GENSOCIAL
Tech entrepreneur Zabi Zamir is looking to take on industry giants with a new social messaging app – from his small offices in Stoke-on-Trent.
The 37-year-old has launched LinxApp as an alternative to the hugely popular WhatsApp, to give people a choice of how they communicate with their friends and family.
Its launch comes almost a decade since the release of InLinx, a social media platform which was developed by Zabi in 2010.
InLinx operates in a similar way to Facebook and currently has more than 100,000 registered users on the site.
Zabi, who lives in Hanley, said: “Since 2009 I’ve had a vision of how social networks and messaging apps should work. I could see from Facebook that there were a lot of opportunities within the industry, so I registered InLinx in 2010 and got to work.
“At that time, I didn’t have the technical background or the IT knowledge to do what I wanted to do, so I did a masters degree in computer science at Keele University.
“While studying, I started to build the LinxApp platform and was able to test it out on my fellow students.
“After I graduated, I built a team to start working on InLinx and LinxApp. By that time, social media was huge.”
LinxApp – which has been downloaded almost 5,000 times – is a real-time messaging platform that offers users ad-free, private conversations in an instant.
It allows users to communicate with people around the globe, either with their full name and personal profile or a nickname and avatar.
Users can customise every aspect of their conversations, including background, text and replies. It also has a selection of filters, GIFs, stickers and emojis.
Zabi – who also runs translation and interpreting services business UK Language Solutions – said: “The launch of LinxApp couldn’t come at a better time, with the recent news about WhatsApp sharing your data and the privacy concerns, people have been leaving and joining other messaging apps; and with the pandemic and lockdown, people are now looking for new ways to meet and communicate with people.”
WhatsApp lost millions of users earlier this year after coming under fire for its attempt to change its privacy policy.
It is claimed that the new policy gives the service the right to read users’ messages and share information with its parent company, Facebook.
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Zabi added: “We do not work with any marketing agencies or advertisers, and we certainly don’t ‘listen’ to people’s conversations or make them feel like ‘big brother’ is watching them.
“This is a totally new, innovative approach to messaging. We want to give people an alternative, but more importantly, we want to give them the confidence to use our app knowing that privacy is at the heart of what we do.”
LinxApp is totally free to use and download, but Zabi and his six-strong team – which operate from offices at Winton House, in Shelton, and Leek Road in Hanley – are currently working on new features and add-ons which will require a subscription fee.
“We want to be able to compete with the big tech companies out there” said Zabi “We are a small team but we have big dreams.”
For more information about LinXapp, visit the website, or download the app on the Google Play Store or Apple’s App Store.
