The world has gotten a lot smaller thanks to the social-mobile-local (SoLoMo) movement. The plethora of today’s smartphones has widened the breadth social media’s presence and with this, people look for more “social superpowers” from their iPhone and Android apps. This trend inspired Banjo to play with the idea of social discovery, improving their platform to reconnect friends and strangers wherever they are, at any time. The new Banjo app is a product of weeks or research and the creation of a solid back-end algorithm to support additional features to be launched later on.

Defeating Social Fragmentation

Available in the Apple App Store, the Banjo app update added key features to end social media fragmentation.  These include improved friend alerts, maps, mobile and local search, sign-in to Twitter and Facebook and deep integration of iOS 5 for saving photos to iCloud, and enhanced facial recognition capability.

The application will draw its superpowers from the largest social networking sites in the world like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Instagram. Users are given a real-time perspective on what’s happening for any given place and time. It collects social media updates from varied platforms and posts these depending on geo-tags. No need to check in, as maps will do the job for you.

Social Discovery

Apart from streamlining social networks, Banjo app aims to promote content discovery within specific locations and timeframes. By means of a technology that enables social graph monitoring, people get to learn new things based on common interests, social circles and location. Working within the SoLoMo model, social interactions pave the way for more content discovery. Banjo app is well versed in this space and is out to reshape the battleground.

In a recent blog post Banjo discusses how their app has taken the game in a different direction:

“Banjo takes social discovery to a whole new level by bringing you information beyond the social networks and location you belong to. We send friend alerts to help you discover friends you didn’t know where nearby. We make it easier to discover and connect with people, turning online interaction into an offline connection. We provide a real time view of what people are sharing at places that are important to you. By sharing what you find on Banjo, you are amplifying the reach of the content — transforming word-of-mouth into world-of-mouth.”

With the Banjo app, you will be alerted when a friend is nearby, which traffic routes to avoid and view shared interests within a given circle.

Released in June of last year, Banjo has fared well in a crowded market.  Today, they boast more than 600,000 users and have produced over 50 million connections in 180 countries.

Social media has shifted the fundamentals of communication. With the immeasurable scope of influence brought by smartphones and location-based services, what used to be a word of mouth is now a world of mouth.