This week I noticed the gaining popularity of a new app (which isn’t actually new and is from 2015) called Vero, which became a big thing and died all in the same week. Vero’s sudden popularity likely came from ads on facebook and instagram, as well as promotions from people saying, “it’s the new instagram.” It promised a chronological timeline with no ads and no “crazy algorithms”, as well as trying to replicate relationships in the real world like the difference between friendships and acquaintances.
Unfortunately, the app got so big overnight it just stopped working, and people trying to get on can’t do anything with it It also will be based on a subscription fee to use it after the first million downloads. The privacy policy is also shady, stating that the content is allowed to be used by Vero however they want for as long as they want. The creator of the app also has a shady past where he didn’t pay workers, so now the app has just become a trainwreck where everyone is trying to delete it but can’t even figure out how to do that.
I didn’t download the app and I’m for sure not going to now because it just sounds like a mess, but there’s definitely a lot of stuff worth talking about when looking at what’s going on. For example, the ads being placed on instagram and facebook are already organizing a particular audience to be attracted to the app. By saying the app is “instagram but better,” it’s already causing people to interact with it in a similar manner (when the app could be used for a lot more in reality, like recommending books and stuff.) The rush to make an account was even because of the first million getting a free account thing put into place, so the desire for an account now is there.
I think all of the stuff I’ve seen is interesting, but one thing that stands out to me the most is the idea of assigning labels to the people you are interacting with on the app. The people I saw who downloaded the app were all using it as another platform to post their art, so I thought it was just like everything else where you have followers and that’s it. The fact that it organizes everything into friend, acquaintance, follower, etc… is so interesting and unique to a social media platform and I don’t know whether it would be a good function or not. The only other platform I can think of that has something similar is deviantart because you can organize people by friends or by watchers, but not to this extent.