03. 15. 2018 Blog

Vero – The Truth Always Wins in the End

Many have tried. Many have failed. Even as Facebook hits some pretty big bumps in the road, the major social networks continue to grow. No wonder then that more and more unknown apps continue to try to get a piece of the multi-billion dollar cake that is social media.

The new player on the block goes by the name of Vero and promises to be truly social, non-commercial and transparent, creating social connections that are more like those in real life. Their target audience is going crazy which means it’s time for us to put Vero under the microscope.

What is Vero?
Vero – takes its name from the Italian word for truth – is similar to Instagram, in that both are great places to share photos and videos. Sharing pics isn’t Vero’s only trick. You can share music, books, and movies that you’d like to recommend. Vero is focused on building a collection of content that can be shared and revisited and thus facilitates access to the content. It even categorizes posts in your feed as Collections. Vero also has a feature that allows you to share posts to a custom friend list. That’s an improvement over popular social media platforms where posts are shared with a huge and often unmanageable list of people. Users can be categorized into different customized lists such as friends, close friends, and acquaintances.

 

Vero still faces some technical hiccups and users are evenly split on whether Vero is good or bad. The app has nearly as many five-star ratings as it does one-star ratings.

 

What is so special about Vero that makes it different from Instagram & Co?
Vero attempts to gain followers by being an advertising-free social network without algorithms or data mining. The days when users and advertisers needed to pay cash to ensure that posts appear in their followers’ news feeds are nonexistent on Vero.

 

This is good news for influencers who get frustrated every time an algorithm update makes reaching their followers even harder. Not surprising then that influencers see the newcomer as the greatest thing since sliced bread. In theory, Vero will display every post – that is, if you have the patience to scroll down long enough. But Vero can’t just live on love and fresh air. The app charges merchants when they sell products via its e-commerce feature. By letting you post recommendations for movies, books, and music, Vero turns into a kind of online sales platform. Users might also have to dig into their pockets. After passing the million-user mark, Vero plans to start charging a subscription fee for new users.

 

What’s the bottom line?
We’ll have to wait and see if Vero can stand up to Facebook, Instagram & Co. By rejecting algorithms and data collection, Vero shuns the major criticism points that Facebook and Instagram currently face. It remains to be seen whether the app will remain as ad-free as it wants to be. Influencer marketing will play a big role on Vero and this could develop into a major niche for the app. And we certainly applaud the idea of a transparent, algorithm-free network. Wasn’t that the real purpose of social media, anyway?