Bully Button app aims to combat bullying

The name Bully Button may evoke a laugh, but to a Long Island business owner it has a very serious purpose. Bully Button is an app now on iPhones and iPads, and its creator hopes it will be a technological solution to the worsening problem of bullying.

Tom Murphy, 41, chief executive of Melville-based OptimizedApps, has created several different kinds of "socially conscious" apps in the past few years, including apps to help people in disasters. But Murphy, who ran a Web design company, Webcorp, for seven years, decided recently to do what he could to stop bullying.

"When I was young I suffered from people who were bullies," Murphy said. "I decided to think how we could use technology to empower children."

The $1.99 app went on sale online last week. A user presses an icon and the app records the sounds of what is going on around it. With another click, it sends the sounds to a school principal or a parent. Murphy said there have been about 50 to 200 sales a day so far. Future versions will include video and will document the time of day and location of the event.

Murphy is using social media and traditional advertising to get the word out about Bully Button. He is also looking for volunteers to test it.

While not endorsing any product, Karen Siris, principal at the W.S. Boardman Elementary School in Oceanside and an author of papers on bullying, said she was pleased the business community is giving thought to the problem of bullying. "What we've tried hasn't worked," she said, "so it's great people are trying to come up with new ways."