While Raftr began as a place for people to get current on shared interests across news, sports, and entertainment, it has now evolved to instead be a place for university students to get current on what’s happening on campus.

When Raftr launched, people could join rafts to get current on their favorite sports teams, tv shows, and current events and other news stories, as well as connecting with others who shared their interests. We later termed that original purpose our “real world” experience, while also adding an authenticated, college-campus Raftr experience. Using the same features as in the real world version, like posting and chatting in rafts, we create private social networks for each school we partner with to give university students a way to get current on what’s happening around their college campus, and find people who share their on-campus interests. Over time, as we saw strong traction at the universities we worked with, we felt it was best to put all our resources into this effort. Thus, Raftr changed course and said a bittersweet goodbye to the original, real world experience.

While there is still press across the web that references the past version of Raftr, it is now only possible for people to join the app with a verified, .edu email address at one of the schools we currently partner with. If you attend or work at a school we are not yet partnering with, and are interested in seeing Raftr at your school, please let us know via ask@raftr.com.

What’s up with the otter?

Raftr’s mascot is a sea otter. We chose the otter because sea otters are very social animals that often eat and rest together while floating in connected groups. A group of otters linked together like this is called called a “raft”. Rafts can include hundreds of otters connected with one another by holding paws. We see this as a metaphor for the many communities of people around the world discussing common interests and stories on our platform, which we call rafts for this reason.

What do I get if I join a raft?

Membership has its privileges! Joining a raft allows you to participate on its chat channels, create and comment on posts, and get other members’ posts in your feed.

How do I leave a raft?

To leave, go to the information section of the raft (touch the “i” in the upper right corner of its front page) and choose “leave raft”. If you leave a raft, you will longer get its posts in your feed or be able to create posts, chat messages, or comments. You can still view it, react to posts, and upvote/ downvote if it is designated as public in its privacy settings.

How do you decide which rafts to curate as “Official”?

We let the administration from the colleges and universities we partner with pick which ones are likely to be most successful on their campuses. We also watch what is engaging in the app and sometimes add official rafts that Raftr curates in order to create a more engaging experience.

How do I attract more people to my raft?

Creating an engaging experience by posting, chatting and timely responses to others is the best way to attract new members. We also offer you lots of tools: inviting from contacts, sharing links, the right to decorate your raft in interesting ways, the ability to pin posts that you find interesting, and the opportunity to show up in the discovery sections of the app – Explore and Search (by having ten or more members on your raft or ten or more actions in the last month).

What’s the difference between “following” and “joining”?

On Raftr, you follow people and join rafts. Joining rafts allows you to create content on that raft and to get posts in your feed. When your notifications are set to “High” or “Custom”, following people will notify you when they create or interact with posts.

Can I delete a raft?

There’s not a way yet in the app for you to do this, but if you would like to let us know and we can help. You can reach us via the Contact Us link in your settings, which are found via the gear in the upper, right corner of your profile. Also, if a raft has less than fifteen members and no activity in the last three months, we will delete it.

Can I delete my account?

While we never like to see people leave the app, we understand you may have your reasons. Right now there’s no way in the app for you to delete your account yourself, but we can do it for you if you send us an email at ask@raftr.com.

We offer different experiences on Raftr, giving you different options based on interacting with your own university or viewing other active colleges; to make it easy to switch between the two, there is a toggle on your profile by your name.

Signing up for an account on Raftr requires a verified .edu email address and your experience will be specific to your school. If you would like to check out other active schools in the app, there is a toggle on your profile enabling you to do so (on iOS only so far). Everyone is able to direct message everyone else, regardless of the university experience they are each a part of.

When you are using the app, your experience will change based on which experience you choose to be in. So when you are in your own university’s Raftr experience, you will see on your profile the rafts you are a member of and a feed of your recent activity. Explore, Search, the feeds on the Events and Posts screens, and the Messages screen also will be filtered to only show rafts, posts, and chat channels for your college. You can join rafts from your own school, and interact on the rafts you join there.

When you choose to, via your profile, visit another school, the app will be updated so that you can see all public content for that school. You cannot join rafts or create content (events, posts, chat messages, comments, reactions, votes) on any college experience other than your own. It’s fun to check-out what’s going on at other schools in your sports leagues and that your friends attend.

Get Current is our tagline, and it has two meanings. First, Raftr is a place to get current (caught-up) on campus events, memes and communities in your college. Second, current is a measure of your activity on Raftr.

We are currently revisiting our current “points” system in the app and will update this blog once it has been reintroduced within the app.

You can change your profile picture or edit your profile description at any time via the Edit Profile button in the header on your profile. You will find other settings, including for notifications, via the gear in the upper right corner of your profile.

Through the settings page, you can manage your push notification frequency and events, turn on hints to remind you of all the things you can do on Raftr, find and invite friends to the app, or contact us privately. You will also find find our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service here, as well as a shortcut to our FAQ.

