Mobile communications app Vider announced Public Chats, a new feature that allows users to discover, share and interact with conversations with celebrities, on mobile. Public Chats are live discussions between celebrities and personalities that Viber users can follow. Anyone on Viber can follow as many of these chats as they like on their mobile device. Conversations include text, photos, audio, video, stickers, web links and more. Users can invite friends to follow the Public Chats that interest them, and can share content.

Public Chats launches with a global celebrities, personalities and brands, including celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, YouTube sensation Tyler Oakley, singer-songwriter Pixie Lott, international DJ Paul van Dyk, digital fashion innovators Next Model Management, European football channel COPA90 and many more.

The most popular chats will be featured on the home screen of the Public Chats section of Viber.

As social messaging apps become ubiquitous, they are going to have to start evolving to earn greater revenues from consumers but also to retain users and attract others.

Line, the most popular messaging app across most of the Asia Pacific region, can be used to make mobile payments, bid in online auctions and even for remotely controlling LG's range of smart home appliances.

Snapchat has also started offering a peer-to-peer payment service and Facebook is developing a similar feature for its standalone messenger app.

Viber has 460 million regular unique users -- almost twice as many as Twitter.