Vero - True Social's sudden popularity seems to have come as a surprise to developers, with the app's servers struggling to accommodate the influx of users. While the people behind Vero will most likely be able to find a way to cope with the sudden uptick in user numbers, there is still no assurance that the app will remain popular in the future.
What does Vero do, anyway? Vero basically functions like other social media apps — it lets users post content, share preferences, and make recommendations to their contacts. While this may make Vero sound like any other popular social app already in use, it actually does offer users a somewhat different experience.
For one thing, the app is ad-free, unlike apps like Facebook and Instagram. Vero also sorts content in reverse chronological order and does not promote posts with the most likes and comments to higher visibility. This, according to Vero's manifesto, creates a more authentic social experience for users.
However, ad-free apps are not free to use. Sometime in the future, users will have to pay a subscription fee to be able to use the app, although the developers have waived the subscription fee for the first million users. There is thus the possibility that Vero's popularity will decline once it is no longer free.
However, the app's developers are not relying on popularity or the number of users to gauge the app's success. "It's more about having people who are engaged and believe in it — and if that means less users, so be it," Vero CEO Ayman Hariri told Variety, adding, "That's not our metric of success."
While Vero may decline in popularity in the future once it becomes subscription-based, it still did enjoy a sizable newfound flock of users. So many people began using Vero recently that it began experiencing errors, with users complaining that they were unable to create posts on the app after downloading it. According to Vero's official Twitter page, these problems were due to "increasing demand."
We apologize for the late update.
We are scaling our servers to meet the increasing demand.
We appreciate your continued patience while we work to restore service.
The app is also still in its beta phase, which means that bugs may be a common experience for the time being.
How Vero's developers will cope with the app's sudden growth remains to be seen. According to Hariri, Vero has only about 30 employees, and they do not even have a formal office. The company will likely have to make adjustments to meet the demands of their growing user base, but it seems that Vero is not expected to become the social media juggernaut that Facebook and Instagram are.
Vero - True Social is available for download on Apple's App Store and the Google Play Store.
