APPAR
Messaging social network IRL hits unicorn status with SoftBank-led $170M Series C
Social calendar app IRL has been busy building a messaging-based social network, or what founder and CEO Abraham Shafi calls a “WeChat of the West.” Following its pandemic-fueled growth och further push into the social networking space with group chat and other features, IRL is today announcing a sizable $170 million Series C growth round, led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2. The fundraise also mints IRL as a new unicorn with a $1.17 billion valuation.
Besides SoftBank, new investor Dragoneer also participated in the oversubscribed round, alongside returning investors Goodwater Capital, Founders Fund and Floodgate. To date, IRL has raised over $200 million.
The startup began its life as a tool for discovering real-world events — an industry that went to zero almost overnight due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That could have been the end for IRL, but the startup quickly pivoted to prioritize discovery of online events instead. Under COVID lockdowns, users could turn to the app to find things like livestreamed concerts, esports events, Zoom parties and more.
Bildkrediter: IRL
IRL focused on pulling in popular online events from places like Live Nation, Twitch, YouTube, TikTok and others.
As a result, IRL became more accessible because its audience was no longer limited only to those who had time and money to travel to real-world events.
That focus also helped the app to attract a crowd of younger users who are of the generation that doesn’t use Facebook.
“They essentially use Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok,” explains Shafi. “But there is no groups and events product for that generation,” he points out.
Earlier this year, the company doubled down on its social networking features with the launch of a new site that added things like user profiles, support for group chats, the ability to join group events, personalized recommendations and more. As users could now network with friends across both web and mobile, IRL began to feel more like a social network, not just an event-discovery engine.
Bildkrediter: IRL
Today, IRL has 20 million users and 12 million who use the app monthly, which are not startling numbers in comparison to major social networks and their billions of users. But the numbers are representative of a steady approach that helped IRL grow 400% over the past 15 months, despite COVID’s impact to real-world events.
But as of recently, things are starting to change. In-person events are starting to return. California, the home state for San Francisco-based IRL, is today re-opening, for example. That opens up IRL to once again focus on connecting people not just online, but also “in real life,” as its name implies.
That could mean helping people better connect around events with not just their own friend group, as is often the case today, but helping them discover new groups in their local area or on campus. The company is even planning to use a portion of its fundraise to help fuel the new events economy by allocating a certain amount of money per city that will go toward helping people put on real-world events. The exact details are still being worked out, Shafi says, but says the idea is that IRL wants to help “bring culture back in cities that are opening up again.”
IRL also plans to expand its international footprint by finding ways to bring in non-U.S. users to its platform — possibly beginning with the events focused on watching the Olympics. (If the Games are not again delayed or canceled due to a COVID surge.)
Shafi says IRL hadn’t been planning to fundraise, but they decided to take the meetings when they were approached.
“The philosophy is not to raise when you have to, but to raise when it makes sense. And we were scaling like crazy to the point where our servers were melting. It made sense to take those discussions very seriously when they came to us,” he says.
The addition of SoftBank and Dragoneer brings some expertise in scaling large social networks to the IRL team. SoftBank’s other notable social networking investment is with TikTok owner’s Bytedance, while Dragoneer has backed Snap. IRL has already has a close relationship with TikTok as it’s worked with the video app to pull in interesting events for discovery. It more recently integrated with TikTok’s new “Login Kit,” too, allowing TikTok users to authenticate with IRL using their TikTok credentials.
Now, IRL plans to add an even deeper TikTok integration — something that caught SoftBank’s attention.
Shafi is cagey on the details, but says more will be announced in the “coming weeks.”
“But what I can say is that we’ve seen a ton of growth of TikTok users linking to IRL group chats and IRL events through their TikTok profiles as a way to communicate and go deeper in relationships,” he says. “If you think about it, right now Instagram has really great messaging…whereas TikTok is still developing that,” he hints.
Bildkrediter: IRL
Beyond its value to growing social networks for the younger, Facebook-less generation, IRL is thinking about how to build a profitable business without ad revenue. On this front, it sees potential in helping people connect through paid events — although these wouldn’t have to be influencer-driven as on other platforms. In fact, when IRL recently piloted paid group chats, users were willing to pay for access to things like a calc homework help group, for example.
IRL also sees demand for tools that help groups and clubs collect membership dues and other fees, as well as for events that are too small for Ticketmaster or Eventbrite.
