Thumb Social Polling App Merges With YPulse Research Firm, Rolls Out Thumb Pro For Brands

Instant polling app Thumb has just announced that it has merged with YPulse, a research insights firm that focuses on millennial opinions and behaviors. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Thumb is a mobile app that launched back in the summer of 2010 as Opinionaded, aiming to get real-time feedback for life’s toughest, and sometimes silliest, questions. Users simply pose a question to the network, and receive instant feedback from a group of their peers.

In 2011, the app rebranded as Thumb and has seen solid growth ever since. To date, the app has seen over 1.5 billion opinions come through the network.

The latest move by the app was to add a shopping category back in November, which seemed like the first step toward letting brands engage directly with users on the platform.

That said, the merger with YPulse is setting the stage for the roll out of Thumb Pro, which gives brands a dashboard to communicate directly with the Thumb audience.

This will not only allow brands to get instant feedback on new promotional ideas, products, and ad copy, but it will allow them to respond to those who’ve given an opinion to get further feedback.

Thumb Pro has three pricing tiers, starting at $95/month for the basic plan and going all the way to $995/month for the most full-featured option.

So what does YPulse get out of this?

Well, according to Thumb founder Dan Kurani, YPulse already has the infrastructure and relationships with brands to push Thumb further into that space, all while capturing the troves of data collected on Thumb users.

Since YPulse is in the business of peering into the world of young adults, Thumb seems like a great place to have an authentic, comfortable conversation with Millennials in their own environment.