Vero – True Social: a closer look at the hyped-up network

But what is 'Vero – True Social'? What makes this social network different from big names such as Facebook and Instagram? Is the hype justified, or is Vero likely to fade into oblivious soon? We explain how Vero – True Social works, and crit­ic­ally analyse the app from several per­spect­ives in our review. Re­gard­less of whether you’re already banking on Vero being the new social media star or whether you think the app is just a flash in the pan: it’s worth taking a closer look at its features and in­nov­a­tions. But keep in mind that there is also some con­tro­versy sur­round­ing Vero.

Vero is a social network that users reach via the Vero – True Social app. The app is available for Android and iOS – a web or desktop ap­plic­a­tion is not currently being worked on. Vero was released in August 2015 in beta version 1.0 (which is still the current version). As of March 2018, it is still free of charge. However, according to the operator himself, a monthly sub­scrip­tion charge is planned to finance Vero. Unlike Facebook and Instagram, Vero doesn’t have any ad­vert­ise­ments on its timeline. This is the main dif­fer­ence between this app and other social media platforms – and is Vero’s unique selling point. Although this means that the company, Vero Labs, has to manage without ad­vert­ising revenues.

Ayman Hariri is the mas­ter­mind behind the de­vel­op­ing company, Vero Labs, Inc. The founder is the billion-dollar son of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri. Vero’s public per­cep­tion and judgment is therefore closely linked to the repu­ta­tion of the Hariri family. And unlike many other modern start-ups with inspiring success stories, Vero doesn’t ne­ces­sar­ily have a sym­path­et­ic founder behind it. Many believe that the hype around Vero has been ex­ag­ger­ated and the founder has pushed the app forwards using his billions.

The interface is also easy to operate. The functions are clearly arranged and should be familiar to those who use other social networks. From a func­tion­al point of view, Vero hasn’t attempted anything new. Instead, the concepts and functions, which have proven to work well in other social networks, have been im­ple­men­ted here too. The principle “The user comes first!” applies with Vero. User-friend­li­ness takes priority over op­tim­isa­tion for the benefit of ad­vert­isers. The principle of cat­egor­isa­tion is also in­ter­est­ing. Vero collects posts for the user and cat­egor­ises them into so-called “col­lec­tions” according to the medium (e.g. photo, video, song, image, or link). Text-only posts are usually not possible, since each pub­lic­a­tion usually contains a link, song, or something similar. This keeps the feed colourful and full of media. The only ex­cep­tions are comments on other posts, which may be text-only. This mul­ti­me­dia approach is modern and promising. With Vero, you have the pos­sib­il­ity of adding contacts as “close friends,” “friends” or “ac­quaint­ances.” You can chat with friends, but this isn’t possible with ac­quaint­ances. Therefore, this works as a useful filter, even though the dif­fer­ence between “friends” and “close friends” could lead to some problems. This is def­in­itely a plus point for the social network. Vero also has the principle of “followers” like on Twitter. You can follow public people, groups, or companies and their posts will then appear in your feed. Similar to Facebook’s “like page” feature, you can then un­sub­scribe from them. Depending on whom you follow, it could mean that you get their ad­vert­ising in your feed. Unlike Facebook, however, you will only receive ad­vert­ising from people that you vol­un­tar­ily follow. Vero will suggest products and people for you in the search function. This means that there is a kind of ad­vert­ising on Vero, and not just on the timeline.

Every hype on the internet is always ac­com­pan­ied by a counter-hype, and Vero is no exception: Negative reports have been shared via other social media platforms under the hashtag #de­letevero. This is because the company behind Vero has a dubious repu­ta­tion. In addition, the sudden rise of the network in February 2018 also resulted in some con­spir­acy theories: Many in­flu­en­cers are said to have been paid by Vero to hype up the app. After all, Vero has been around since August 2015, so why did it suddenly become so popular three years later? Many believe it’s because it was produced ar­ti­fi­cially and had a lot of money pumped into it.

Another point of criticism: Vero only works if the user enters their phone number. The app then sends a four-digit code to the user in order to activate the account. Referring to the com­pet­it­or, WhatsApp, Vero argues that they have this step to block out bots and keep the network free of ad­vert­ising programs. In theory, however, stopping bots could also be done by other means, without asking for the user’s phone number. Those wanting to register must therefore provide con­fid­en­tial in­form­a­tion in order to use Vero. The fact that Vero’s servers are located in England, and should therefore not be subject to EU data pro­tec­tion guidelines once Brexit has been im­ple­men­ted, doesn’t exactly help strengthen con­fid­ence in Vero’s data pro­tec­tion.

After the sudden increase of users, Vero has also had to contend with various server failures and per­form­ance problems. As a result, many users were tem­por­ar­ily unable to create an account. In our test, the code caused problems because the app rejected it. It only worked on the third attempt with the call-me function. Vero doesn’t seem to have got this problem under control yet. We ended up being called from a US number, which probably caused ad­di­tion­al costs.

