Latest news with #BeReal
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Photo-sharing app Locket is banking on a new celebrity-focused feature to fuel its growth
Locket, the photo-sharing app that allows users to share images with friends that are then displayed on their home screens as widgets, wants to stay on your radar, and it's enlisting the help of celebrities. Locket emerged as a competitor to BeReal when it launched in 2022, offering a more authentic way to connect with others. The app places a widget on iPhone home screens that updates with the latest pictures added by friends. Users can select up to 20 close friends, creating an intimate space to share unfiltered selfies and updates on their lives. The app claims to have over 80 million total downloads, more than 9 million daily active users, and its users have shared more than 10 billion photos to date. Notably, the company also shared with TechCrunch that it achieved profitability in 2024, a significant accomplishment given its relatively modest fundraising efforts of just $12.5 million. To drive additional growth, Locket has been quietly testing a feature called 'Celebrity Lockets' for the past six months, which the app officially announced on Wednesday. Celebrity Lockets mostly focuses on music artists, letting them engage with fans by sharing details about upcoming shows, new album releases, and other news. Locket has already tested this feature with Suki Waterhouse and JVKE, with more artists to be announced soon. To use the feature, celebrities can share a link on their social media platforms, or fans can look them up in the app to add them, and they can then send photos directly to their fans' home screens. 'With posts going straight to fans' home screens, it offers the kind of immediacy and intimacy that other platforms can't replicate, turning passive followers into active participants,' founder Matt Moss told TechCrunch. Locket allows artists to choose a number of fans to connect with, ranging from 1,000 to 15,000 slots. For instance, Suki has 5,000 fans on the app and has helped Locket attract hundreds of new members. According to the company, 17% of these 5,000 fans were new to Locket. 'Fans feel special knowing they're one of just a few thousand rather than just another follower. This also preserves the same intimacy and brand of Locket as a product today … We knew our community used Locket to share music with their friends, so being able to also connect with their favorite artists is a natural evolution for the platform,' Moss said. Although Moss says the feedback from testers has been good, it's unclear whether this will help Locket grow its user numbers. BeReal tried something similar with a feature called 'RealPeople,' but the reception wasn't entirely positive, with some people saying that they preferred the anti-social media app as a way to escape from celebrities.
LeMonde
25-07-2025
- Health
- LeMonde
From Facebook games to a llama reminding you to drink water: The rise of 'streaks,' the rewards that keep you hooked
You are just one glass of water short of your daily hydration goal, and that evening, your phone pings: "Almost there! Just 4 oz left today." Once you've finished your last glass of water, you have to log it onto the Waterllama app or risk losing your streak – that is, the sequence of consecutive days when you reached your target. Apple Fitness, Duolingo, Snapchat, BeReal, Kindle and WeReward: The list of apps that track our streaks is growing, all aiming to bring us back every day – and to make us feel guilty if we miss a day. So when did we start placing so much importance on this constant stream of tiny rewards? The streak draws on two key ideas: reward daily engagement and punish irregularity. These were popularized by free-to-play games that spread across Facebook starting in 2007, funded by microtransactions, data resale and advertising. "The longer they keep you coming back, the more valuable data you provide to the developers," explained Julien Pillot, who holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Nice and specializes in video games. Winning over occasional users is thus crucial. Developers find inspiration from video game scoring systems that reward speed or the number of "kills," or when you find secret areas – features that "artificially maximize a game's lifespan," according to Pillot. They adapt this strategy to instantly hook new players: "The simplest and most effective way to get people to return regularly is to reward them just for logging in," Pillot said.
Fast Company
25-06-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
BeReal is back. Can it stick around this time?
Is it time to BeReal again? In 2022, the photo-sharing app surged in popularity, won Apple's 'App of the Year,' and even earned its own SNL skit. Once a day, at a random time, users were prompted to post a picture of whatever they were doing. With a 2-minute timer and one shot to make it count, the app's premise was to capture real moments in real time. But like most viral sensations, the novelty wore off. Downloads dropped, usage stagnated, and in 2023, the app was sold to French gaming company Voodoo for €500 million. Now, BeReal wants a second chance. At Cannes Lions this year, Managing Director Ben Moore shared the company's comeback plan. 'We have people that are committed to building the next big thing with BeReal,' Moore told Business Insider. 'We can make something that really answers the demands of Gen Z, who are sick and tired of the filters, of the lenses, of the social pressure of posting something that's not going to get them the level of views and likes they would want.' Moore claims the app still has around 40 million active users, mainly in Japan, France, and the U.S. In 2023, worldwide downloads totaled an estimated 31.5 million, which dropped 60% year-over-year to 12.7 million in 2024. According to Sensor Tower, year-to-date downloads are down 50% compared to last year. For its relaunch, BeReal is trying to win back users by investing in advertising, primarily on other apps owned by Voodoo Games. The team is also hoping to generate buzz through micro ambassadors on college campuses and by sponsoring parties where entry requires downloading the app. They are giving the app a facelift too, with new features like 'nearby,' which lets users discover others in their area, and suggestions for people who post similar kinds of pictures. 'We really want to bring back the social aspect of what social media was built for,' Moore said. But BeReal's magic wasn't in its features. It was in the cultural moment—a collective pause from the algorithm for a fleeting sense of connection (even if it was just a selfie at your desk four days in a row).
