Rakuten Viber launches dating service for Ukraine: pre-registration is open
14 February 15:14
Rakuten Viber has opened pre-registration for Ukrainians for its new Viber Dating service. The launch of the service was announced on the company’s website, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
The company believes that Viber Dating will help Ukrainians meet real people online.
“All profiles in the dating service are linked to Viber profiles, and thus to phone numbers. To protect your privacy, phone numbers will be hidden in Viber Dating,” the company said.
The Viber Dating page explains that the dating feature is being launched gradually, and if a user is on the waiting list, they should receive a message from the Viber Dating bot when their turn comes. It is noted that “the preliminary launch of Viber Dating includes all the necessary features: creating a profile, viewing profiles, pairing, and chatting.” New features are planned to be added in the near future.
The company’s website also explains how to access Viber Dating.
To join the waiting list, the first step is to fill out a profile. To do this, users should
- go to the “More” menu,
- select Viber Dating Beta,
- click on the menu item and select “Join the waiting list.”
Prior to the launch in February, Viber conducted its own research to find out what problems Ukrainian women and men faced with dating apps. According to AIN, the survey results showed that almost half of the respondents (45%) consider false information in profiles to be a key problem, and a quarter of respondents (26%) consider fraud to be a problem. About 30 thousand people aged 34-45 took part in the survey on Rakuten Viber Ukraine (more than 50% of respondents under 45).
The company believes that these problems will not affect Viber Dating, as the profiles will be real, created by people who already have a Viber account. At the same time, the service will operate in compliance with all privacy and confidentiality requirements. It means that the dating profile will be separated from the main account, and users’ phone numbers will be hidden in Viber Dating.
What else is interesting about Viber
Rakuten Viber is a part of the Japanese company Rakuten and the most popular messenger in Ukraine. It is installed on 98% of smartphones. Tens of millions of Ukrainians send free text messages to each other on Viber, make video calls, communicate in group chats, and follow news updates.
The Rakuten Viber team is also fond of conducting various surveys. For example, they decided to find out how Ukrainians feel about remote work. The survey results showed that 24% of respondents prefer to work from home. Instead, 17% of respondents say they face difficulties working online.
Rakuten Viber also asked how much time users spend on their smartphones and how often they check news and messages in their channels. The survey found that 39% of Ukrainians spend 4-6 hours a day on their smartphones. Another third of respondents (35%) spend only 1-2 hours online, noting that they are busy with other things. 26% of respondents spend about 2-4 hours online during the day.
Rakuten Viber also decided to find out whether Ukrainians have sought psychological help over the past two years. The results of a survey conducted at the beginning of last year showed that only 9% of Ukrainians have sought psychological help: 6% said it helped them, while the remaining 3% did not feel any relief. Another 6% of respondents intend to seek help in the future. At the same time, the vast majority of respondents have not sought and do not plan to seek the services of specialists: 39% of them do not need it, and 11% said it was too expensive. 22% of Ukrainians coped with the emotional burden on their own, without involving specialists. The rest of the respondents (13%) do not believe in the benefits of such consultations in general.
In addition, Viber allows you to create your own stickers and pictures, rather than choosing from existing ones. You just need to go to a sticker store and use the “Create Stickers” service. There you can show all your ingenuity by creating an animated image using a huge number of tools.
