Messaging App Tango Expands Its Channels Program With BuzzFeed And Other New Publishers

Mobile messaging company Tango is announcing some new additions to its Channels program for publishers and brands, including BuzzFeed and Vimeo.

As I wrote when the program launched in June, Tango’s Channels represents something similar to Facebook Pages in that it gives consumers a way to subscribe to receive updates from publishers and other brands in the service. It’s not an advertising program per se, but by giving brands a home in Tango, it can feed into the company’s ad efforts.

Back at the launch, co-founder and CTO Eric Setton suggested that as the competition for user attention becomes fiercer on existing social networks, Tango Channels offers a fresh opportunity for brands to get in early on an app reaching “hundreds of millions of members.”

When I asked Setton how the launch has gone, he declined to say how many Tango users have subscribed to Channels in total, but he did note that music, entertainment and celebrity Channels seem to be doing particularly well, with 5.5 million followers. The most popular individual Channels include The World Cup, which has 628,000 followers, and celebrity social platform WhoSay, with 600,000 followers.

The list of new publishers suggests that Tango will continue expanding the entertainment side of the program. Recent additions include AOL On (AOL owns TechCrunch), Funny or Die, Hulu, Rhapsody, SoundCloud and Vevo, with the aforementioned BuzzFeed and Vimeo coming soon.

Tango said there are more than 30 Channels total.