Vero Social Media App - Should I Join?

With Vero seeing a ton of users, especially photographers, signing up over the past week I'm going to take a quick impression on my experience on Vero. The main highlights of Vero that make it appealing are; posts appear in chronological order, the interface is very appealing, and Vero announced that the first million users that sign up will get Vero free for life. There are some negatives so far too, mainly tied to the massive amount of users signing up has put incredible strain on their servers and there are frequent crashes. So, is Vero worth signing up for and using?

First, let's talk about the posts. Users are singing the praises of Vero right now because posts appear in chronological order, meaning there are organized by time posted. This is how Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook all used to be before transitioning to an algorithmic "top scoring/engagement" approach. To give you an idea of how big of a deal this is, take a look at this article from 2017.  The petition to change it on Change.org garnered over 300,000 signatures. Chronological posts means you see everyone's post because there isn't filtering based on accounts that you interact with the most, or those that you have turned on notifications for. Marketers will be particularly pleased with this news.

The second main feature is how beautiful the interface really is, your content will shine on Vero when compared with Instagram. See below.

As you can see, Instagram on the right does display your content in a "larger" format but as many of you are aware, you can only pinch and zoom on the photo. With Vero, I've always preferred a darker border around my photography so that is a win in my opinion. But if you tap the photo once, you can see it with no text in a nearly screen filling size. It's a really nice feature. Hashtags work the same way on Vero as they do on Instagram. I think the app presentation is very appealing and straightforward.

The only drawback that I have encountered while using the app to date is the frequent crashes, that is something that is almost non-existent on Instagram because IG is owned by Facebook. Vero has been frequently crashing when trying to like other peoples' content, trying to follow other users, and posting content. Vero has been tweeting actively to inform users but it's still a negative experience for those who are currently using the Vero app.

Since I mentioned it above, Vero is saying that the first million users will get Vero for free for life. There hasn't been much of a mention what paid Vero will look like or what features that will bring, but it does matter because paid apps are always going to be a harder sell on the general population.

After using Vero for a week, here's what I can say about the platform; I really like the design, the way the app displays content is particularly pleasing, but right now it's still VERY small and niche so if you're feasting for likes, you're going to be disappointed in the early stages. Many quality photographers that I admire have already made the jump and are posting regularly, so we can hope that this app actually stays around for the long haul. The media is tagging it as the "new Instagram" but I'd settle for the "new Google+".

Have you used the app? What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments.