Safebook

Overview Safebook is an application that empowers young people to stay safe by leveraging the power of mobile technology.  Safebook has three primary capabilities: 1) Check up on the people you’re with, 2) Get help from people you trust, and 3) Help people you know.Check up on the people you’re withWhen you’re going out with a group of friends, Safebook allows you to Create a Circle of friends to enable group messaging, location mapping, and check-in capabilities.  Creating a circle also allows users to send quick status messages to each other and request help.Get help from people you trustIf you simply need some help, Safebook allows you to view your Safety Net at any time.  The Safety Net shows you which of your friends are close by.  It also provides quick and direct access to resources such as campus safety or sexual assault hotlines.Help people you knowFor college students, Safebook also empowers bystanders in an entirely novel way to play a role in helping other people that they know.  College students have large peer groups from many different connections including classes, school clubs, activities, events, neighbors, and friends of friends.  But, knowing people by these loose connections may not make it any easier to intervene as a bystander.  By utilizing a campus directory, Safebook enables bystanders to alert the good friends of one of these acquaintances quickly, discreetly, and anonymously.A note about the use social networksIn speaking with our target audience, it was clear that utilizing existing social networks (e.g., Facebook) was not practical or secure, precisely because those existing networks had not been set up with safety and trust as a primary guideline for network inclusion.Data sets utilizedGeo-location and map services: Google Maps API, Simple Geo (return latitude / longitude to IP)Campus directory information: Campus datasets that currently existCampus locations: Foursquare or Facebook Places API, additional curation by individual campus staffSafety Net Resources: These are simply direct phone numbers to a variety of campus, regional, or national services (campus safe ride schedule would be pulled from existing campus data-set, if available)Our ApproachThe key to creating a successful application resides in the ability of the application to provide utility to the target audience in a simple way that leverages the capabilities of the platform or device.  To provide utility, we partnered with The Rape Treatment Center in Santa Monica for their content expertise about this complex problem.  To understand the target audience and their needs, we held a focus group at The University of Southern California so that we could present our initial ideas to students, and we incorporated their feedback into our final application.  We followed a user-centered design approach as well as best practices in mobile to inform the simplicity of the interface, and we turned to our technology group to leverage the unique capabilities of the mobile platform.  We heard firsthand that an application aimed at preventing sexual assault would not only be welcomed, but championed by its users.  We are thrilled at the prospect of fulfilling this vision.   About Possible WorldwidePossible Worldwide is a global agency that creates meaningful and measurable interactive marketing. The firm serves a broad range of Fortune 1000 clients, including AT&T, Barclay’s, Comcast, Dell, P&G, Nokia, Microsoft, Mazda and Starwood. Headquartered in New York, Possible operates 18 offices worldwide, with major operations in Austin, Beijing, Cincinnati, Delhi, Dubai, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, Nairobi, Shanghai and Singapore. For more information, please visit possibleworldwide.com.