How Viber Built a Better Digital Space for its Users

Wazzup Pilipinas!

The global messaging app increased overall platform messaging by 15% thanks to an insights-driven product with user analytics platform Mixpanel

Rakuten Viber has continuously worked towards building a better platform by introducing innovative features that cater to its users wants and needs. In partnership with Mixpanel, the world’s leading user analytics platform, the global messaging has increased overall retention and time spent in-platform for its one billion users worldwide thanks to an insights-driven product development approach.

“What keeps users coming back to Viber is the fact that it’s a fun and seamless platform that keeps them feeling connected with their loved ones and favorite brands.,” said Danny Odes, Mobile Product Manager at Viber.

“I want to create products that help people make more meaningful connections, and I look to Mixpanel for quantitative evidence of where we need to improve the user experience, so people can truly express themselves on our platform,” he added.

With user insights, Viber can make improvements that allow users to spend more time in-app, make and receive more calls, and send and receive more frequent messages within the platform. For instance, Mixpanel Insights enabled the team to measure and see which buttons were most popular when users were texting their connections, allowing Viber to swap out certain stickers, the search icon, chat extensions, doodles, the gallery camera, and teddy bears.

Through its three-year partnership with Mixpanel, Viber has been able to increase overall platform messaging by 15% for its one billion users. The Viber team understood that user behavior patterns were foundational to product changes and gave users the most useful and relevant chat options, so they would have different ways to communicate with their friends, family, brands, and personalities.

“With user analytics, Mixpanel has enabled Viber to fulfill its first order of business: cultivate a cross-platform environment that helps people connect with their loved ones around the world,” said Danny Odes.

Messaging platforms are currently twenty percent larger than today’s social networks and are also ripe environments for brands to apply unique strategies for users to connect with them in a more engaging, authentic, and direct way. For example, Viber is the official communication channel of FC Barcelona, and the instant messaging and calling app partner of the Golden State Warriors.

“The companies that stay ahead of the curve are the ones that focus on delivering an outstanding and consistent experience across every user touchpoint including emails, ads, and customer service, as well as the app, website, and technology that make up a company’s product. Rakuten Viber is a great example of how our customers are reinventing themselves from the inside-out with the power of data-driven insights,” said Amir Movfaghi, CEO of Mixpanel.

Through their partnership, the Viber team will continue to use behavioral insights in Mixpanel to build out the entire user journey and brand experience for its users.

Playwright Shares Formula to His Palanca Award-Winning Play

Wazzup Pilipinas!

A visit to exesanonymous.com yields what you’d expect from a website with such a name.

It's a collection of confessions on how relationships ended, posted under usernames like “frankielemonade02” or “sidekickpunchblock.” One essay was written by a recruitment officer who found her—ahem, still charming—ex-boyfriend sitting in front of her for an interview. Another story is from a guy who read in the papers that his former girlfriend was arrested for swindling. And yet another is about a man who got dumped right when he was about to propose. They're amusing stories, exactly the kind you’d only find online, where “victims” could hide behind a pseudonym.

But that website is a ruse. These “submissions” were written by only one man, Dr. Joem Antonio, and he won a Palanca Award for them. That award was for a full-length play. And he wrote that full-length play entirely through his mobile phone.

A monologue-writing exercise

It all started when Christian Vallez, the writer known as “Juan Ekis,” asked him for a monologue-writing exercise. Without intending any puns, Dr. Antonio gave him an exercise that produced monologues on how exes became exes.

“I realized two things: one is that I had come up with a fun exercise for students to write their own monologues, and another is that with enough monologues, one can actually make a play out of the exercise results.”

And so he did. Taking advantage of short bursts of time, like when waiting for a ride or rocking a toddler to sleep, he did the exercise repeatedly on his mobile phone, using nothing but the extremely simple Google Keep app.

He wrote ten monologues that he tied together through a bigger story. An ex-couple created exesanonymous.com hoping that the stories help them understand what people seek in a relationship, despite the fact that there are only two ways that a relationship could end, and neither of them seem palatable. As one of them puts it: “It's either we wait to see who kicks the bucket first, or we walk away from this relationship while we're still alive." Why do we even bother, then?