Notification Settings:

On iOS, you will see that the notifications screen, opened from settings menu, has four main options, described below; if you’re using Android or web and would like to modify your notification settings, please let us know at ask@raftr.com. To choose one, slide the dot on the slider to the option you prefer and save your choice via the “Done” button in the upper, right corner of the screen.

• Low: This setting is for people who prefer to not be notified very often about activity in the app. Choosing this option means you’ll only be notified when an event you are interested in is starting soon and when people send you a direct message; interact with you via posts, events, or chat messages; follow you; invite you to or respond to your request to join a raft; join or request to join a raft you’re an admin of; or change your rank on a raft you’re a member of.
• Normal: This is the default level of notifications. If you choose this option, in addition to the notifications described above, you’ll receive notifications when more official rafts are added to the app, new blogs are published for official rafts you are a member of, or people you follow join a raft.
• High: If you want to receive notifications about all activity in the app – your own, the people you follow, and rafts you join – this is the setting for you. In addition to the notifications from the “low” and “normal” settings, if you choose the high option, you will also be notified when people you follow create new posts or interact with other people’s posts, people join a raft you’re a member of, you’re released from a raft, or there is a post created on a raft you’re a member of.
• Custom: This option lets you pick and choose exactly which notifications you will receive. To turn each one on or off, just tap/ click the toggle button (blue is on, grey is off). Some of the notifications include an option to “Include notifications about posts on rafts you haven’t joined”. This means that, for example, if you only want to see notifications for posts created by the people you follow that are for rafts you are a member of, you should turn this setting off, so that “notifications about posts on rafts you haven’t joined” are not included. If you want to see notifications for all posts created by people you follow, whether or not the posts are about a raft you are a member of (unless it is a secret raft or private raft with closed content), then you should have this toggle on, for everything to be included.

Most of the time you will see interesting contributions from people on Raftr. But, every once in awhile, a person will post things you find distasteful or you may find a post you would like to be submitted for our review. As well, while creating your own posts or comments, you might make a keyboard mistake or have second thoughts about your contribution. For these reasons we offer you editing capabilities and flagging, blocking, and reporting tools (designated by three dots on posts).

On each chat message, event, post, and comment, you will see three dots in the upper right corner. If you are the author, you will have the option to edit or delete it. If you are not the author, you will have the option to flag it for further review by our team.

Reasons to flag a post include anything that you think is in opposition to Raftr’s Terms of Service, which include things like spam or abuse, offensive content. You can also flag for any other reason you may have to request a review by our team.

You also have the option to block people. If you block a person, you will no longer see this person’s activity (chat messages, events, posts, comments, reactions), see this person in Search or Explore, follow this person (if you are now), or be notified about this person’s activity (if you had been). When you go to their profile, it will show them as blocked. You may also report a person if you feel we should review that person’s account for spam, abuse, offensive content, or any other reason that violates our Terms of Service. To report, block or unblock a person, tap/ click the three dots in the upper right corner of their profile.

What better way to help others get current and find their people than to share Raftr with them?! We offer a variety of ways to do so, depending on what you want to share.

So you have an account on Raftr and want to invite some friends to join you? We have several, seamless options to help! Whether you would like to share a community, content, or a conversation, we provide the means to do so.

Sharing Communities – aka: Rafts:

• To share a raft you have three options (see below for where to find them):
  • Copy link: Tap the overlapping, blue square icon in the bar with the link to the raft to quickly copy it; you can then paste that link wherever you would like to share it
  • Invite: Tap the invite button to see a list of other people in the app that you can invite to join the raft
  • Share: Tap the share button to be prompted with available options for sharing – the options will vary based on the device you’re on when you use the button. Once you choose an option, some text and a link will be added for you. You can share exactly like that, or edit the text if you prefer (don’t edit the link, though, as that’s how people will find what you’re sharing with them)
• To find these options, you will go to:
  • Members (other than raft admin): The raft’s Front Page and Info screen (via the “i” button in the upper right of the raft’s screen)
  • Admin: The raft’s Front Page or Info screen (in the raft’s settings, which are found via the gear in the upper right corner of the raft’s screen)
  • Non-Members: The raft’s info page (via the “i” button in the upper right of the raft’s screen)

Sharing Content – aka: posts or blogs:

Sharing posts is as easy as using the “share” button on a post, which will give you different sharing options based on the device you’re on.

How people see what you share:

• If they have the Android or iOS app installed already and open the link on their device, they will be taken to the post you are sharing with them.
• If they do not have the app installed yet and open on their device, they will be taken to the mobile web app where they will see the content you shared with them. At the top of the page there will be a banner prompting them to download the app.
• If they open on a computer, or mobile device other than Android or iOS, they will see the content you shared directly on the website.