Kuto app review: trading through social media

Introduction

Kuto is billed as an easy to use social media trading app, but I found it to be anything but easy. There are quite a few apps in this category like the offerup app and the one thing they do share is that they are all pretty easy to use. This app left me feeling a little disappointed. This is a free app and it’s compatible with the iPhone, iPad, and the iPod Touch.

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Social Trading

When we think about trading items over social media the apps that normally come immediately to mind are ones such as Kijiji and Craig’s List. Craigslist is actually more of a website but there are client apps that have been developed to access Craigslist as an app. These apps are easy to use and they make trading through social media a breeze. The same cannot be said for Kuto.

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Probably my biggest issue with Kuto was the total lack of instructions that come with this app. There are no menus to access, and nothing obvious to help you navigate your way through the app. It’s simply a GPS type map interface that uses your Twitter account to post items for trade. This app will require about 4.8 MB of space on your iOS device.

How it Works

When you first open the app you’ll be asked to allow it to access your Twitter account. The app uses Twitter and a GPS interface to allow trading of items between people in the same local area. It just doesn’t tell you how to go about it once you’ve activated your Twitter account within the app. Through trial and error I was able to figure out how the app was supposed to work, it just didn’t work as advertised.

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The idea is you tap on the pink icon at the bottom of the GPS map in order to share your item for trade – then you can type in a brief description of the item before posting it on your Twitter account or sharing it through email. There is one more step before you can send your post – without explaining why, the app takes you into your IOS devices camera app with the intention that you will include a picture of your item for trade in your post. This seems to work just fine, but the picture did not appear in my tweet when I checked it out in my profile. In fact I was unable to get the link that Kuto had created to work at all.

The idea behind this app is actually quite unique and if it worked well it would have a lot of potential. The idea of using your Twitter account as a way to trade items with people over social media could work. The problem is it doesn’t work well through the Kuto app.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• A unique social media trading concept

Cons

• There are no instructions for how to use this app
• The app is confusing and difficult to figure out
• Pictures did not appear in Twitter posts
• Twitter links created with this app did not seem to work

Final Words

If you’re looking for a way to trade items over social media there are better apps than Kuto to use. This app provides no instructions at all and it simply doesn’t work as advertised. I’d recommend taking a pass on this one for now.