Vero: The new, popular kid on the social block
What's the story
Vero, a social media app that has been around since 2015, is gaining sudden popularity. It was launched by billionaire businessman Ayman Hariri, who is the son of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Currently trending, the app has acquired the top spot in Apple UK's App Store and is being compared to the likes of Facebook and Instagram. Here's why.
Details
Vero runs on a subscription-based model
One of the two main differences between Vero and other social media platforms is that in Vero, posts actually appear in reverse chronological order. This simple feature is no longer available on Instagram and Facebook, since they now show posts by popularity metrics. Vero also runs a subscription-based model where after the first million sign-ups, users will have to pay a "small annual fee."
USP
Vero will never showcase ads on the app
This brings us to the second main difference between Vero and other social media apps. Vero is completely ad-free. The company said, "Our subscription model will allow us to keep Vero advertising-free, and to focus solely on delivering the best social experience instead of trying to find new ways to monetize our users' behavior or tricking them back into the app with notifications."
Features
You can categorize connections into four categories on Vero
Vero users can categorize connections into 'close friend,' 'friend,' 'acquaintance,' and 'follower,' and share photos, links, books, movies and TV shows with them. The app features hashtags, visual essays, and allows users more control over their posts in general. In terms of comparison with Facebook and Instagram, it neither has the ability to add events nor does it have the 24-hour short stories format.
Popularity
Vero started facing issues due to unpreparedness regarding heavy usage
In fact, the app got so popular in such a short span of time that it crashed, and users started complaining about several confusing issues and bugs in the newfound social media platform. In response, Vero tweeted, "We're experiencing an outage due to heavy load. Apologies again for the issues we're having. We're working to restore things. We really appreciate your patience."