This New App on the Market is Revolutionizing Community Events
By Anezia Marques
The pandemic still affects much of our daily lives, even more than a year later. It has left many feeling isolated from friends, family, and peers, and uncertain about the future.
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Local Buzz, a video-based platform created by founders Tony Ce and Adrian Gillette, offers a way for people to discover local community events, places, and businesses.
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“Our purpose is to let people know that our city thrives,” said Ce. "It helps you discover the things happening in the communities: get more of an inside look, feel connected. It’s a positive platform.”
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Ce hopes that his app can provide a better alternative to other social platforms out there.
Tony Ce
Adrian Gillette
“We’re not trying to take people away from Instagram, but Instagram has become a very vanity platform… and not about what’s really going on in the community. It just didn’t narrow down into trying to discover what’s happening in our local communities: especially during these times. It does work, don’t get me wrong, but it’s cluttered with everything else,” said Ce.
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Local Buzz launched three years ago and was grew thanks to Phoenix businesses, organizations, and people invested in the concept.
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“In the two and a half months since we launched, we actually passed our goal. There are thousands of people on there,” said Ce.
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Most people post in the 24-hour span of their event, and posts can be put into multiple categories to reach more screens and people. Some categories include, “Eats & Drinks”, “Arts & Culture”, and “Shop and Services”.
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When the app is opened, users are taken to the “The Daily Buzz” section which compiles every post in chronological order. This allows users to find out what is happening in real time.
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Originally from California and raised in Los Angeles, Ce has been in Arizona for about 19 years. He has become a social entrepreneur in the last decade focusing on Downtown Phoenix.
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"When I turned 30, I took the route of opening a business, and it kind of just led from there,” said Ce. “I kind of made myself a name in the city… I started doing the festivals, started collaborating, doing a lot of community events.”
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With a wide variety of things to discover on the app, Local Buzz’s target audience is just about everyone in the Phoenix metro area. But he would love to see more ASU students using the app.
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“I would definitely love to have ASU involved more as well because I feel like ASU students always try to discover what’s going on in the community and bring more awareness to what they do in the college scene,” said Ce.
Local Phoenicians can support Local Buzz by downloading the app in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, or by visiting their website, www.localbuzz.co. For cities not yet on Local Buzz, a request can be submitted here.
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