Screenshot: courtesy Viber
Nowadays, we’re all a bit voyeuristic. We’re addicted to reality television, tabloids, and celebrity Twitter feeds.
Talmon Marco, founder and CEO of the messaging and voice call app Viber, knows this all too well, and that’s why his company is introducing what it calls Public Chats, a new Viber feature that makes it easier to see what our favorite celebrities and public personalities are chatting about. It aims to feed the inner eavesdropper in all of us.
Gossip blogger Perez Hilton, for instance, might use the tool to talk with other bloggers and celebrities. Models from the agency Next Model Management might use it to share selfies with each other. Members of a comedy troupe could use the app to document their stoned Amsterdam escapades (that actually happened). And we can watch it all.
It’s not altogether different from what celebrities are already doing on sites like Twitter and Facebook, but Marco believes that because Viber lets the average user in on actual conversations, the content will feel a lot more real. More importantly, however, it’s something Marco hopes will help differentiate Viber from other companies like WhatsApp, Kik, and WeChat, which are all jockeying for the lead in the growing messaging app market.
Over the last few years, the messaging app space has grown crowded, and the competitors in the space have grown more and more alike. Now, it seems, the main thing that distinguishes them is the number of users they have. That’s no small thing for a messaging platform, which is only useful to people when most of their contacts are using it too.
By this measure, WhatsApp is by far the most successful, with some 600 million monthly active users worldwide. Viber, by contrast, has 210 million. Which is why Marco, who sold the company to Japanese internet company Rakuten for $900 million earlier this year, is constantly on the lookout for features that will encourage more users to switch platforms. Original content, he believes, could do just that.
“We don’t necessarily envision making money directly out of public chats,” he says. “But this is something for our users to do , and at the same time, we think it will bring additional users and show them what Viber can be used for.”
According to Forrester analyst Julie Ask, this is a natural progression for Viber and, indeed, any messaging app. “This one of those things a platform like Viber needs to do, even though they’ve been acquired,” she says. “They’re still a young company, and they’re trying to do more to get people to spend more time in the app.”
Ask believes celebrities may also gravitate to Viber’s international audience. “There could be geographies that lets say Taylor Swift doesn’t have a big following in,” she says. “That’s a great opportunity to engage wtih fans and drive buzz.”
All that said, Ask adds that Viber certainly isn’t the first to the celebrity route. China’s WeChat, for one, lets users follow celebrities for a monthly fee. Plus, she says, there’s already plenty to appease fans on celebrity Facebook pages and Twitter feeds. To compete with WhatsApp, never mind these other gargantuan platforms, Viber will need a lot more than even the most salacious celebrity gossip.
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