These apps actually want your opinion. With two of the apps you get to vote to register your opinion. The other two apps use your opinion to deliver quality customized content to you according to your preferences.
Have you ever been in a meeting where everyone was asked for their opinion except for you?
Or you gave your opinion but no one seemed to care?
Maybe everyone else in your family wants to go to a Chinese restaurant when you're craving pizza.
Doesn't anyone care about your opinion? These apps care!
Your Vote Counts!
1. Shnap
Shnap is a cool, addictive app that is captivating enough to make hours of your life disappear without you realizing it. Shnap is a photo sharing app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch (iOS devices) that allows you to share your photos and vote on the photos others have shared. Shnap is part game, part social media, part photo sharing and total fun!
Note: You don't have to share your photos, but Shnap is much more enjoyable if you do.
When you first use Shnap, you will see a dashboard. You can add your own photos or rate other photos. There are other choices, but these are the two choices you should start with the first time you use the app.
There are five choices of ratings for the pictures:
Wow
Cool
Huh?
Aww
LOL
Rating photos is the addictive part. You can lose a lot of time viewing incredible shots. I've found most shots are Cool or Wow, including stunning photos from around the world. There are some duds, but you can either rate those Huh? or just close the photo, "Meh", meaning you don't care about the shot.
Rating photos earns you Shnap bucks (one for each photo rated, no matter which rating you give it) which you can then use to post your own pictures. Shnap charges 10 Shnap Bucks to post a picture, so you need to rate 10 pictures for everyone you post. But Shnap will cut you off at some point, so you can't just sit there all day rating pictures and earning Shnap bucks. But it's easy to earn enough Shnap bucks to get you started if you want to load some of your own pictures. You can always purchase more Shnap Bucks if you just can't wait to load more photos.
There are plenty of other cool aspects to Shnap, including commenting on pictures, following people whose photos you particularly like, photo contests and photo enhancement tools. But to get started, try rating others' pictures and get lost in the beauty of the artistry on Shnap!
Here is a helpful video explaining how Shnap works!
Shnap is free in the iTunes App Store here: Shnap
2. Show Of Hands
Show of Hands asks three poll questions a day so you can give your opinion on important issues such as whether you approve of US President Barack Obama job performance, are you happy, do you eat foods past their best by date, was the media coverage of Hurricane Irene good or bad, will your next cell phone purchase be an iPhone, and Coke or Pepsi?
After you vote, you see the results. You can compare your vote to the majority of votes according to age, gender, income, location and political party affiliation. You can also comment on the question in the comments section, as well as read other people's comments. Are you in the majority or did you go rogue?
If you can't get enough questions, you can go back in the archives to see past questions, but you wont be able to cast your vote on them.
This free app is available for iOS devices in the iTunes App Store here: Show of Hands.
The Facebook Page for Show of Hands publishes a daily question you can vote on even if you don't have an iOS device. Here is a link to the Show of Hands Facebook Page: Show of Hands Facebook Page.
Refining Your Preferences
Some apps care about your opinion so they can deliver content best suited to your tastes. The next two apps are excellent examples of apps that seem to know what you think. The more you vote, the more fine-tuned the content becomes. In other words, the more you vote, the more you will like the app.
3. Pandora
Pandora is an online radio service that plays music and comedy bits based upon your preferences. You start by suggesting an artist whose music you like, then Pandora will play a song by that artist. You vote thumbs up or thumbs down for that song. If you vote thumbs up, Pandora will play more songs like that one. If you vote thumbs down, Pandora will note your preference and skip ahead to the next song.
You can vote thumbs down as much as you want, but Pandora will only skip ahead for a limited number of songs. After that, Pandora will still register your preferences, but won't skip ahead.
You can listen to Pandora for free for 40 hours a month or sign up for a paid version without ads and unlimited listening for $36 a year. Pandora also offers a third option of paying $0.99 after you have hit your 40 hour limit that will allow you to continue to listen for the rest of the month.
In May, Pandora started offering comedy stations as well, in case you get tired of listening to music and want to have a giggle.
Pandora apps are available free for Android, iOS devices, computers and some televisions and dvd players. Check out Pandora at www.pandora.com
4. Zite
Zite is a free news magazine app that is currently available only on the iPad. Zite lets you choose your interests and then compiles a home section for you with your favorites. When you open an article, you can vote up or down on the article and select whether you want to want to read more articles on the topics and from the publication.
Even if you dont take the time to vote, Zite will try to figure out what you like based upon which articles you read and how long you spend on each article.
Zite was launched in March and has quickly become a very popular app. The company cashed in on its success when it was sold to CNN at the end of August for an undisclosed amount.
This free app is available from the iTunes App Store here: Zite in the iTunes App Store.
Bottom Line
Whether you want to express your opinion to others or have an app that customizes its content to your preferences, these are apps that will care about your opinion.
Do you use apps that allow you to vote? Do you like giving your opinion and finding out what others think? Do you enjoy apps that deliver customized content to you? Give us your opinion in the Comments section below!
