Mediation, a photo-sharing app that rocketed to the top of the App Store earlier this year, is starting to lose steam. The app, which forced users to invite their friends to jump in – a technique now used by Amo’s new social app ID, saw early success with this ‘going viral’ method. This September, the app jumped from No. 118 overall to No. 1 in the US App Store. But development hacks alone can’t sustain an app, a new report shows. Over the course of this month and last month, Lapse downloads began to decline and are now down as much as 70% from their peak in October.
The data, which comes from an application intelligence company Appfiguressuggests that hacking growth to the top of the App Store is not a formula for continued success unless your product is able to retain its new users for the long term.
Image Credits: Canceling downloads through Appfigures
Originally set to launch in 2021, co-founders (and brothers) Dan and Ben Silvertown said they created Lapse with the idea of recreating the feel of a point-and-shoot camera, where users would take photos but the photos were delayed. This artificial limitation is a feature that has been tested in the past by other photo apps, such as Dispo and Later Cam. But after a while, the Lapse team noticed that users were using Lapse more as a photo diary, so they pivoted to address that need. The new version of Lapse still kept the gimmick of “growing” its photos at random intervals later in the day, but refocused on curating photos into albums and creating user profiles with monthly photo highlights — mimicking a trend also seen in larger apps like Instagram.
With TikTok ads and then its invite mechanism fueling growth, Lapse’s pivot wasn’t always well-received. Sheel Mohnot, VC at Better Tomorrow Ventures, posted on X, “I felt dirty,” when the app’s invitation plan was mentioned. He also added that Lapse “reached the top of the App Store with a pyramid scheme.” Others also called this type of integration “annoying,” saying it required them to “spam” their friends.
But Lapse held its top positions for a while. Appfigures notes that Lapse had started in September with just 8,000 downloads per day on average, but by the end of the month, it was averaging 210,000 daily downloads. It had also become the most downloaded app in the US App Store and continued to rank in the top 5 daily. By October, daily downloads peaked at 218,000 in a single day. But then things started to fall apart.
While Lapse is gaining new installs, its downloads fell last week to 63,000 daily last week, down 70% from its peak. By Friday, November 24, they had reached 44,738.
This follows similar trends seen by apps like Dispo and Poparazzi, the latter of which surpassed 5 million downloads after launch but had to shut down earlier this year after failing to gain significant traction among users. Additionally, data from analytics firm Similarweb also cited BeReal as another photo app losing its grip in the US, noting that monthly users fell from 3.7 million in November 2022 to 3 million this August. But BeReal pushed back against that characterization, saying it still has more than 25 million active users worldwide, without commenting on US usage.
In any case, it seems like it’s hard for newcomers to the social or social photo app space to maintain momentum, no matter how quickly they’ve risen to the top of the App Store. Meanwhile, despite the buzz surrounding ID from Amo — a quirky new app that combines the collage-making abilities of something like Pinterest’s Shuffles with a social network — the same trend may already be underway.
ID, which also prompted users to invite friends to join, saw its installs drop after launch, Appfigures data shows. More on this in time…
Image Credits: ID from Amo downloads via Appfigures
In response to the Appfigures data, Lapse co-founder Dan Silvertown said:
“We never expected our recent growth trajectory to continue at its explosive pace. When building a new networked product, addressing the cold start problem is key to catalyzing the network. We managed to solve this problem and created a platform where there are now millions of users who enjoy the app every day with friends, without spending a single dollar on marketing,” he told TechCrunch.
“We always knew we’d need to move into a new phase of development, so for the past couple of months, we’ve been experimenting with ways to allow users to join without inviting friends. We knew this would impact download numbers and App Store rankings in the short term, but when we made this decision, we and our investors felt comfortable that the time was right to begin transitioning to our next phase of growth. We are taking on a huge challenge, but we are ahead of what we expected 6 months ago and remain 100% focused on our users and our product,” added Silvertown.
Updated, 27/11/23, 14:21 with comment
