By Andrés Uribe, Expedition PR
In the first installment of our monthly app highlight, I’d like to present you with newly launched action sports social commerce app XS. Having just launched January 21, 2014, XS is currently in an invite only beta mode. Below is the email I received when they launched, along with an invite code good for 5 additional invites…use it while you still can! (and yes, secret is out, my first name is actually Fredric..Fredric Andrés Uribe):
“Hey Fredric,
Hope you had a great holiday season! I’m very excited to announce that as of today, XS is officially launching its beta program. Wahoo!!
Here’s what to do:
- Go to the App Store and search “xsapp” on your iPhone or other Apple device to download.
- On the invite-only screen, tap “Have an invite code?”
- Enter “xs-Fredric” to get into the app.
- Upload photos from your device, or use our web uploader (www.xsapp.co/upload) to upload photos & YouTube/Vimeo videos.
- Give us a 5 star rating in the App Store. This really helps!
Please remember a few things:
- The app is brand new and not everything will work correctly – that’s why we’re still in “beta”.
- If you have a lot of trouble try restarting the app (double tap your iPhone home button then swipe the app upwards & away or hit the little “x” in the top corner).
- Please let us know how we can improve XS. The beta program is meant to be small so we can take your suggestions into account.
Last but not least, your invite code will work for 5 additional friends. Please invite them to download & use XS today!
Let me know if you have any questions or comments. Thanks for continuing to support XS!
Make History,
Laura”
After logging in and taking a quick tour of XS, I can tell you it looks great! Aside from some very minor bugs expected in an invite only beta launch, things seem to be running pretty smooth and the design is very pleasing to the eye. Here are some cool features that caught my eye after signing in:
“News Feed” – After signing in and going through a quick tutorial you are guided to the News Feed. What’s great about this is that there are no words and you don’t see who uploaded any of the posts. Instead you are presented with a collage of still photos and screenshots from videos. Once you click on one of the images you are taken to the post where you can see who uploaded it, what category it falls in so you can easily click and see more content from that category, and information on amount of likes, reposts, and comments there are on the post and buttons so you can perform these actions yourself. From here it becomes easy to scroll through individual posts or simply swipe right to go back to the post collage.
Home Navigation Button – More of a logistical feature, but worth noting nonetheless, is the home navigation feature. While viewing the news feed there are menu buttons at the bottom of the screen that allow you to browse to other pages of the app with ease. Once you are on any other page though, these bottom menu buttons disappear. Instead of having to swipe to go back to the news feed and then navigate to another part of the app, XS allows you to hold you finger down for a second on any of these menu-less pages and a navigation circle will appear where you can easily jump to the part of the app you want to go to next. Pretty Cool!
Weekly Contest – Always wanted to be on the top 10 countdown on Sportscenter? Well now you have a chance to make a similar top 10 list, the XS top 10. One of the pages on XS features a top 10 countdown of the most popular posts. Upload your photo/video and get enough people to like it for your chance at XS stardom! It’s not clear how often these contests will run, but the current one ends this Saturday at 5pm, so I’m thinking it might be a weekly thing.
Overall, this is a definite download for all those adrenaline junkies out there who are looking for a great place to share their latest sports photos. Follow me on XS, username: fandresu.