Instagram killer? Vero shoots to top of app charts as people search for new social media...

midian182

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With established social networks like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat boasting millions and in some cases billions of users, one might imagine that newcomers will find it impossible to make an impact in this industry. But Vero is proving people wrong.

Back in 2015, the photo-sharing app that bears a close resemblance to Instagram was launched by Lebanese billionaire Ayman Hariri, movie financier Motaz Nabulsi, and venture capitalist Scott Birnbaum.

With so many users angry at Instagram’s algorithm, Facebook’s fake news problem, and the much-hated Snapchat update, Vero has seen its popularity skyrocket recently. It didn’t even appear in the App Store’s top 1500 apps a week ago, but today it is the most popular application in Apple’s store.

Vero, which means ‘truth’ in Esperanto, says it offers a more “authentic” experience compared to its competitors. Unlike Instagram, user posts, which can be browsed by type or by hashtags, appear in reverse-chronological order. It’s also possible to designate people as a “close friend,” “friend,” “acquaintance,” or “follower,” and you have the option of sharing posts with these specific groups.

One of the most compelling elements of Vero is that it doesn’t contain any ads. While it hasn’t yet been implemented, the platform will eventually make money through a subscription model that charges users a “small annual fee” (thought to be a few dollars per year). However, this is being permanently waived for the first million customers who sign up.

The company also avoids Facebook-style mass data collection on users. "Vero only collects the data we believe is necessary to provide users with a great experience and to ensure the security of their accounts," the manifesto reads.

It appears that Vero is currently a victim of its own success—it’s been experiencing outages as people rush to sign up and avoid the yearly subscription. While it's hard to imagine Instagram ever becoming irrelevant, nobody expected Myspace to fall from grace the way it did. You can download Vero here.

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Yeah, I signed up a couple weeks ago out of curiosity. Got the first connection request a few days ago (by someone I actually know), and I was only just finally able to actually login and accept it. It is an interesting app, but there are definitely ads - they're subtle, kind of like the way Instagram inserts ads into your feed. You can scroll right by them and not even notice.

My concern is the way you organizer you connections is very similar to Google+, and we all know how that turned out.
 
Crazy how people are so quick to jump to a totally unknown social media app and then fork over personal data just to create an account. These guys probably run servers out of someone's garage and here everyone is signing up like they have no care in the world.
 
Just like all others, they are pushing their way up using marketing that cost them millions, and special deals under the counter, to artificially increase their popularity. It has nothing to do with "what customers choose". Like most of the sheep, they choose what's pushed in front of them, and they think it was their decision. Not because of small flaws in competition. That would be the day when sheep would pick apps because of their quality. Sheep have no taste nor feeling for quality.

Facebook became popular using marketing too. It was totally artificial, pushing the fake announcements into TV News and other media, "facebook this facebook that", it was clear that TV networks were pushing FB ads as "news". Which in itself is fake news, punishable by law, but the governments didn't punish them. And now FB is filtering out "fake news". They should filter out themselves.

This new app, whatever is its name, certainly isn't succeeding because of their software developers. The company invested all the money in marketing. In various media. Like this article above. That's how the news spreads. Quality of the app has almost no influence. If quality was in question, Facebook would bankrupt before it even started. And many other sites and apps. Quality means nothing. It's all about the owners of the business. Who knows whom. Who is rich. Who is of certain nationality. And knows other rich people of the same nationality. Connections, connections, and money. Not quality.
 
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