"Peeple" (YELP for rating people app) would seem to have intriguing potential fo

(except for the fact that you would have to be on it with your "real name" [a "real" Facebook name], and so would be subject to review)

ew.com 'Yelp for people' app will let you 'rate' real-life human beings BY MARY SOLLOSI Posted September 30 2015 — 7:36 PM EDT

Imagine you’re about to go on a first date. You Yelp the restaurant, naturally, to make sure that it has something edible on the menu; then you Google the person, naturally, to make sure that they’re not obnoxious on social media. Simple enough!

In a (perhaps inevitable) new development, these two perfectly innocuous Internet searches are coming together in Peeple, an app that will allow users to rate and search other human beings. It’s Yelp for people, and it’s coming in November.

When the app launches, users will be able to review their friends, coworkers, and romantic partners — who may or may not have ever signed on to the app themselves — using a one- to five-star rating scale.

Co-founders Julia Cordray and Nicole McCullough insist that the app exists to promote good feeling among people, and that Peeple is not a bullying platform. “As two empathetic female entrepreneurs in the tech space, we want to spread love and positivity,” Cordray told The Washington Post. “We want to operate with thoughtfulness.”

In order to rate somebody, you need to join the app through Facebook using your real name, and you must be at least 21 years old. To review somebody else who is not on the app, you can create a profile for them with their cell phone number; they will be notified via text that they have been added to Peeple, but they won’t have an option to remove their profile from the app.

If you are not on Peeple yourself but others are rating you, then only positive reviews will be posted. If you have, in fact, registered, then negative reviews will be published, but only after 48 hours of being written so that you will have a chance to dispute them.

“People do so much research when they buy a car or make those kinds of decisions,” Cordray said to The Washington Post. “Why not do the same kind of research on other aspects of your life?”

Cordray and McCullough have been documenting the app’s progress in a web series called Peeple Watching — the most recent episode of which, below, is titled “Peeple: If Facebook, LinkedIn, and Tinder had a baby.”

“It doesn’t matter how far apart we are in likes and dislikes; all that matters is what people say about us,” Cordray says in the episode.

The app’s Facebook claims that its mission is “to find the good in you,” and a post responding to a negative article asserts, “We are a positivity app for positive people!” Only time will tell if people on Peeple use the app to find only good and spread only positivity, but Cordray and McCullough are betting that they will.

“Whether you love us or our concept or not,” a statement from them on the app’s website reads, “we still welcome everyone to explore this online village of love and abundance for all.”