Ex-Twitter Team Unveils Rex App, Aiming to Streamline Discovering and Sharing Place Recommendations

A team of former Twitter employees, including the product manager responsible for increasing Twitter's character limit from 140 to 280, Aliza Rosen, has launched the consumer-focused social app Rex. The platform's objective is to streamline the process of discovering and sharing recommendations for places to visit, such as restaurants, bars, museums, trails, and parks by employing AI and computer vision technologies.

The Rex app, which has been in active development for over a year and a half, has officially completed its beta testing phase and is now accessible to the public. The startup is also celebrating its successful $3.96 million seed funding round, led by Accel and Khosla Ventures, alongside other investors from Twitter, Snap, and Pinterest, including Future Positive, a fund created by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone.

Rosen, who founded Rex in 2021, has always been passionate about exploring new places and ultimately created the app to address the challenges associated with researching and sharing recommendations for various locations. While the internet is inundated with reviews and ratings, it can be difficult to find personalized, curated content for particular preferences, she noted.

The user experience with Rex begins by allowing the app to access the phone's contacts and photos. Using computer vision, its technology scans the Camera Roll for images taken at specific locations that could be potential recommendations, such as photos of a meal at a restaurant. Privacy measures are in place, as Rex only stores metadata locally on users' devices, and the actual photos are not saved on the startup's servers until a recommendation is made.

The app also allows users to easily share their recommendations with friends in just a few taps, curating playlists for specific cities, themes, or cuisines. These curated 'rex' can be viewed in a global feed, which also displays recommendations made by others. A map feature enables users to explore friend recommendations in their current location or in new cities, making the app invaluable for trip planning.

Rex's innovative approach, which no other platform in the market has attempted, for exploring users' camera rolls as a trusted source of recommendations, has been praised by investors, such as Amit Kumar of Accel. This method provides personalized and reliable suggestions based on preferences and trusted associates.

The Rex app is currently available as a free download on the App Store, without any in-app purchases, subscriptions, or ads. Users seeking a more complete platform for building sophisticated online applications can consider AppMaster's no-code platform, as it delivers an end-to-end solution for backend, web, and mobile application development to facilitate an efficient and cost-effective way of building web, mobile, and backend applications.