Gen Z’s favorite social app BeReal suffered a lengthy outage today, which the company only acknowledged was a brief — and fairly vague — one. TweetReferring to: “Yeah, we’re on it.” In recent months, the Paris-based app maker has seen its photo-sharing service rise to the top of the App Store, sometimes knocking off competitors like Facebook, Instagram and even TikTok from the number one spot. But the company has also developed a reputation for not being very communicative — a pattern that extends to its own users, it seems.
To date, the startup has not officially offered an on-the-record interview with the press, though it is willing to meet with a few for off-the-record briefings. (Or apparently, in the background if you are financial bar.)
This dilemma of communication goes beyond the media. Today, when BeReal faced a lengthy outage — which spanned multiple hours and frustrated its users who could no longer upload photos — the company had nothing to say.
Meanwhile, loyal users have asked the account’s Twitter replies for more information while others have posted the hashtag #BeRealDown with their complaints. Many just wanted to know if the issues they were experiencing with the app were affecting others. They had no information.
Reached for comment, BeReal declined to answer several questions related to the outage, including what caused it, how widespread it was and whether the company had any idea when it would be resolved.
Understandably, its team may struggle to address technical issues before answering these inquiries. But when the outage was resolved a few hours later, we were only instructed This tweet Which said: “All is well now.”
This lack of transparency for a company that simultaneously pushes its millions of user bases to be “real” with each other begins to wear thin.
At this point, we have to wonder how such a company would react if there were more serious problems affecting its platform. What if BeReal experiences a data breach or hack? What if the bad actors are somehow involved with the platform – will Birial have a say?
The company can’t pretend it’s a small, indie app maker. it is Series A raised $30 millionOne led by Andreessen Horowitz and Assel Series B from DST GlobalInitial assessment, pre finance At $600+ million, the report said. in the app About 46 million installs have been seen, according to Sensor Tower data. It’s still the No. 3 app on the non-game chart in the US iPhone App Store today – temporarily losing its top spot to widget-making apps after the launch of iOS 16. It plans to monetize subscriptions soon.
While press-avoiding may be a strategy BeReal is employing for now, being out of touch with its own users seems like a mistake. BeReal has grown, but it still can’t count on its continued success.
After all, young people are nothing if not restless when it comes to trying and abandoning new social experiences. And TikTok completely cloned the BeReal format, as did Instagram and Snapchat to some extent. If BeReal wants to be seen as a company and not just a feature to copy, it’s time to act like one.