In our test, the Vero app also proved to be a battery-drainer. Ten minutes of testing resulted in an energy loss of about 8%. This is a clear in­dic­a­tion that the app is consuming an enormous amount of resources. Mobile data volume is also likely to suffer from using Vero. The app relies on the user sharing media, so if these are uploaded using mobile data and not while connected to WiFi, this will use a lot of data volume. Users with small data packets and/or weak smart­phones won’t be that impressed with Vero, since it’s only really optimised for modern devices and powerful networks.

From a func­tion­al point of view, there is a sur­pris­ingly little to criticise about Vero. What is no­tice­able, however, is the absence of emojis. For some users, this could be ad­vant­age­ous if they want to escape the annoying sea of yellow faces. But the popular yellow emojis don’t fit the rather somber style of the app anyway. These missing emojis are more a question of taste rather than a criticism. When it comes to cat­egor­isa­tion, however, important cat­egor­ies such as video games and comics are also missing. Also, the fact that you can’t post without attaching some kind of media could be a downside for some users.

Much of the criticism is directly related at Vero’s founder, Ayman Hariri. The con­tro­ver­sies sur­round­ing his person have led to moral concerns among many critics as to whether his app should be used at all.

But what are the reasons for the negative attitude towards Hariri? On the one hand, the Lebanese bil­lion­aire was also the founder of the con­struc­tion company, Saudi Oger. This company went bankrupt in 2016 after thousands of employees hadn’t been paid for months.

Hariri is the son of notorious former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri, who was as­sas­sin­ated in 2005 following numerous al­leg­a­tions of cor­rup­tion. Today, Ayman’s brother, Saad, occupies the prime minister’s office, while Ayman tries to stir up the social media sector with Vero. This history of the Hariri family is closely linked to cor­rup­tion and scandal – the inhuman treatment of their own employees still shapes this family’s repu­ta­tion today. Many online users refuse to give Vero a chance because they do not want to support the family and their practices. Mark Zuck­er­berg, CEO of Facebook, looks like a hero compared to Ayman Hariri.

A social network’s success is strongly dependent on its user base. If Vero continues to grow, the app could become a major player in social media. If users shun the app, Vero will disappear. This is exactly what has happened to some networks in the past: For example, ello and Mastodon. These both promised a new concept for social net­work­ing and set out to try and de-throne Facebook. They offered in­nov­at­ive features and great design ideas. Nev­er­the­less, both of them developed into niche products. This fate also threatens Vero if the influx of users di­min­ishes too quickly.

However, until recently, users had problems deleting their Vero accounts and could only do so by con­tact­ing e-mail support. The waiting time for account deletion varied. In the meantime, Vero has in­teg­rated a delete function and promises that the account will be deleted within 24 hours. This shows that the operator reacts quickly to criticism. At the end of the article, there are step-by-step in­struc­tions on how to delete your Vero account.

At the moment, people are quite divided when it comes to Vero. On the one hand, the app has a great design, is intuitive, and runs smoothly. The idea of an ad-free social network is at­tract­ive: After all, many users long for a network that differs from the es­tab­lished social media giants that are in­creas­ingly de­vel­op­ing into gigantic ad­vert­ising platforms. Vero takes a different path, which is worth­while noticing. The question is: Is an ad-free platform worth paying a monthly sub­scrip­tion for?

On the other hand, the numerous con­tro­ver­sies can’t just be ignored: If you decide to use Vero, you’re sup­port­ing the founder, Ayman Hariri, and his family, which have a history of cor­rup­tion. Many therefore decide against Vero for moral reasons. Data pro­tec­tion is also an important issue when choosing digital products today. As long as Vero continues col­lect­ing phone numbers for unbeknown reasons, alarm bells are going to keep ringing for those worried about data pro­tec­tion.

Regarding the technical side, Vero has room for im­prove­ment. The per­form­ance problems and con­tinu­ing server failures are poison for a “flour­ish­ing” social network. The fact that the Vero app eats up an enormous amount of resources will not impress users either. But the numerous “teething problems” are likely to be erad­ic­ated at regular intervals, since Vero reacts quickly to problems. The developer is quite un­der­stand­ing when there is justified criticism. So, there is hope that Vero will become an at­tract­ive app regarding its technical talents in the future.

Vero – True Social has lots of potential. But to get the most out of this, the de­velopers must act quickly before they lose the masses of new users again. Improving the technical side would def­in­itely be a step in the right direction to achieving this goal. However, the bad repu­ta­tion of founder Aymar Hariri and his family could stay with the brand and damage the network’s repu­ta­tion. In any case, it will be in­ter­est­ing to continue observing Vero’s de­vel­op­ment.

• Click on “Dashboard” via the top menu.
  
  
• Go to “Settings” in the bottom right.
  
  
• Now select the account you want to delete.
  
  
• If you scroll down, you will find the option “Delete Account.”
  
  
• A dialogue box opens in which you can confirm you def­in­itely want to make the deletion.
  
  
• Vero will log you out and you will no longer have access to the account.
  
  
• According to Vero, the account will be com­pletely deleted within the next 24 hours.