Kimiya Manoochehri

USA TODAY

Controversial campus app Yik Yak looks to make it easier to meet people around you.

The app, which students took to their own to talking about what was happening on campus, and often dived into what critics said were bullying tactics, looks to be a bigger presence off campus.

“Our mission is to make the world feel small again,” said co-founder Tyler Droll.

Droll and co-founder Brooks Buffington launched the app in 2013, and saw it boom in popularity in over 2,500 college campuses since. But in recent years, the former top ranked app has fallen to the bottom of the iTunes and Google Play charts. (Its current ranking is no. 85 on iTunes’s social networking category, to #114 on Google Play.)

Meanwhile, Yik Yak has expanded beyond the college campus scene to include communities within cities, military bases and other places where post-grads are congregating. The networking site is also becoming increasingly popular in the other English-speaking countries – including Canada, the UK and Ireland.

“Pretty much everything we’re doing is about helping you feel at home in your community,” said Buffington. “Expressing yourself, exchanging thoughts and ideas, and exploring the miniature world around you.”

The upgrades:

--Yaks, or 200-max character posts, are visible in about a one-mile radius from where you post them. Yik Yak recently personalized the once-anonymous social networking site by introducing handles and profiles. Now a third personal element will be added into the Yik Yak mix, a status bar called “Now”.

--A user’s “Now” will be visible on their profile, beneath their picture and user-handle, and will comprise of 18 characters, including letters, numbers and emojis. The Now will appear on user profiles for 24 hours and can be regularly updated and changed to reflect on what the person is currently listening to, in the mood to do, or whatever they want others to see. The Now is intended to make it easier to spot common interests and connect with Yakkers around you.

--The app is also introducing a new tab, the “Explore” tab, which will incorporate some elements that Yakkers are already familiar with, such as trending topics, the ‘peek into other locations’ option, global conversations and polls. Explore will also include a new feature, called Local Yakkers.

Local Yakkers is another step toward communicating with users around you. Users will be able to see up to a 100 Yakkers nearby using this tool, and ideally make new local connections.

“I think everyone at their core really wants to be connected to their local community.” Said Buffington.

Brian Solis, analyst with the Altimeter Group, feels that it's a smart move for Yik Yak to broaden its appeal. "Even Facebook had to leave the university system to attract a broader set of users and their friends." said Solis. "It's time the app grew up to turn a new level of hyper-local, contextualized form of social networking that combines the social graph of Facebook, the locality of Yelp and the serendipity of Twitter."

Changes in the app will also include cutting some losses. The new version will not include features, ‘My Herd’ or ‘Hot Feed’.

“We know some users are going to miss these but taking these features out makes the app much cleaner and much more centered on local connections.” Said Buffington.