“Whether we succeed or fail will be based on our ability to execute on our opportunity,” says Shafi, adding that most social networks today are focused on media more so than helping users make connections. “What we’re building isn’t the media part of social, it’s the real human interaction part of social, because that hasn’t been paid attention to as much.”
“We’re building a messaging social network,” he continues, comparing it to the biggest messaging social network in the world, WeChat. “The big vision that we’re going for is building the WeChat of the West — a messaging super social network. And it starts with people organizing groups and doing things together,” he says.
With the additional funding, IRL will invest in product growth, international expansion and its Creator and Culture Fund, and will grow its now 25-person remotely distributed team to 100 by year-end.
“People are increasingly seeking more in-person social connections and are looking to share meaningful experiences together. As an innovative event-based social network, IRL sits at the intersection of group and event discovery, social calendaring, and group messaging, enabling people to do more together,” added Serena Dayal, director at SoftBank Investment Advisers, in a statement about its investment. “We are excited to partner with Abraham and the IRL team to support their ambition of helping everyone deepen their connections to friends and family.”
APPAR
Best ASO Tips To Boost Your App Search In 2022
You need your application to be really effective in the overpopulated application market. Then, at that point, you will have to drive downloads to endure. So when it’s all said and done, you must account for yourself. Get your application the consideration it merits.
The uplifting news, however, is that customers love to download applications – last year, we downloaded in excess of 200 billion applications around the world, and that figure is set to increment to 258 billion every year by 2022 as cell phone reception increments.
Assuming you need to be seen and have your application downloaded by however many clients as could reasonably be expected, then, at that point, you should begin by taking a gander at the application store.
Underneath, we’ve assembled probably the best application store improvement methods to assist you with creating more downloads in 2021 and then some…
Start with Your Application Name
The odds are you as of now have an extraordinary name for your application, yet an appropriately advanced application is about significantly more than marking.
Assuming you need to amplify transparency and guarantee you’re showing up when clients look for applications like yours, you ought to remember the primary keywords for your application name or title, comparable to how you’d make a title label while improving a site page.
You could begin with your application name so it tends to be plainly recognized, thus it appears on the home screen of gadgets.
Then, at that point, you can add a scramble or vertical bar prior to adding a few pertinent watchwords to your speciality, or even put your application name in quotes as we did with FORE Business Golf Networking.
Urge Users to Leave Reviews
You could ask for reviews by clients through the means of your site, or through an in-application notice toward the finish of their meeting, yet make sure to restrict the number of pop-ups you execute with the goal that you don’t disturb or disappoint your clients, as this could urge them to erase your application.
We’d support all application engineers and entrepreneurs to react to criticism on their applications, as this can further develop client relations and resolve issues in an open arena.
Zero in on Your Application Depiction
Your application depiction is your principle assemblage of text your landing page content, in a manner of speaking. Utilize a site like KeywordTool.io to discover information on your picked catchphrases to expand your openness. As portrayals are shortened, ensure you remember the main data for the initial three lines of your depiction, and afterwards add things like social confirmation, emoticon, and suggestions to take action to build commitment and downloads.
Incorporate Appealings Screen Captures
Pictures and recordings won’t help your application rank, yet they will expand changes and assist clients with working out whether it’s an application they truly need.
There’s a little guide in empowering clients toward downloading your application if in any case, they’re not going to interface with it, or download and leave a negative survey when they understand it wasn’t what was promoted.
Assuming you need to ‘tart up’ your item page, then, at that point, you can add marking and extra text and data and designs to your recordings and screen capture, yet they ought not to diminish your item.
Pay for App Store or Play Store
As we have SEO and pay-per-click, you need to work one next to the other (one is a gradual methodology with long haul benefits – the other is a speedy success yet requires an endless spending plan), application store promotions can be utilized to get the message out with regards to your new programming and assist you with positioning at the highest point of query items pages – in front of your opposition and enormous names in the application world.
Keep in mind, you’ll need to focus on the right crowd and art an advertisement that will assist you with changing over and that since you’re paying for situations, that doesn’t mean clients will download or cooperate with your application.
Wrapping Up!
You can employ a group of App Store Optimization Services suppliers to benefit a scope of application store improvement administrations, including watchword advancement, resource enhancement, and restriction to guarantee your application is seen by individuals that matter.
We have long periods of involvement in creating and showcasing applications and have assisted different customers with expanding their downloads by infiltrating rewarding and regularly undiscovered business sectors.
