Search for the next social network
My personal search for the next social network that replaces Facebook and Instagram is still on. I have deleted my Facebook account, drastically reduced my Instagram participation (I have not deleted my account there yet, but I did delete my first account!). I have kept my Twitter account, as I don’t find it to be as invasive as Facebook. Had Ello, but it died. I am thinking of creating my own Mastodon server, but the complexity needed is just not worth my time. I have Flickr, as my go to photo site, but Flickr needs to be aggressive in marketing their services, now that they have a new overlord. ;)
I found Vero (<https://vero.co>) back in late 2016, and secured my account. Have not been active there, since there were not that many people using it, but with the recent surge in users made me look at it the second time.
On the Vero website, you will find a page, “Why Vero”, which outlines the following reasons:
Smarter Sharing.
Vero allows you to share links, books, music, place/location, TV/movies, and, of course, photos/videos.
Smarter Connecting, “True Social”
Vero allows you to target which group of people to share your particular post with. This is akin to Facebook’s, but something not available on Instagram. You can choose to share your post with Close Friends, Friends, Acquaintances, or to the Public.
Smart Searching
This has nothing to do with being the next search engine! This feature simply collects each type of post shared on each of the six categories, making it easier to search your timeline.
Smarter Creating
Vero has a growing group of content creators from artists and brands that engage Vero users. Let’s just call them Vero’s version of the “influencers”.
Smarter Engaging
“Every post is a little world of its own”, so Vero claims. ;) This simply means that your can do more engagement on each post. Engagement can either be comments, likes, playing shared content, or even buying products.
Smarter Feed
The “no ads” feature that it is pitching is just a departure from the Facebook and Instagram ways! That, of course, is always attractive. Add the non-algorithmic timeline, which means that you get to see what your friends have posted in chronological order, from the most recent, Vero looks like the Instagram of old, but without the adverts.
The sudden interest in Vero’s no-ad, privacy-focused, and “free for the first million users” (Vero states that it will be a subscription service in the future) pitch — an assault on Facebook’s and Instagram’s business model, made it too good to be true. Is it a better social network?
Several articles and Twitter posts highlighted how the CEO and co-Founder had ties with a Saudi Arabian company that closed down and allegedly failed to pay the salaries of thousands of its employees! According to a Verge story, the CEO was no longer with the company when the problems happened.
Another issue is how users lose ownership of the content once they post it, which Vero clearly denied. Apart from “license to use, reproduce, modify, publish, list information regarding, translate, distribute, syndicate, publicly perform, publicly display, make derivative works of”, and “license is not being used by Vero to sell your User Content to third parties or otherwise profit off of your User Content”, as stated on the Vero Terms of Use, the terms is pretty much similar with Instagram’s.
Vero has extended its “free for life” beyond the first million subscribers. As it stands, it is estimated that there are more than 3 million sign-ups already!
Whilst I want to like using Vero, there are several issues that need to be clarified. The first, of course, is to release an official statement on the allegations regarding the CEO’s role in the Saudi company. Second, it should, IMHO, remove the clause, “license to use, reproduce, modify, publish, list information regarding, translate, distribute, syndicate, publicly perform, publicly display, make derivative works of”, from the Terms of Use. Third, I wish that Vero will change the default search engine for links from Google to DuckDuckGo, if they do indeed value privacy. Short of doing this, at least provide an option to change it. Fourth, make it easy to download all your content. Lastly, make it easy to DELETE your account.
If you want to check it out, don’t forget to follow me:
