Amo, the dynamic Parisian startup known for its successive releases of consumer social apps, has introduced its third application today, and it may strike a chord of familiarity with past users of Zenly. This latest release, named Location, is a location-sharing app, echoing the functionality of Zenly.
For those unfamiliar with Amo’s journey, it emerged as a relatively new startup formed by a cohort of 10 co-founders, all veterans of Zenly. Zenly, once a prominent location-sharing app in Europe, achieved significant growth before being acquired by Snap and subsequently discontinued. In the aftermath, the Amo team embarked on creating a suite of interconnected social apps characterized by a unified account, a shared friends list, a singular notification screen, and a cohesive design system.
Amo’s initial offering, ID, reimagined the social media profile, allowing users to express themselves through stickers, photos, and drawings in a raw, three-dimensional profile. Capture, the second app, took the form of a social camera app, introducing an innovative approach to photography and a shared camera roll for friends and family, distinct from platforms like BeReal, Locket, and Instagram.
The newly unveiled Location app by Amo is perhaps the most straightforward to describe—it serves as a location-sharing application, enabling users to stay updated on their friends’ activities, fostering better connections and facilitating real-life interactions. In essence, it mirrors the functionality of Zenly.
Amo’s CEO, Antoine Martin, described the third app as a “Zenly Lite,” emphasizing its dual nature as both a utility and a social application. Opening the app reveals a map featuring friends’ locations, offering the ability to gauge distances, send hearts, and communicate by tapping on their screen. The app strives for a more mature feel compared to Zenly, yet retains features like the knock-knock button for playful interactions.
The emphasis on adult-like features includes the ability to initiate calls, send messages via iMessage, or launch navigation/ride-hailing apps like Apple Maps, Google Maps, and Uber directly from the profile card. Users can also view their friends’ battery status, with a commitment to avoiding excessive battery drain.
To address privacy concerns, Amo has implemented a straightforward privacy screen across all its apps. Users can add friends and selectively enable or disable specific app functionalities, such as sharing photos in Capture while disabling location sharing in Location.
The question remains—does the demand for location-sharing apps like Zenly persist, or have users moved on? The existence of Zenly clones in the App Store suggests ongoing interest in this space. Amo aims to not only attract previous Zenly users but also entice new users, leveraging the interconnected network effects between its three apps—ID, Capture, and Location. The unfolding dynamics among these apps promise an intriguing landscape in the evolving realm of social applications.
