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While messaging app watchers are waiting for Snap Inc. to announce<\/a> its IPO, another app\u00a0has appointed a new CEO. Viber<\/a> \u2014 the messaging app that was acquired by Rakuten in 2014<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 has announced Djamel Agaoua as\u00a0its new CEO.<\/p>\n This is significant because Viber \u2014 which has had a promising\u00a0800 million downloads but has seen active user growth\u00a0stall as others\u00a0like Facebook\u2019s WhatsApp and Messenger have\u00a0gained ground \u2014 has effectively been operating without a permanent CEO since co-founder Talmon Marco formally stepped away from the role\u00a0in 2015. (Marco now is working on Juno<\/a>, a new ridesharing startup.)<\/p>\n Agaoua has\u00a0already started the job and will be dividing his time between the Bay Area \u2014 because Viber wants to rekindle\u00a0its bid to grow in the U.S. \u2014 and Tel Aviv, where Viber is based.<\/p>\n Agaoua is an interesting pick to lead the company for a couple of reasons.<\/p>\n First, he comes from the world of mobile ad tech and had been the CEO of performance advertising specialist MobPartner, which was acquired by Cheetah Mobile<\/a> in 2015 as part of the latter company\u2019s strategy to move deeper into mobile ads. He stayed on at Cheetah until moving to Viber.<\/p>\n So does his appointment signal a deeper move into mobile ads for Viber?<\/p>\n Viber already has\u00a0a certain amount of advertising<\/a> in the form of sponsored stickers and other features (also labelled as sponsored) \u2014 which is somewhat in contrast to others like WhatsApp, which originally eschewed<\/a> paid promotions of any kind, but has, under new owner (and digital advertising giant) Facebook, started to controversially<\/a> explore this area<\/a>, too.<\/p>\n It sounds like there will be more on Viber moving forward, albeit\u00a0with some sensitivity.<\/p>\n \u201cI will of course draw upon my previous experiences as I lead Viber, and I know more than anyone that advertising can be very intrusive,\u201d Agaoua\u00a0told TechCrunch.<\/p>\n \u201cViber users want their private conversations to be respected and they will remain private. It is highly important for our users, it is highly important for Viber. But we want to bring more value to our users in allowing them to access external services within Viber. There are ways to promote product and services to our users that can be inclusive, and not intrusive. A promotion can be valuable to a user if it comes at the right moment in the right place. And this place can not be in the middle of a private conversation. We will present new features to illustrate our ideas in a very near future.\u201d<\/p>\n The other area where Agaoua\u2019s appointment is interesting is in what it might mean for another kind of growth at Viber \u2014 user growth.<\/p>\n The company has not updated its active downloads number of 800 million in months, and nor has it given a recent update on\u00a0just how many of them are active beyond \u201caround 260 million\u201d (a figure from last year<\/a>). Some might infer that as a sign\u00a0of the numbers being less than impressive.<\/p>\nAgaoua admits that Viber took its eye off the ball with its growth in the U.S. for a while, conceding that crucial, large market to other messaging companies not just like Facebook but newer players like Snapchat, who have completely shifted\u00a0the idea and purpose behind messaging altogether. (And that\u2019s also considering\u00a0the fact that the other gigantic single market globally, China, is dominated by WeChat.)<\/p>\n \u201cObviously after the acquisition,\u00a0there was a shift of focus,\u201d he said. \u201cViber and Rakuten\u00a0decided to focus on places where Viber\u00a0was already extremely strong like Europe and Asia and we didn\u2019t really pursue the U.S. I don\u2019t think that was the right decision. The usage level was not where\u00a0it should be.\u201d<\/p>\n He now said that the company will \u201cinvest more and increase our\u00a0resources in the U.S.,\u201d with the support of Rakuten, which also \u201cdecided to shift up.\u201d<\/p>\n This will mean not just hiring more, but also potentially more MA to pick up new features for Viber, if not new users by way of buying other messaging apps, he said. \u201cThere are not a lot of acquisitions left to make in this space,\u201d he said of buying or combining with other messaging rivals.<\/p>\n While\u00a0Viber has recently been building out features\u00a0like snappier video messaging<\/a>, messaging\u00a0encryption<\/a>, chat bots <\/a>and business accounts<\/a>, one area where it has been surprisingly inactive is in e-commerce.<\/p>\n I say surprising\u00a0because Rakutuen, its owner, is known as the \u201cAmazon of Japan\u201d and has been very keen to expand its presence in the U.S. and beyond, buying companies like Ebates, taking stakes in startups like Pinterest and making big moves into digital content with Kobo and more.<\/p>\n It sounds like under Agaoua, Viber\u2019s role in that bigger strategy may also finally start to take shape.<\/p>\n \u201cI would imagine Viber will\u00a0become a platform for e-commerce and other services,\u201d he said. To make it different from what is already out there \u2014 you can, for example, already buy goods on Messenger \u2014 he said that Viber is likely to tap into other features already in its messaging app, \u201cintegrating video and other specific features.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Featured Image: viber<\/small><\/p>\n Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/xeo87PV131U\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While messaging app watchers are waiting for Snap Inc. to announce its IPO, another app\u00a0has appointed a new CEO. Viber \u2014 the messaging app that was acquired by Rakuten in <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-3254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t