Författare:
Prachi Gupta likes to write information about Digital Marketing Trends that can help audience to grow their business.
APPAR
WhatsApp will finally let users encrypt their chat backups in the cloud
WhatsApp said on Friday it will give its two billion users the option to encrypt their chat backups to the cloud, taking a significant step to put a lid on one of the tricky ways private communication between individuals on the app can be compromised.
The Facebook-owned service has end-to-end encrypted chats between users for more than a decade. But users have had no option but to store their chat backup to their cloud — iCloud on iPhones and Google Drive on Android — in an unencrypted format.
Tapping these unencrypted WhatsApp chat backups on Google and Apple servers is one of the widely known ways law enforcement agencies across the globe have for years been able to access WhatsApp chats of suspect individuals.
Now WhatsApp says it is patching this weak link in the system.
“WhatsApp is the first global messaging service at this scale to offer end-to-end encrypted messaging and backups, and getting there was a really hard technical challenge that required an entirely new framework for key storage and cloud storage across operating systems,” said Facebook’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in a post announcing the new feature.
Store your own encryption keys
The company said it has devised a system to enable WhatsApp users on Android and iOS to lock their chat backups with encryption keys. WhatsApp says it will offer users two ways to encrypt their cloud backups, and the feature is optional.
In the “coming weeks,” users on WhatsApp will see an option to generate a 64-digit encryption key to lock their chat backups in the cloud. Users can store the encryption key offline or in a password manager of their choice, or they can create a password that backs up their encryption key in a cloud-based “backup key vault” that WhatsApp has developed. The cloud-stored encryption key can’t be used without the user’s password, which isn’t known by WhatsApp.
Bildkrediter: WhatsApp/supplied
“We know that some will prefer the 64-digit encryption key whereas others want something they can easily remember, so we will be including both options. Once a user sets their backup password, it is not known to us. They can reset it on their original device if they forget it,” WhatsApp said.
“For the 64-digit key, we will notify users multiple times when they sign up for end-to-end encrypted backups that if they lose their 64-digit key, we will not be able to restore their backup and that they should write it down. Before the setup is complete, we’ll ask users to affirm that they’ve saved their password or 64-digit encryption key.”
A WhatsApp spokesperson told TechCrunch that once an encrypted backup is created, previous copies of the backup will be deleted. “This will happen automatically and there is no action that a user will need to take,” the spokesperson added.
Potential regulatory pushback?
The move to introduce this added layer of privacy is significant and one that could have far-reaching implications.
End-to-end encryption remains a thorny topic of discussion as governments continue to lobby for backdoors. Apple was reportedly pressured to not add encryption to iCloud Backups after the FBI complained, and while Google has offered users the ability to encrypt their data stored in Google Drive, the company allegedly didn’t tell governments before it rolled out the feature.
When asked by TechCrunch whether WhatsApp, or its parent firm Facebook, had consulted with government bodies — or if it had received their support — during the development process of this feature, the company declined to discuss any such conversations.
“People’s messages are deeply personal and as we live more of our lives online, we believe companies should enhance the security they provide their users. By releasing this feature, we are providing our users with the option to add this additional layer of security for their backups if they’d like to, and we’re excited to give our users a meaningful advancement in the safety of their personal messages,” the company told TechCrunch.
WhatsApp also confirmed that it will be rolling out this optional feature in every market where its app is operational. It’s not uncommon for companies to withhold privacy features for legal and regulatory reasons. Apple’s upcoming encrypted browsing feature, for instance, won’t be made available to users in certain authoritarian regimes, such as China, Belarus, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Uganda and the Philippines.
At any rate, Friday’s announcement comes days after ProPublica reported that private end-to-end encrypted conversations between two users can be read by human contractors when messages are reported by users.
“Making backups fully encrypted is really hard and it’s particularly hard to make it reliable and simple enough for people to use. No other messaging service at this scale has done this and provided this level of security for people’s messages,” Uzma Barlaskar, product lead for privacy at WhatsApp, told TechCrunch.
“We’ve been working on this problem for many years, and to build this, we had to develop an entirely new framework for key storage and cloud storage that can be used across the world’s largest operating systems and that took time.”
APPAR
Dispo launches a test to gauge user interest in selling their photos as NFTs
Dispo, the photo-sharing app that emulates disposable cameras, started rolling out a test yesterday that will record user interest in selling photos as NFTs. Vissa användare kommer nu att se en säljknapp på sina bilder, och när de trycker på den kan de registrera sig för att få ett meddelande när möjligheten att sälja Dispo-foton lanseras.
