Bondee: The Metaverse social messaging app taking Asia by storm

Bondee, the 3D metaverse social messaging app, has taken Asia by storm and is now making its way to the top of Apple's App Store worldwide rankings. As of February 11, the app has jumped 911 spots in the App Store rankings, reaching #1 in South Korea and Singapore, #2 in Japan, #4 in Malaysia, and #7 in Thailand (Source: data.ai).

What is Bondee?

Bondee is a social messaging app created by the Singapore-based company Metadream. The app allows users to customize their 3D avatar, decorate their virtual space, and chat with friends or anonymous users.

Why is Bondee popular?

People are flocking to Bondee for its unique features and interactive messaging experience.

One of the key draws of Bondee is its ability for users to customize and decorate their own virtual rooms, providing a fun and interactive way for users to express their personalities. This allows friends and other users to visit each other's rooms and leave "post-it" notes in the form of messages.

Users can also see their friends' statuses on the home screen and interact with them through pokes or chats.

Another aspect of Bondee that sets it apart from other messaging apps is its interactive messaging experience. The app provides all of the standard features such as message read status and typing indicators, but it also includes the ability for users to communicate through 3D avatars and perform various actions. This unique messaging function is further enhanced by speech bubble typing indicators that appear next to the avatar character.

In addition to the personalized rooms and interactive messaging experience, Bondee also features a "floating" menu, which allows users to connect with strangers and send messages in bottles, creating a sense of serendipity and fun.

Bondee's business model and future direction

While Bondee is free to download, the app offers in-app purchases in the form of "B-Beans" that can be used to purchase items like avatar outfits.

Previously, there was a suggestion in Bondee's privacy policy that the app may expand into the NFT (non-fungible token) business, but this was removed in a recent update. Currently, the company seems focused on building a healthy community and social networking service, while also addressing the challenges that come with a rapidly growing user base.

Future challenges

Bondee, a social media and messaging app, has seen tremendous growth in its user base with millions of downloads in just a few weeks. This rapid increase in popularity has presented new challenges for the company, MetaDream. To position itself as a social media platform and function as a messaging app, Bondee has had to develop new features, content, and user interfaces. One issue that needs to be addressed is the current limit of 50 friends per user, which could hinder its growth.

History has shown us that social networking services must not only offer unique and differentiated content, but also have the capability to handle large traffic spikes and create networking effects, as seen with Clubhouse's struggles.

To avoid these challenges, Bondee may consider outsourcing its chat features to chat API/SDK services like Sendbird, which supports up to 30 billion chat MAUs with cloud infrastructure in 11 regions worldwide. With a highly available and scalable chat infrastructure, Bondee can focus on creating unique content and user interfaces, and potentially become the next big social media platform, like Snap, Instagram, or TikTok.