Viber announces public chats, HD voice callsand free messaging

Dinesh jain

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Viber, the popular voice over internet protocol
(VOIP) has announced a major update to its
app for iOS and Android users, which now
offers free messaging and HD quality calls. In
addition, the company announced a new
feature called Public Chats, a new feature
which according to the company will allow
users to discover, share and interact with
conversations, communities and content on
mobile devices. In India, initially the app will be
launching in beta.

"In India we are launching with 56 chat
partners. We want to ensure every Indian who
comes here experiences the chat platform,"
said Anubhav Nayyar, Country Head for India.
Viber calls the public chats feature live
discussions between celebrities and
personalities that its users can follow. The
company touts it as a new type of social
experience as anyone can follow anyone and
conversations will include a combination of
text, audio, video, stickers, and web linkstands.
Public chats include celebrities like Anushka
Sharma, Ranveer Singh, Arjun Kapoor, Sonu
Nigam, Virat Kohli, Sachin Tendulkar, Saina
Nehwal and many more.

The most popular chats will be featured on the
home screen of the public chats section of
Viber, claims the company. However, the
public chat is an invite-only feature yet. So one
will have to drop a mail to Viber to get into
public chats section.

The company thinks that public chats will be a
big deal as it is different from other social
networks like Twitter and Facebook, where
celebrities go through a lot of trolling. Viber
will offer full control over trolling and offer a
human side of the celebrities claims the
company. "This is not about hosting and
sending commercial messages. It is about
natural conversations," said Mark Hardy Chief
Marketing Officer of Viber.

"We are all about free calls and free
messages, and now we are much more. Public
Chats is Viber's interpretation of a new social
media platform," claimed Hardy.

Indian cricketers Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli
and Rohit Sharma have a group which already
has more than 5,000 followers. Meanwhile,
Sachin Tendulkar took to Viber's public chat
instead of Twitter to wish speedy recovery to
Phil Hughes this morning.

There is a search button which helps users
find their favorite personalities.
Viber has 460 million unique users as of 24th
November across platforms including iOS,
Android and Desktop. It grew to 460 million
users from 375 million users in June 2014 in
just 5 month. "India is our no.1 market at 33
million users followed by America and Russia,"
claimed Hardy."Viber is a truly global platform
with 29.9 per cent users in Asia Pacific," he
added.

Hardy did not beat around the bush and
admitted to WhatsApps dominance. "We all
know WhatsApp is a big competitor."
Minus China Viber is used by 12 per cent of
the users of the world and is number two after
WhatsApp. China of course is dominated by
We Chat so that number is bound to change if
China is added. Viber ranks number 1 in terms
of grossing revenue in 34 countries.
Viber reiterates that it is not getting into
advertising like other social networks like
Facebook. "We are never going to get into
advertising. But public chats will help
community managers to interact with their
audience," claimed Hardy.

Viber is available across a multitude of
platforms including iOS, Android, Windows
Phone, BlackBerry 10, Windows, Mac, Windows
8, Linux, Symbian, Nokia S40, Bada, BlackBerry
7 and is used in over 193 countries.

Viber announces public chats, HD voice calls and free messaging
 
Isn't it the same news that I posted few days back?

http://dreamdth.com/showthread.php?tid=103387

What's new in messaging and HD voice calls. Viber already had that right?
 
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