We take a look at Bondee, the latest social media app that’s getting a lot of buzz, and why it might be the next Facebook.
Ever since Facebook rebranded itself to Meta, one of its goals is to introduce a metaverse for everyone to enjoy. It has been more than a year, yet Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has yet to make his metaverse concert come into reality–and Facebook by itself is facing its fair share of problems. Now that’s where Bondee enters the picture: while it has elements that is reminiscent of 2020 hit game Animal Crossing, the social media platform is made by Singapore-based tech company Metadream, and as the name of their company implies: it is a metaverse where you can create a virtual version of yourself and hang out with your friends online.
What makes Bondee unique?
Just like what we saw in Animal Crossing, Bondee allows you to customize your avatar–from its appearance, emotions, and clothes, down to the look and feel of its room. The social media aspect of Bondee is that it lets you chat with your friends (the platform currently allows you to have up to 50 friends) and take part in virtual activities like sailing, camping, dancing, and more. In fact, your friends act as your neighbors that you can visit–virtually, of course.
Since going live this month (specifically last January 17), Bondee has been wildly popular in Asia–specifically in the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. It’s currently in the top 10 most downloaded apps in Japan, and is yet to join the ranks in South Korea.
Is it completely free?
Taking cues from Animal Crossing, Bondee gives you a lot of freedom in customizing both your avatar and your room. In fact, social media is abundant with all of the creativity its users have with both their avatars and their rooms. Unlike Facebook, however, Bondee is not completely free-to-use: some of the outfit options are available for a trial, and will be permanently available to you if you purchase them.
Similar to any gacha game, Bondee has an in-house currency called B-Beans, where Php 49 gets you 100, while Php 2,390 gives you 5000 B-Beans. Beyond the in-house currency, Bondee did mention in its privacy policy that the platform will include NFTs and blockchain elements in the future. B-Beans can be used to purchase these NFTs, all of which can be stored in blockchain wallets.
Is it safe?
You probably heard of the news about accusing Bondee of being a scam and that users allegedly had their credit card information leaked. This was addressed by Metadream, explaining that the allegations are false since their app does not collect credit card details or any financial information. “We have also undertaken a precautionary review of our systems and wish to assure our users that our systems and our users’ personal data remain safe and secure”, Metadream said in a statement. You can read their full statement below:
Even with such a statement, we still highly encourage people to use Bondee with caution. Metadream bought the IP rights to True.ly in May last year, and True.ly is the parent firm behind Chinese app Zheli, which has a lot of similarities with Bondee. Sometime in February last year, True.ly took down Zheli to fix issues with the app–at the same time that users accused the app of allegedly collecting data without permission. This was denied by Zheli back then.
Metadream did say that they are working on a number of metaverse-oriented products other than Bondee, so we hope they addressed all the issues that were associated with True.ly and Zheli back when it was in China.