Business Insider
20-06-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
How BeReal plans to recapture its 2022 viral moment
BeReal, the buzziest app of 2022, is planning a comeback. Ben Moore, BeReal's managing director, told BI how the app plans to recapture its viral moment. This article is part of " CMO Insider," a series on marketing leadership and innovation. BeReal is plotting a comeback. In 2022, the app was the toast of the consumer tech world. It won "App of the Year" at Apple's App Store awards. SNL even featured the app in a skit, making fun of its signature "Time to BeReal" notification, which prompts users to quickly snap a photo with their phone's front and back-facing cameras. But it didn't take long for the hype to fade. Usage and downloads tapered off after its peak, and the app was sold to the French app and gaming company Voodoo Games for 500 million euros last summer. One year later, BeReal is preparing its comeback. Speaking to Business Insider at the Cannes Lions advertising festival in France, BeReal managing director Ben Moore said the app is adding new features and ramping up marketing as it looks to get lapsed users to return and find new ones. "We have people that are committed to building the next big thing with BeReal," Moore said. "We can make something that really answers the demands of Gen Z, who are sick and tired of the filters, of the lenses, of the social pressure of posting something that's not going to get them the level of views and likes they would want." Time to ReLaunch According to the market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, BeReal has amassed more than 126 million downloads since its launch in 2020. In the year-to-date, though, the app was downloaded about 4.5 million times globally, down 50% year-on-year and 7% versus the same period in 2023, "as heightened competition from legacy social media platforms and short-form video platforms has pressured adoption," said Abraham Yousef, senior insights analyst at Sensor Tower. Moore said the app currently has around 40 million active users, and that Japan, France, and the US are its biggest markets. BeReal is hoping to reignite interest in the app by investing in advertising, largely on other apps owned by Voodoo Games, and also through tactics like using micro ambassadors at college campuses, or sponsoring parties that require guests to download the app to gain entry. "We really want to bring back the social aspect of what social media was built for," Moore said. BeReal is also adding new features like "nearby," which lets people discover other users local to them. Another feature analyzes the photos users take to recommend other people who post similar kinds of pictures, such as of their dogs, travels, or cooking. Moore said BeReal, which introduced ads last year, also wants to prioritize ads on the app that look and feel more like users' own posts. Gareth Jones, chief growth officer of the creative agency Ralph, said BeReal's success would hinge on living up to the promise of its name and playing into the idea of being an antidote to modern social media. "We live in an age of asinine algorithms and addictive social garbage," Jones said. "If BeReal can bring an element of humanity back to the social media space, this will create more success than any amount of marketing."
New Statesman
28-04-2025
- Business
- New Statesman
Liz Truss's social media platform might work
Photo by Milo Chandler/Alamy Live News How does a social media platform go mainstream in the 2020s? For the last several years, tech companies have tried to launch supposedly cutting-edge platforms – ones they tell us will shake up our digital consumption – which have overwhelmingly, if not universally, failed. There was BeReal, the anti-Instagram that got you to take a picture of yourself and your surroundings at a randomly prompted moment, which burned out after brief popularity in 2022; Threads, Meta's Twitter alternative hoping to capitalise on Elon Musk backlash, has been more or less in freefall since it launched in 2023. The biggest failures, though, have come from apps pitching a dedicated political space, such as Parler, the now-shut down 'free speech' microblogging site, once nearly owned by Kanye West, and Truth Social, Donald Trump's own Twitter alternative built after he was banned from the platform in 2021, which is less of a social network than a Trump press release forum and lost over $400 million last year. This graveyard of failed apps has made new social platforms some of the riskiest, most guaranteed failures in tech. But recently things have begun to shift. Sites like BlueSky (a less hateful version of Twitter) and Rumble (a more hateful version of YouTube) are succeeding by offering something explicitly narrow: a place where getting to exist in a small political bubble is the USP. We are seeing a changing social media landscape where users are now seeking platforms promising the opposite kind of audience social media has traditionally sought to have: niche, dedicated markets rather than something akin to a digital, global town square. It is likely with this in mind that, last week, the former UK prime minister Liz Truss announced that she would be testing the popularity of niche: by launching her own free speech-focused social media site. Speaking at a cryptocurrency conference in Bedford, Truss said that 'the elite' had 'cut [me] off at the knees' when she became PM. 'What I'm now thinking is we need a media network to be able to communicate to people, to be able to have a grassroots movement that is actually really demanding change of our leaders,' she said, adding that she felt certain political topics were 'suppressed or promoted' by the media. 'This needs to be actively fought and what I am doing is establishing a new free speech network, which will be uncensored and uncancellable, to actually talk about the issues people don't want to talk about.' This is yet another attempt by Truss to enter the American political sphere, having spent the last few years trying desperately to align herself to Trump and the American right to no real avail. (She is of course also not the first UK political figure to launch their own social media platform: former health minister Matt Hancock created an app for his constituents called Matt Hancock MP in 2018, which has since shut down.) Whatever platform Truss is cooking up is not going to be the future of any faction's online diet, but it's wrong to think that fractured, politically-specific platforms can't work in 2025. Now, in our increasingly polarised political environment, actual echo chambers are beginning to look more appealing to consumers who are no longer looking to rub shoulders with every kind of person online. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Rather than to become the next TikTok, Instagram or even Twitter, tech companies are realising there's money to be made by courting smaller, ideologically-motivated audiences who are so committed to their politics – and certain political figures – that they will use and even pay for dedicated social media sites. Many of these sites, like Rumble, have even explicitly shifted their branding to appear more boutique, moving from describing themselves as a YouTube alternative to instead pitching themselves as a free speech vertical. Platforms no longer need to be the place where everyone is, but simply a place where you will instead only find specific people – and only those you already agree with. We may be at the start of a new era of social media defined by a fractured, mosaic landscape, where we are offered an enormous amount of content that validates our pre-existing beliefs. But it feels more likely that, whether or not we continue to have a few big platforms or a spread of tiny, specific ones, the era we are entering will be remembered as narrow; as reactionary. [See more: Nigel Farage's mayday alert] Related
