The market is full of messaging apps to choose between, which means new and novel features are key to attracting and keeping a user base. Chat and messaging app Viber's latest idea is a subscription service that gives users a local phone number anyone can use, regardless of whether they are signed up to Viber or not.

As VentureBeat reports, the new subscription is called Viber Local Number and it costs $4.99 per month. In return for your money, Viber associates a local telephone number with your account. Other Viber users can simply message or chat through the service, but what if you have friends and family who don't use Viber? That's where a local phone number comes in.

Sharing the local number allows someone to call you and get charged just like any other local rate call. Messaging is also possible, but unlike Viber-to-Viber messages, the local number allows messages to be sent via text (SMS). The text may also incur a charge depending on the sender's phone contract, but the Viber user pays nothing beyond the $4.99 subscription each month.

Viber has over a billion registered users and it's safe to assume the majority of them will have people not on Viber they want to keep in contact with. With that in mind, this subscription could be tempting just to keep communication confined to one service. Business users will also appreciate the ability to give potential clients a number to call or message.

For now Viber Local Number is in closed beta and it does have one big omission that needs rectifying. The local number is one-directional, meaning you can only receive calls and text messages, you can't make or send them. Viber is planning to change that for messaging at least as it's usually quite important to be able to text someone back, especially for business users.