Every subject that you discuss with your friends, you should be able to get more information about it without leaving the app.” “We think that Viber is a natural place for commerce, whether it is shopping or booking restaurants. By this, he did not mean all ads are stupid, but that there are many intrusive formats like pop-ups that are not working well, and that there are better ways to sell to users. “We are looking to transform Viber into a platform without turning to ‘stupid’ advertising,” Agaoua said in an interview.
#Online viber web series#
This is the latest feature from Viber in a series of updates it’s been making over the last several months to bring it up to speed with the rest of the messaging app pack in terms of functionality, but also as a route to making revenues as a business. That’s not to say this was a quick turnaround: Viber has been talking about more alignment with its owner Rakuten and tapping into its commerce expertise for new Viber features for years.īut perhaps the time is most ripe now. “We will do purchasing in Viber eventually, but we decided to launch it this way to learn more about how it is used, and to get it out there as soon as possible,” he said. Initially the shopping feature will not be letting users make purchases directly on Viber itself - they will either be redirected to the relevant page in a brand’s app via a deeplink, or to a mobile website if the app is not installed - but Agaoua told me that this is definitely the plan longer term. (One company that is not coming soon to the platform, however, is Pinterest: the “visual” social network counts Viber’s owner Rakuten as a significant investor, and while there would appear to be an obvious affinity between Viber and Pinterest - which has built its whole business around a picture-based ‘storefront’ of sorts - for now all that Agaoua would say is that Viber would love to work with them in the future, but that nothing is going on right now.) There will also be an area in the shopping feature dedicated to “deals” - meaning potential partnerships with firms like Groupon, too.
#Online viber web full#
The full list is not being made public yet, but Djamel Agaoua, the company’s new CEO, told me that one of them will be the department store Macy’s. It will kick off with a selection of items covering a range of categories - from electronics and home goods through to fashion - from Rakuten’s own, as well as items curated by some 30 other brands. first, on March 6, before Viber looks to roll it out to other markets.
The feature is due to go live in the U.S. Viber will start to present users with items for sale, inspired by your current chat, when you press a small shopping bag icon at the bottom of the screen and search for items. Messaging app Viber is today announcing a new feature that taps into the bigger trend of messaging apps becoming multi-functional platforms, and also its ownership by e-commerce company Rakuten.
0 kommentar(er)
