Michael Heyward

[Photo by David Black}

For sharing people’s secrets.

Like Snapchat and bitcoin, Whisper is designed to keep digital footprints to a minimum. App users type out a short, often confessional message, overlay it on a related image, and share it anonymously (there are no user profiles or friends to follow) with the Whisper community.

You can “heart” Whispers, privately message other users, or respond with your own Whispers, a model that’s transformed the two-year-old service into a viral powerhouse. “It’s not about whether you think Whisper is going to be a multibillion-dollar company,” explains CEO Michael Heyward, “but whether you think anonymity is going to be a big deal.” Sounds like it already is, with millions of users each averaging 30 minutes a day on the platform, fluttering through a whopping 3.5 billion page views per month–roughly double what the New York Times’ site receives per quarter.AC