The Beta app is available in Mumbai starting today
Life happens close to home. In the course of a day, local questions come up all the time: Know a good pediatrician for my daughter? Which film festivals in our locality have free entry for kids? Any reliable mechanics nearby?
In cities across India, it’s getting harder to get good answers to these questions because cities keep changing, including the people who live there. People nearby often have the exact information you need, but they’re too busy these days to stop and chat on the street or in the park. And group chats keep getting bigger and noisier — and often fill up with those "Good Morning" messages.
And yet we need answers. That's why we built Neighbourly, a neighbourhood app that helps you ask your neighbours questions, share local expertise, and keep up with your neighbourhood. With Neighbourly, your questions get routed to the relevant neighbours instantly, and then they can write back with the most up-to-date and accurate info.
Neighbourly is a human, helpful and local way to ask and answer neighbourhood questions
Neighbourly helps you:
- Ask your neighbours questions. Ask a question for your family, and it's routed to the neighbourhood experts who can help. Using Google's voice recognition, you can speak your question or answer into the app, just like talking to a neighbour. It works in English and eight Indian languages.
- Share your local expertise. Easily swipe left and right through the questions and give answers. The more you answer, the more you’re recognized for your local expertise. Plus, every time you answer, that information directly helps one of your neighbours and makes your entire neighbourhood more informed.
- Keep up with your neighbourhood safely. Browse, ask and answer questions without sharing all of your personal information. Personal details like your phone number, full name and other contact information are kept private when you use Neighbourly. And every member that joins Neighbourly makes the Neighbourly Promise so we can all work together to keep the app’s community safe and helpful.
Starting today, we’re making a Beta version of Neighbourly available on the Google Play Store for all smartphones in Mumbai running Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean) and higher. If you live outside Mumbai, join our waitlist and invite your neighbours. We’ll be looking to expand to other neighbourhoods across India that are excited to try Neighbourly.
Today is the first step for Neighbourly, and we want your feedback. We hope Neighbourly, like Google Search, can be another way you find the information you need, and, in the process, make neighbourhoods everywhere feel even more neighbourly.
Posted by Caesar Sengupta, VP, Next Billion Users Team
