Astrology has been trending since 2018, so much so that app creators have put astrological knowledge into algorithms for an AI to assemble. Since the results are generally accurate, horoscope readings are usually shared at social media sites.
Providing “mystical services” has been around since thousands of years ago, albeit rendered through varying practices. Now that we are in the Age of Technology, we can use apps to receive daily interpretations of the positions of the sun, the moon, and the planets appearing in the 12 equal divisions or zodiac sections of the heavens.
How the AI assembles and generate horoscopes or predictions will then depend on the app user’s birthday, taking into account the positions of the sun, the moon and other planets on that particular date.
Two years after astrology started trending on the Internet, technology has helped the “mystical services” market, including online aura reading, to reach heights as a $2.2 billion industry. The free-to-download astrology app “Co–Star,” which distinguishes its horoscope reading services from other apps by using “data from NASA,” now boasts of about five (5) million registered users and more than 800,000 Instagram followers.
Moreover, “Co–Star” sends out readings in the form of Push Notifications, described as direct but straight-up messages. Although some think the notifications they receive are at times a bit rude for comfort, the style takes away the stigma previously attributed to horoscopes. It does not gloss over what a user’s sun sign is saying as truths about his or her personality, and of how it influences one’s way of living his or her life.
How “Co–Star” Generates Horoscope for App Users
“Co—Star” is one of the many astrology apps benefiting from the renewed interest in horoscopes that was spurred mostly by millennials. As with any mystical practice of reading the stars, the app requires users to provide exact details about their biographical circumstances, such as day, time and place of birth. That way, the program can develop their respective birth chart with accuracy .
In an interview conducted by “The Verge,” the content writing team for the “Co-Star” app said that the process of creating horoscopes sent via Push Notifications starts with referencing and studying books not only about astrology. They use literature about psychology, as well as other information they get to learn from the streets and in social media.
Still, the company’s lead content writer Ona Mirkinson, said that astrology study is the major component of their content production.
Banu Guler, the CEO and co-founder of Co—Star explained that the content team are actually, not creating personalized horoscopes from scratch on a daily basis. Instead, the process involves creating different snippets that the AI assembles and maps out to each app user’s birth chart.
Ms. Guler asserted that astrology today is unlike the “old-school” astrology of the older generations. The kind of horoscopes that used to appear at the back of magazines, were based on the sun sign reading that a British astrologer named R.H. Naylor, created in 1930 to help sell news dailies.
She remarked that the reason why Co—Star’s astrology has gained popularity is because it gives users the feeling that a human is talking about their reality; but as a form of self-care and in building relationships. Ms. Guler added that this is what astrology is good at, and it is the reason why the practice of reading stars has been around for 2,500 years.