The age of the 90s online chat-room is back. A month after Facebook brought it back, Viber, a messaging application, has revealed a new feature called Public Chats.
“It allows people to interact in a new way, listening in on live discussions and staying up-to-date with exclusive content from the people and subjects that matter to them most,” said Viber chief executive officer Talmon Marco.
Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, YouTube personality Tyler Oakley, singer Pixie Lott and DJ Paul van Dyk are the first few celebrities who are on Public Chats, which is still in beta.
The local launch saw singer Amanda Imani and singer-songwriter Imran Ajmain setting up their own chat rooms, where fans could follow the conversation. Presently, fans cannot chat with them, unless invited.
Each Public Chat room has a limit of 100 participating users. However, Public Chats allows for an unlimited number of followers.
Besides the celebrities, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF Malaysia) also set up a chat room at the launch.
Viber chief marketing officer Mark Hardy said more features will be introduced in the coming weeks.
For users who are are interested in setting up their own Public Chats sessions, they can send an e-mail request to publicchats@viber.com. According to Hardy, the Public Chats registration will be opened up in the next few months after it goes out of beta stage.
Questioned on its product roadmap for the upcoming year, Hardy said that Viber will be introducing a game store very soon, while pointing out that it currently has 8.5 million users in Malaysia.
Released in 2010, Viber currently has 608 million registered users in 193 countries worldwide.
Viber is now part of Rakuten Group and is available on most major desktop and mobile platforms.
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