The only thing he wanted,
was impossible to find,
until he met himself.
This poem was written by three strangers, who are anything but not writers professionally, who live in different parts of the world, through HaikuJAM app. HaikuJAM is a free collaborative haiku-writing mobile application through which people write haiku poetry together, line by line by line. Haiku are 3-line syllable based poems that originate in Japan. Anyone can “jam” together and for each completed “jam” you participate in, the app rewards you with “karma points”, presenting a hint of competition.
The thought provoking app, HaikuJAM is a motivating, encouraging and wholesome experience where you can enjoy your daily mundane life with a munch of creative breaks. HaikuJAM, gives not only the opportunity to write but also create stories through pictures. You can upload one picture from your own collection, leaving the other two fields to be filled by strangers.
“If a picture paints a thousand words, then let a picture inspire a thousand words.”
― Nicholas Boyd Crutchley
The creation of this app happened in London, when Dhrupad Karwa, the founder and CEO of HaikuJAM app was in a London tea shop with a friend. They started writing poems, collaboratively, after which they came up with the invention of this app. He mentioned in an interview, it was a state of healing to be in, the way one person’s thought patterns could spark another’s.
The app is quite simple, once you have downloaded the app you can write the first line of a poem, roughly similar to that of a haiku, around 5 syllables. They have the option to write a second line, 7 syllables or more, and a third user writes the final line of 5 syllables.
The interface is silent and rich with colour combinations of light colours. On the bottom of the page, you are given five options in five circles. Starting with the Homepage option, Search option, JAM option, Circle [friend circle] option, your profile option. On the homepage, you can view all the featured compositions, written by different people, where you also given the option to like and comment on every Haiku.
In search option, you can explore jams, jammers or photo stories. In circle’s option, six people together can make a circle, where they can write with the people/friends in their circle. Basically, it’s up to you, either you can jam with the world [strangers] or with the people in your circle. You can write about yourself in the profile option, where your karma points are also displayed. Not only you can view all the featured haiku, but also the one that is not featured and happened at the very moment, in the ‘Live’ option.
Though the interface is good and the concept is amazing, the slow moving speed of the app is one thing which provokes me to close the app. If you are even thinking to use this app without any Wi-Fi connection, don’t even dare to do that. The app is extremely slow and with Wi-Fi connection, it takes, at least, few seconds to upload any random page. To see any notification, you will have to open the app only after which you can check the notification. The app doesn’t notify you in the notification panel of your mobile device like Instagram or any interactive app does. The exclamatory mark, where you can see the notifications is not only slow but also confusing. Because, at times when you want to see the notifications, the app decides to get into the “hang” mode, putting you into the “annoyed mode”.
You can see doctors, lawyers, engineers, housewives, students and I-have-got-nothing-else-to-do but artistic people here. But people have accepted the app with all its flaws, as writing or giving meanings to words itself is very satisfying to the soul. On top of that, if you are getting the chance to develop your passion or talent with more creativity, taking this chance is a sign of a wise person.
No Comments, Be The First!