Show HN: A geofence-based social network app 6 years in development

My name is Adrian. I'm a Software Engineer and I spent 6 years developing a perimeter-based geofence-based social media app.

What it does:

- Allows you to load a custom perimeter anywhere on the geographic map (180° E and W longitude and 90° N and S latitude), to cover area any area of interest

- Chat rooms get loaded within the perimeter

- You can chat with people within the perimeter

I developed a mobile app that uses an advanced geofence-based networking system from 2013 to 2019. My goal was to connect users within polygon geofences anywhere in the world. The app is capable of loading millions of polygon geofences anywhere in the world.

https://enterpriseandroidfoundation.com/assets/images/other/...

But people didn't really have a need for this. So after failing, I spent the next 6 years trying new ideas to use FencedIn for. I tried a location-based video app and a place-based app that had multiple features. Nothing worked, but now I'm almost finished developing ChatLocal, an app that allows you to load a perimeter anywhere on the geographic map, which loads chat rooms.

The tech stack is 100% Java (low-level mostly). I have a backend, commons library and an Android app. Java was the natural choice back in 2013. However, I still wouldn't choose anything else today. Java is the best for long-term large-scale projects. (I'm also using WildFly. PostgreSQL and a Linux server.)

This app is still not fully finished, but I think the impact on society might be tremendous.

The previous app to ChatLocal, LocalVideo, is fully up on the Google Play store and can be tested. It has 88% of the features of ChatLocal, including especially the perimeter-based loading system.

The feedback I'm mostly looking for is new ideas and concepts to add to this location-based social media app. And how strong of a value proposition does the app have for society.

Show HN: A geofence-based social network app 6 years in development
localvideoapp.com

Why 6 years?

It started with an idea to allow users to connect within polygon geofences anywhere on earth. Getting this system to work on Android with all the backend code takes a lot of time. The system itself loads polygon geofences 180° E and W longitude and 90° N and S latitude. And it uses perimeter-based loading system that crosses the antimeridian, equator and north and south poles.

There's so many ways to fake your location data. There's one way that you can't really fake: Send them a secret code on a piece of paper in the US mail to their physical address. NextDoor used to do this at one point.

I worked on a location-based app a few years ago and this was the exact validation method we used (after having learned about it from using NextDoor). It’s incredibly slow and tedious though. We abandoned the app for other reasons but I always wondered how one could continued to manage this approach once network effects kick in and the app really starts to grow.