Stephen Colbert demonstrates how the Yo smartphone app would work in real life

(Image credit: Colbert Report)

last updated 8 January 2015

This week the internet world became acquainted with Yo, an improbably hot new smartphone app that lets uses send each other only that single two-letter message — or, as Stephen Colbert described it on Thursday night's Colbert Report, an "app that has expanded the possibilities for communication by greatly reducing them." Sure, Yo is easy to mock (it's "already hugely popular with the world's population of Sylvester Stallone," Colbert quipped), but its founders promise that you can say a lot with just the word Yo, depending on context.

Well, why not bring Yo's "context-based communication philosophy in everyday life?" Colbert asked. So he tried it out with Jay the intern. Their conversation is funny; the ending is brilliant. --Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.

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