Peeple is the creation of friends Julia Cordray and Nicole McCullough based in Canada.
It has been in development for the past year and is expected to launch on iOS next month. An Android version is still being worked on.
Members must be aged 21 and over and have a Facebook profile that has been active for at least six months to sign up to Peeple.
The app will also ask for phone numbers to prevent fake accounts or bots being created and members will be able to rate, and be rated, in three categories – ‘professionally’, ‘personally’ and ‘dating’.
After signing in, people can search for friends and colleagues using their name and where they live.
Once found, the user can click on their name and select a star rating, out of five.
Each rating can additionally be given a title and a description that explains the reason for the rating.
All ratings and reviews stay on the profile for a year, however, when a user makes a negative comment with a rating of two stars or less, the comment does not go live right away.
Instead, it goes into the user’s inbox and the two members have 48 hours to come to a resolution.
If a negative comment can’t be changed into a positive, the comment will go live and people will have to publicly defend themselves.
If the person being searched for doesn’t already have a profile on the app, someone else can set it up for them.
They will need their phone number to do this, though, and the person will receive a text telling them a profile has been created and who it has been created by.
Only members of the app can see ratings.
‘By joining our community you can be seen by the people that know you and rate and be rated by that community,’ explained the app’s founders Julia Cordray and Nicole McCullough.
‘Your network lifts you up and says positive things about you so that you can have a strong online reputation and get job opportunities, access to more networking opportunities with like-minded people, interact with other single people, and have the ability to search others to make better decisions around your greatest assets such as your family.’
Although the developers promote the app as being ‘a positivity app for positive people’, they are aware some members may use it to post unsubstantiated negative ratings out of spite, for example.
If a user thinks they are the victim of this, they can report it to the app. The comment will then be removed, and any users who violate the terms and conditions will have their accounts revoked.