Whistle-blowing phone app proves hit with Thai protestors

For years, protesters in Thailand have used social media to organise rallies. Now they're taking smartphones to a new level.

Apps have been created that allow phones to help protesters perform the high-pitched, raucous noisemaking that is a staple of Thai demonstrations.

More than 70,000 people have downloaded one application that mimics the shrieking sound of a whistle - the symbol of the "whistle-blowing campaign" against Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. The new app is called "Nok Weed", Thai for whistle, and it lets users choose the colour of their whistle, adjust the volume, then tap the screen to sound it.

According to its creator, the app "doesn't do much and isn't very useful" but it claimed the top spot on Google Play Store's trending list last month within days of its November 4 debut. Most of the downloads for the Thai-language app were in Thailand but 1.2 per cent have come from Egypt, another country fraught with political turmoil.

The app's popularity coincides with the rallies that started six weeks ago, attracting Bangkok's smartphone-carrying upper and middle classes, in a country that is one of the world's biggest users of social media.

Nok Weed's developer, Narit Nakphong, figured there was a new untapped market after demonstrators first took to the streets on October 31.