Twenty-year old Aucklanders Tom Sammons and Avario Babushka’s app Boredcast is all about helping people connect online and in the real world – and it’s an idea the pair hopes won’t be just another social network.

?Sammons is a full time student in his final year of a computer science degree at The University of Auckland and works for Roam Creative, an app development studio in Auckland’s CBD. Babushka works full time for the same company and has been coding since he was 12.

They’d wanted to create an app together for some time and after settling on the Boredcast concept have spent about 1200 hours on it in the last four months. The pair didn’t want it to be just another social network, but something that would make connections real.

“It’s almost because people are so connected online that they meet up less in person,” says Sammons. “We are trying to draw people away from this obsession with their online presence and get them to spend time together in the real world.”

“It’s not about making a name for yourself or showing off,” adds Babushka.

After that they choose the friends to send the message to and can limit it to a set distance from their current location. After the meetup the creator can end the cast, deleting it and all messages associated with it.

The app’s had about 600 downloads since its soft launch in March, with the majority coming from areas of New Zealand that have a university – perhaps not surprising as the app was designed with busy students in mind. “The more people that are on it, the more useful the app becomes,” they say.