Ricky Robinett created the app FakeGirlFriend. An engineer at Target Spot, a digital audio ad network, at night he is a creator of apps including FakeGirlfriend that he created on a lark. “I built it just because I love building little, silly, fun things and I had been toying around with this Twilio API that allows you to work with voice. I was just thinking about what fun things I could do to kind of prank or trick people with the idea of a fake girlfriend. I thought it was so stupid that I had to build it.
“I think people who use it are just kind of curious of the concept and interested to see how it works or maybe they are lonely. I default it with a handful of responses, maybe a dozen responses and I use all caps in our responses like ‘THANKS FOR THE FLOWERS’, and a lot of emoticons like smiley faces and those type of things. Then people are capable of wiping those out and replacing them with their own.
I think a lot of people have had fun with it, but some weren’t happy that they had to pay for it when I had to make the switch from the free version to the paid version. So I did hear some types of complaints. But I look at what people add as responses, and it seems like goofy things like ‘I searched Google for a voice sweeter than you and nothing came back.’
I’m just always thinking about different things I would want to build. I’m a huge fan of technology. I really feel like what drew me into technology is that it allows you to create things and I kind of see these little life-size projects as mini art projects. I’m always thinking about things and talking to people. “
