App makes plans easy

By: Lauren Cosca, Staff Writer

Imagine you’re sitting at home on a Friday night all dressed up and ready to go out, but you can’t find a single thing to do. Now imagine there is an app that has different types of events that can tell you exactly what people are doing around you, where and when.

Thanks to high school student Megan Schaller, that convenience is now a reality with the app Hoppen, available free in the app store for iPhone and Android.

“I was living this really inauthentic life, and even though I love social media, it wasn’t enriching my life,” Schaller said. “So I had this idea – what if there was a social media . . . that helped create this place to find authenticity, to find things to do, and to go out and do something instead of just going on your phone in all your free time?”

This idea led to Hoppen, which gives its users access to all types of events in and around the community. The app includes how far away a user is from the event, its date and time, and if the event is private or public.

“It revolutionizes the way you socialize,” Marketing Community Manager Cara Clements said.

Hoppen takes the event aspect of Facebook and makes it easier and simpler to use.

“I think that the really cool thing about Hoppen is that it’s first a utility,” Clements said. “It will help you make plans, and execute them, and invite your friends and do all those things. Then it’s a social media app. Within each plan, you can take a photo, you can comment on it, you can find a driver, ask what everyone is wearing all within the comments section.”

Currently, the app is mostly used on Towson’s campus by sororities and fraternities, but it is expected that usage will expand.

Hoppen has hired several student ambassadors to help get the word out about the app and encourage more students to check it out.

“It’s really great for organizations around Towson because it’s free promoting and free advertising and just another social media platform that people are using around here and to get the word out,” ambassador Carly Ferrari said.

Hoppen usually posts restaurants’ happy hours, but it hopes to create a relationship with businesses where the restaurants themselves post their events.

With winter break approaching, the Hoppen team looks to utilize this down-season to plan marketing and promotion of the app in hopes of making Hoppen a well-known mechanism for student socializing.

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