State App Wants to Be a Public Opinion Poll for Everything

Are you overflowing with snap judgments and want somewhere to share them? There’s a new app called State that would love for you to come express yourself in its “global opinion network.”

State — which comes in Web and iPhone varieties — is preloaded with 25 million topics. What do you think about Ukraine? What do you think about sushi? What do you think about bitcoin? What do you think about Diet Coke?

You can choose from 10,000 structured expressions, which State has sorted by sentiment. Do you think something is troubled? Healthy? Revolutionary? Risky? State inserts your contribution into a sentiment distribution graph of all its members’ opinions on any one topic. Then you can explore further topics, or find people who have expressed opinions similar to yours.

“Stating opinions, like in real life, becomes a conduit for discovery of stuff,” co-founder Alex Asseily told Re/code. “The world isn’t as thumbs-up/thumbs-down as we may have imagined. They are adding texture to their opinions.”

To be honest, I’m on the skeptical end of the opinion graph for State. People have plenty of places to express themselves online. Beyond biggies like Twitter and Reddit, there are lots of other “interest graph” startups that are trying to be destinations for conversation. And while Asseily said he hopes State could eventually become a research-on-demand service, open opt-in polls on every topic under the sun are hardly scientific.

But then again, my opinion is not the only one that matters. And Asseily has a lot of resources to try to make this work. He raised $14 million from backers including Atomico and has a staff of 30, mostly in London. He also has a pretty good startup track record, having previously been the founding CEO of the speaker/headset/activity-band company Jawbone.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on:

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall.

So even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. (And no matter how our work is funded, we have strict guidelines on editorial independence.)

If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via