VD och medgrundare Daniel Liss berättade för TechCrunch att Dispo fortfarande bestämmer hur det ska införliva NFT-försäljning i appen, vilket är anledningen till att plattformen testar ett test med sina användare. Dispo vet ännu inte vilken blockchain den skulle använda, om den skulle samarbeta med en NFT-marknad eller vilken försäljningsminskning Dispo skulle ta.
"Jag tror att det är säkert att säga från testet att det kommer att finnas en upplevelse hemma i Dispo-appen," sa Liss. "Det finns ett antal sätt det skulle kunna se ut - det kan finnas en inbyggd upplevelse inom Dispo som sedan ansluter genom ett API till en annan plattform, och i sin tur är de vår partner, men för samhället skulle det se inbyggt ut för Dispo-appen.”
Bildkrediter: Dispo
Detta markerar en ny riktning för appen för sociala medier, som försöker omdefiniera fotodelningsupplevelsen genom att endast låta användare se bilderna de tog klockan 9 nästa morgon. Ur Dispos perspektiv hjälper denna gimmick användare att dela mer autentiskt, eftersom du tar ett foto och sedan är du klar — appen är inte gynnsam för att ta dussintals selfies och lägga upp den "bästa" bilden av dig själv. Men även om det bara lanserades i december 2019, har Dispo redan mött båda livlig hype och förödande kontrovers.
Tills för ungefär ett år sedan hette appen David's Disposables, uppkallad efter medgrundaren och YouTubern David Dobrik. Appen laddades ner över en miljon gånger under den första veckan efter lanseringen och hamnade på första plats på App Store-listorna. I mars 2021 tappade appen sin väntelista och återlanserades med sociala nätverksfunktioner, men bara veckor senare rapporterade Insider anklagelser om sexuella övergrepp mot en medlem i Vlog Squad, Dobriks YouTube-upptågsensemble. Som svar, Spark Capital avskurna banden med företaget, vilket ledde till Dobriks avgång. Andra investerare som Seven Seven Six och Unshackled Ventures, som bidrog till företagets $20 miljoner Series A-runda, meddelade att de skulle skänka eventuell vinst från sina investeringar i Dispo till organisationer som arbetar med överlevande efter sexuella övergrepp.
Liss berättade för TechCrunch i juni, när företaget bekräftade sin serie A, att Dobriks roll i företaget var som marknadspartner — Liss har varit vd sedan starten. I ljuset av kontroversen sa Liss att appen fokuserade på att förbättra själva produkten och tog ett steg tillbaka från marknadsföring.
Enligt data från appanalysföretaget SensorTower har Dispo nått uppskattningsvis 4,7 miljoner globala installationer hittills sedan lanseringen. Även om appen fick flest nedladdningar i januari 2020, när den installerades över 1 miljon gånger, kom appens näst bästa månad i mars 2021, då den tog bort sin väntelista - den månaden laddade cirka 616 000 personer ner Dispo. Mellan mars och slutet av augusti laddades appen ner cirka 1,4 miljoner gånger, vilket är en ökning med 118% år över år jämfört med samma tidsram 2020 — men det bör förväntas att årets siffror skulle vara högre, sedan förra året, appens medlemskap var exklusivt.
Bildkrediter: Dispo
Nu, med tillkännagivandet att Dispo driver NFTs, hoppas Liss att hans företag inte bara kommer att förändra hur folk lägger upp bilder, utan hur relationen kommer att vara mellan plattformar och innehållet som användarna skapar.
"Varför NFTs? De mest kraftfulla minnen av våra liv har värde. Och de har ekonomiskt värde, eftersom vi skapade dem, och sociala mediers förflutna misslyckas med att inse det, säger Liss till TechCrunch. "Som ett resultat är det enda sättet som en kreatör med ett stort antal följare kompenseras genom att sälja direkt till ett varumärke, i motsats till att tjäna på själva innehållet."
Att lägga till NFT-försäljning i appen erbjuder Dispo ett sätt att dra nytta av en nedskärning av användarförsäljningen, men det kan ifrågasättas hur ett tillägg av NFT-försäljning kan påverka den gemenskapsfokuserade känslan av Dispo.
"Jag tror att det finns en enorm nyfikenhet och intresse," sa Liss. "Men dessa problem och frågor är varför vi behöver mer data."
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