You’ve probably already heard about the hot new social media app, Vero, which has gathered an awful lot of media attention – and hundreds of thousands of downloads – in the last few weeks. Vero launched way back in 2015, but it is gathering a lot of attention right now, perhaps because people are keen for something fresh in the social media landscape.

New users are flocking to the Vero app, and a lot of eye-catching platitudes are flying around like ‘the new Facebook’, ‘better than Twitter’ or ‘the next Instagram’. A few people are also saying that the name of the app reminds them of Bebo, but that’s beside the point.

But what is so great about Vero? Why should you sign up for this social media platform when you have already joined so many others? Which Vero features make it stand out from the pack? To answer all of those very valid questions, we came up with this primer…

What is different about Vero?

Vero has lots of familiar features, which social media regulars will quickly recognise: you can share pictures, statuses, and recommendations on Vero, just like you can on every other social media platform. But there are a few things that make Vero stand out.

For one thing, Vero exists solely as an app. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, there is no website version of Vero where you can log in on your PC and interact with your chums. This isn’t the first social media platform to eschew the traditional computer (Snapchat is just for mobile, and Instagram limits what you can do on the desktop site), but it’s still an interesting choice from the Vero team.

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Another fairly unique thing about Vero is the monetary angle: although it is free to join Vero at moment, there are plans behind-the-scenes to add a paywall to Vero at some point in the future and make new users pay to sign up. It’s worth getting on board with Vero now, then, while it’s still free to join. That way, if the site does blow up and become bigger than Facebook, you won’t have to fork out to fit in.

What is good about Vero?

Vero’s main appeal seems to be this: the app is claiming to offer a social media experience with ‘more social’ and ‘less media’. The Vero sales spiel proudly states that there are no adverts on Vero, and no secret algorithms that tailor what you see on your newsfeed.

It is easy to read these claims as a direct reaction to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram: those three platforms favour an algorithm-curated timeline littered with adverts, which often makes it hard to spot statuses and pictures from your friends and family. Vero seems set on going back to the more chronological way of doing things, where – instead of seeing content in a shuffled order decided by a robot – you simply see content in the order it was posted. Scrolling through a newsfeed with zero adverts and a chronological timeline does sound pretty refreshing, doesn’t it?

Vero is also heavily promoting a feature that lets you categorise your contacts. You can choose from labels like ‘close friend’ or ‘acquaintance’, and once you’ve labeled everyone up, you can use these categories to alter your own output: you can post a status exclusively to your close friends, for example. (Don’t forget, though, that Facebook came up with friend labels first.)

What is bad about it?

At the time of writing, the Vero servers are struggling to keep up with the huge number of people trying to gain access due to the sudden hype. Attempts to sign up are often met with server error messages, and things aren’t that much better for people who have managed to get inside the app. Errors are popping up all over the place, and connections keep cutting out. The Vero team is working to boost their server power and debug the app, but negative reviews are already piling up on Vero’s App Store page.

You could also argue that the idea of introducing a payment plan on Vero is a negative feature. Facebook has often bragged about its ‘free forever’ mantra, after all, and nobody likes parting with cash unnecessarily. However, a social media platform with a paywall could have some big benefits: for example, making a platform exclusively for paying customers could lead to a lower number of fake accounts, spam messages, and white noise.

How do I get it?

Since Vero doesn’t have a desktop interface, you’ll need to pick up your smartphone if you want to try it out. Under the name ‘Vero – True Social’, you’ll find this hot app by searching on the App Store for Apple iPhones or Google Play for Android devices. If you do try Vero out, please feel free to let us know your thoughts in the comments below…