A group of young people pose for a photo at the launching ceremony of Vietnam’s social network Gapo - Photo: Gapo
In the evening of the launch day, Gapo announced it would need to suspend operations so it might upgrade the system and repair errors.

Today, July 24, users could again access the network, though the access speed was reported to be slow.

Gapo Technology JSC seeks to have three million users by next year, and 50 million users by 2021. Their target, however, seems uncertain since Gapo initially offers few features that are different from other social networks.

Gapo Technology JSC earlier announced that it had received an investment of VND500 billion (US$21.5 million) from G-Capital.

According to experts, Gapo will need trillions of Vietnamese dong to reach its planned targets.

The social network displays a green background with interfaces, layouts and features similar to those of Facebook.

Besides basic functions of a social network, such as messaging, updating status, adding friends, liking and sharing, Gapo has additional features to decorate stories, as well as requiring identification of user accounts.

Gapo also has automatic keyword filtering and a team to censor improper news, based upon information reported by users.

At the launching ceremony, Gapo announced it would share revenues with users, but has yet to unveil a detailed plan.

The Gapo app has been made available for smartphones running on iOS and Android. SGT