Igor Magazinik: “We are developers, not politicians, so we don’t make empty promises”
Viber is one of the most successful applications of our time for communication through correspondence and voice communication. Who invented Viber? Work on the program has begun Talmon Marco And Igor Magazinik
in 2010, while on the territory of Belarus. It was decided to make the client’s primary audience iPhone owners, so the application first appeared in the AppStore, the official Apple market.
Within a month, more than 30 thousand people tried the service. The program gained enormous popularity by leaps and bounds, and already in the second month more than 2 million users became Viber users. After 2 years, the client version for devices on Android based. And after another 2 years, the developers sold the application for a modest $900 million. Compared to the $19 billion that Facebook paid for Whatsapp, this deal doesn't seem like a really good deal. However, those who invented Viber know better.
Currently, all rights to the messenger belong to the Japanese company Rekuten. main office which is located somewhere on the coast of sultry Cyprus. Promoting an application today does not require additional efforts and financial support, since average service downloads per day is represented as a number with four zeros. What is the reason for such popularity?
Advantages of Viber messenger
Active Internet users have long been accustomed to the possibility of making free calls. It was launched back in 2003 Skype program, which is still popular today. However, those who have already tried Viber and compared it with the pioneering service do not have very favorable reviews of Skype. Criticism applies to both individuals functional features service and program in the unity of software components. The most common problem among the masses is dissatisfaction with the quality of communication. It is in this aspect that Viber is significantly superior to its older competitor.
It is thanks to the excellent quality of communication that the number of downloads of the messenger is growing exponentially. Currently, the service is actively used by more than 300 million users, despite the fact that Viber’s functionality differs from Skype.
Features of the popular messenger:
- Traditional correspondence;
- Making single and group calls;
- Exchange of photos, sound and video recordings;
- Sending stickers;
- Creation of animations;
- Participation in games;
- Inviting users.
The channels that Viber allows you to use are more than enough to communicate with family, friends and work colleagues. However, it should be noted that there is no possibility of video communication with the interlocutor. Authoritative experts confidently predict that as soon as it is released Viber version, which will allow you to make video calls, Skype will lose a significant part of its target audience.
Why has the Japanese company Rekuten not yet prepared a global upgrade for the messenger? If you trace the development of Viber over the past six years, a trend towards detailed study user problems and their high-quality solutions.
In fact, an order could be sent from the company's management office to the development staff to make a version with support for video communication as soon as possible. The employees would cope with this task and the world would see the long-awaited Viber with video communication capabilities, but would it be high-quality work? Probably not.
It should be assumed that work on creating a fundamentally new application is in full swing, but for those who developed Viber messenger, it is important that the final product meets all user expectations, including excellent quality communications.
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Igor Magazinik, CTO at Viber Media, BSc Computer Science, MBA, in free time loves listening to music and reading books, and also enjoys skiing and scuba diving. He doesn’t want to achieve anything in life on purpose, because he believes that the most important thing is the process itself.
Addendum to the topic: Due to dissatisfaction with the quality of the application and as part of a scheduled update, Skype recently lost its client application for Android.
Update: afterword to the interview
Popular VoIP calling service and instant messages Viber to the Japanese Internet conglomerate Rakuten for $900 million. This is the largest acquisition of Rakuten, which plans to become the world's largest provider of Internet services.
Separately, I would like to note that this interview was taken in the summer of 2013, when nothing was known about this deal yet, and Viber was at the very peak of its popularity. (), taken from Igor Magazinik immediately after the purchase of Viber.
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I am sure that almost every user reading this material has used such an entertaining program as Viber. Well, those who have not yet managed to download it to their mobile device or a computer, you've probably heard about this application. Indeed, Viber has been on the lips of many for several years now, and in just a couple of months of its existence, the program has captivated a huge number of users with its simplicity and functionality, so today many simply cannot imagine their life without it.
The main advantage of the application is that it is absolutely free. By installing the program on your device, you can communicate with anyone, exchange files, even call. I think you will be interested to know who came up with this program, where it came from, and, finally, “viber” or “viber”, how to pronounce “viber” correctly?
Who and where invented Viber?
So, we have to small excursion into history. The program was developed by two Belarusians - Talmon Marko and Igor Magazinik back in 2010. The fact is that in those years Talmon Marco worked in Asia, and he had to endure imperfections in order to communicate with his family. In addition, due to expensive roaming, he could not often call his family and friends. As a result, the Viber messenger arose.
The history of the origin of such a name is less interesting; in a nutshell, the guys simply took advantage of the unoccupied domain that was offered to them mutual friend. Well, as you probably know, domain names are written exclusively in English, so it would be impossible to somehow remake the existing names. The word “Viber” has no translation from English, but there is such a word in the Danish lexicon, and it means a “siskin” bird that chirps almost incessantly.
How to pronounce Viber correctly?
Disputes often arise among users regarding how to correctly pronounce the name of the program: Viber or Viber? We have already found out above that the word is English, which means that when pronouncing it you should be guided by the rules of this particular language. Phonetics in English assumes the pronunciation of the letter “i” as “ay”. Thus, you need to read “Viber” out loud.
Well, now the debate can be stopped, because you already know how to correctly pronounce the name of one of the most popular instant messengers today! I hope you, like me, were interested in plunging into the history of the creation of this wonderful application that I loved a huge number users all over the country.
