All this talk of NGL reminded me of the overnight success right before it, which was another twist on the traditional social media that's really starting to feel stale...
Remember BeReal? If you don't, it's an app that helps teens be authentic by alerting them at a random time to take a picture and share it with friends. No filters. No poses. Well, maybe poses. My friends aren't using it, so I don't know...
BeReal took to the top of the App Store just a couple of months ago, and like most other overnight successes, eventually faded away, giving TikTok and other household names their top chart spots.
Where is BeReal now? Are teens still trying to be "authentic"? Should Meta be concerned?
Well...
Yes, it looks like BeReal is still popular. In fact, it's gotten more popular in the last few weeks.
According to our estimates, last week was BeReal's highest week of downloads to date! The novel photo app made its way into 1,250,000 mobile devices globally. That's a bit higher than its last peak, which came in April.
The majority of downloads came from the US and the UK, where the App Store earned about 5x the downloads. It's interesting to see how unpopular this "concept" is in countries that traditionally drive the big downloads like India. I don't expect that to change, but if it does, you'll know BeReal can become a serious contender. Which I don't expect to happen.
The same seven apps held the same seven download spots. Revenue told a different story, and a short-drama app from Singapore crashed the top 10.
MLB app downloads jumped 43% this February while revenue climbed to $3.5M, signaling a stronger season ahead for baseball on mobile.