Messaging apps are only good when many people use them. That's why the market is dominated by a few big players like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and good ol' text messages. Other platforms have to find ways to incentivize people to switch to them, and one way to do that is by offering features the leaders don't yet have. That's why Viber is introducing Create a Sticker, allowing you to make and share your own sticker sets without leaving the app.
As of the latest Android update, Viber lets you create your own collection of up to 24 items each. To get started, you can open the new creator tool in the platform's sticker market or via a menu inside any chat. The editor allows you to pick your own images before zooming, rotating, or cropping them via a magic wand tool. It's also possible to add decorations. Finished packs can be labeled as public or private, depending on how widely you want to share them.
Custom stickers aren't unique to Viber — Telegram has had the same capability for more than five years and Gboard allows you to create some based on a selfie. Being late to the market has benefits, though. Viber's solution is much easier to discover than Gboard's and way simpler than Telegram's, which relies on a tedious chatbot.
The update enabling the feature will roll out on the Play Store over the next couple of days. Desktop and iOS users will have to wait some more time until it becomes available to them.
PRESS RELEASE
Viber launches Create a Sticker feature, enabling users to transform any photo into the next viral sticker
Viber becomes the only app to allow the full creative process of stickers within the app itself; users can now impress their friends with personalized stickers starring their faces, favorite sayings, people, places and more
SAN FRANCISCO — September 16, 2019 — Viber, one of the world’s leading messaging platforms, announces today the launch of its new feature, Create a Sticker, enabling users to design and create their own personalized stickers and packs. Users can now express themselves through their own customized stickers and packs that can convey a message better than words.
Over the years, Viber has released thousands of curated sticker packs that were sent by users over 30 billion times last year. Viber is now giving users the ability to express anything they want through the use of personalized stickers. Whether it be representing different personalities in the friend group, showing off puppies doing adorable tricks, or creating a special pack for a big event coming up, users can now create, design, and send stickers that represent virtually anything happening in their lives.
Users will be able to create individual stickers or packs of up to 24 by: opening the sticker creator from the sticker market, accessing the sticker menu inside any chat, or simply by taking any photo and instantly transforming it into sticker form.
The sticker feature enables users to:
Shape stickers: Users can move the photo around, rotate it, or zoom in on a particular detail to create the sticker’s focus. They can also use the magic wand to remove the background of the photo
Decorate stickers: Once the shape is set, decorate stickers with doodles, text, other stickers or emojis to make them unique
As creators of their individual packs, users have the power to choose whether other Viber users can use those stickers, by labeling the sticker pack as either public or private. In addition, users will be able to report public packs, in the case that they violate Viber terms.
Creating stickers on Viber will be available in the upcoming days for Android on Google Play Store, and will soon be available on IOS and Viber Desktop.