Onstage and online

Dr. Antonio submitted exesanonymous.com to the 67th Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards and won his eighth Palanca Award, the Second Prize for Full-Length Play in English. An excerpt of exesanonymous.com was staged at the awards night. It was directed by former Dulaang UP artistic director, Dr. Alexander Cortez.

And of course, one doesn’t write a play called exesanonymous.com and not publish it online. Today, the website holds all ten monologues, the full-length play’s script, and the monologue-writing exercise. Dr. Antonio continues to write monologues using the same exercise and plans to add them to the site later on.

He invites anyone interested to read the monologues and to give the writing exercise a try. All you need is to visit the website and to use your “writing weapon” of choice, which, if you're as busy as he is, could simply be your mobile phone.


A teacher, first and foremost

But why publish your award-winning work for free, with your own writing formula even, when some writers hope to live off book royalties?

The answer lies in how Dr. Antonio describes himself: he’s “a teacher by profession, a writer on occasion, a scholar by passion, and a writing teacher by vocation.” He’s a teacher before he is a writer. And more than just being a writer, he’s a writing teacher. “I had a concept, a lesson to share, a cause to uphold,” he says. For him, exesanonymous.com is mainly a teaching tool, and one that he’d like to share with the public.

He does offer paid writing courses through Storywriting School for those who want to learn the craft. Though the prevailing belief is that creative writing requires rare talent, he believes that anyone can learn how to write stories. “Some people have that gift of writing, but I don’t. I learned writing as a skill, just like any other skill is learned. That’s why I can teach others how to write.”

Dr. Joachim Emilio “Joem” Antonio is the Program Director of the MA Humanities Program at the University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P). He obtained his Ph.D. in Creative Writing from the University of the Philippines - Diliman. He’s a playwright and theatre enthusiast who espouses a philosophy he calls “compact theatre,” which aims to deliver substantial messages while maximizing the essential elements of theatre. He also has two children’s books published by Lampara Publishing. Find out more about him at www.joemantonio.com.

Carousell Seals Partnership with Xend, Elevates the PH Buying and Selling Experience

Wazzup Pilipinas!

In a strategic bid to accelerate Philippine social commerce growth in a thriving ecosystem, Carousell, one of the world’s largest and fastest growing classifieds marketplaces, has recently launched its major team-up with Xend, the country’s top e-commerce logistics firm.

Jamie Lee, Carousell’s Senior Manager for Growth Markets pointed out that the partnership deal allows the platform – now with 158 million listings across 7 markets – to enrich the experience of its Philippine-based users and better engage them through a strong logistics partner of choice.

“We are excited to work with Xend to make buying and selling more convenient. Shipping has been one of the most requested features from our users in the Philippines and Xend provides a unique, cost-friendly logistics solution for our users. With this strategic partnership, we hope to create more value for our community and deepen our presence in the Philippines,” Lee explained.

Xend Founder & CEO Bjorn Pardo meanwhile said that they are thrilled to forge this partnership as it allows both players to step-up their game in the e-commerce space at scale.

“The Philippine e-commerce landscape has fundamentally evolved. Sellers and shoppers are now more discerning and adoptive of coherent, frictionless experiences. This collaboration enables us to consolidate the mobile commerce segment and mobilize each others’ resources towards more customer-centric solutions,” said Pardo.

The deal will jointly offer preferential privileges to Carousell users who use Xend to have their sold items delivered, as well as mount co-branded promotions in each other’s channels, both online and offline.

With over 9.5 million listings on the Philippines marketplace, fashion and beauty remain as the most popular categories among its users in the Philippines. Xend, on its part, has already breached the 25 million mark for deliveries locally and abroad, and is known for its close to 500,000 user-base, Asia Pacific’s first Facebook Messenger booking bot, and a 6,000-strong integrated land and sea logistics network with PhilTranco, FastCat, Jam Liner, Ceres, and Quick Reliable.

“It’s all about unlocking localized synergies and generating incremental value. As a next-tier innovation, Xend and Carousell will be collaborating to offer district-oriented meet-up points that leverages the Xend Group’s “pick-up and drop-off” (PUDO) hubs of 350 Neighborhood Partner outlets and possibly the stores too of 7-Eleven, one of our formidable strategic partners,” said JT Solis, Xend’s Vice President for Partnerships & Business Development, who also led the negotiation and structuring of the deal.