Dempsey, respectively the CEO, CMO and CTO of uParty, Inc., said that while this pitch-line seems too good to be true, it is totally legitimate.

“If you’re inside the geofence with the app running in the background for the set time, money gets transferred from the event host to your Paypal,” Deen explained.

First launched the week before spring break, uParty works by giving users a list of promoted events in their area where they can receive money based on how long they go there.

“It provides the Auburn community with a go-to resource on specials at restaurants, bars and other local events,” Andress said. “It’s a platform that businesses, promoters, artists and student organizations can use.”

Some of the biggest names in Auburn’s entertainment scene have already joined on, including places like Skybar and the Draft House. The uParty team hopes to further expand their reach by working with the on-campus dining options as well.

According to Deen, the app saw 250 downloads in the first week.

“It was a great initial response,” Andress said.

However, he also knew that success needed to continue because “if there are no events on the map, no one is going to use the app.”

While this app was launched a few weeks ago, the idea was conceived by Deen much longer ago in the dead time following a freshman rush season.

A few years later, after having competed with earlier versions of the app in the Harbert Business School’s Tiger Cage event, Deen added Andress and Dempsey to the team.

This new group of three worked long hours over this past summer adding innovative features to the app to help it stand out. The main addition being the aforementioned geofence as well as its Facebook integration.

The geofence is a boundary set by the event promoter that checks with your phone’s location systems to ensure that you are actually in the event. According to Deen, this is the feature that “sets uParty apart.”

The other new technical addition was connecting users through Facebook. Everyone signing up for the app must sign in through Facebook and must have a Facebook account.

The app then uses data obtained from a user’s Facebook page to give information to both event promoters and other users about the demographics of potential events.

“Before you go to an event you can click on it and see how many guys are there, how many girls are there and their average age,” Deen said.

According to the company’s website, this information is used to enhance the online experience of app users for marketing and promotional purposes and to demonstrate business operations or performance to third parties.

When asked about potential ethical troubles since this process seems similar to recent discoveries about the company Cambridge Analytica, Andress said that they play by the same rules that the other tech giants like Snapchat and Instagram do.

The sharing of this information is “agreed upon by everyone who uses the service when they accept the terms and conditions,” Andress said.

He then added that “Facebook has made billions and billions of dollars on people not reading those terms and conditions.”

When asked specifically how they felt about displaying this information, Deen stated clearly that all of the data is presented anonymously and that their intention was always to “offer the best service possible.”

Looking toward the future, these three have large aspirations for their app.

“We are here to be the next Snapchat,” Deen said. “We think we have the virality of that.”

With this potential success, they also hope to expand to other college towns.

“Auburn, to us, is a great incubator where we can launch an app to a localized community,” Deen said. “Auburn’s where we are starting, but it’s not the end for us.”

When asked why they want to expand, Dempsey said that “the same kind of value that this app gives to Auburn, we believe we can give to every college town.”