Latest viral mobile social network app Meow is also a dating app in disguise

Jacky Yap

February 25, 2014

Mobile chat apps are the hottest topics now, with WhatsApp being purchased by Facebook at a price tag of $19 billion.

At the same time when everyone’s actively focusing on the post mortem of the acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook, a new chatting and dating app is slowly raking in hundred thousands of users.

Perhaps you might have noticed it already, when some of your friends on Facebook sent you an invitation to connect on this new chatting app.

Called Meow, the mobile app claims to be the “fastest growing social network with millions of members from every country”. Essentially, Meow finds you best matches and helps you socialize and meet new people and friends. It combines the element of discovery and social chatting together. You can be randomly paired up with an user anytime you want, or you can browse various random users by a particular location and chat them up.

When we checked the app and searched by our nearest location, Meow showed that there are over 150,000 users online now.

Other than browsing users nearby, you can also create your own profile and build a following from the Meow community.

While Meow describes itself as a friend discovery app, personally I think it is a dating app in disguise. Meow chooses to select the “Random Chat”as its core feature, where it will pair you up randomly with someone for a chat. Unlike other apps in Singapore such as Paktor and Love Out Loud where you would need both parties to “like” each other first before you could chat, Meow takes a page from popular China app WeChat’s “Shake” and “People Nearby” feature.

Users do not have to wait for both parties to “like” each other before they are able to chat with one another.

Meow claims to have millions of users, and the Google Play Store estimate its downloads to be between 1,000,000 – 5,000,000 installs. With the meteoric rise of WhatsApp competitor Telegraph, which added 800,000 users in just 4 hours when WhatsApp went down, as well as the increase in users on Meow, it is a clear testament that users are constantly switching around from one app to the other.