U.S. Startup Justin.TV started life as a man livestreaming his daily life in the world, before evolving into a platform for anyone to broadcast video over the Internet from their webcams – and more recently their phones.
The company's future may, however, be more with his Socialcam new iPhone app, which focuses on helping people to upload short video clips and share them across social networks. Launched at the beginning of March, sailed past the 200,000 downloads free app in a couple of weeks with claims, to do what apps video as Instagram and Picplz for photographs.
Justin.TV CEO Michael Seibel has specific grand ambitions for Socialcam, as he explained that the Apps Blog in an interview. ' We want to replace the camera app on the phone, ' he says. "It is our goal: used by almost all who have had a smartphone to store all their media and distribute media wherever they want."
Which is what someone will say when pitching their social video startup, although Seibels talk about replacing the camera app – not to mention his deliberate use of the word "media" — makes it clear that will Socialcam current focus on video to expand in the future, probably photos first.
Socialcam was born in response to feedback from Justin.TV, livestreaming iPhone app which was downloaded more than four million times in the first six months after its release in March 2010. "We realized that more than 90% of the views of these videos were not people see live, but after that," Seibel said.
"What is more, videørne, himself was not broadcast as live videos: they were taken as video clips. So we wondered why people were using our live video app to take video clips – was this a sollwitt problem? And it turned out that it was not. "
Seibel has a point. Smartphones like the iPhone and Android phones are good for people to upload video clips to YouTube, but not so good help these videos must be shared on social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Facebook's iPhone app allows users to upload video clips directly, but the feature is something hidden under the button ' photo ' while Kvidres is still pictures only.
"The whole process was broken, so we are trying to solve the problem of sharing videos from your phone," Seibel said. Three months development led to the launch of Socialcam, during which time made photo sharing app Instagram own burst nature, with two million downloads.
"Their success showed us there is a massive amount of space in this space to take on the big boys," Seibel said. "They are not afraid of Facebook, and they do not. They make a really good piece of work in their niche. "
However, resists Seibel label for ' a Instagram videos» which have been used for the Socialcam in some early press coverage. "We think of us as much more like a Facebook photos to video". Thus the ability to tag friends in Socialcam videos.
Justin.TV has strong views about what its new app, and it is not. Seibel says that it is focused on personal – videos of people's friends, family, and nights-rather than a tool for people to broadcast to the world, which was intended for livestreaming apps to be.
"We do not see this as YouTube," he said. "This is not people producing videos for general consumption. We are not even a view-count at videørne. What we are really about is, there is little happening now with a small circle of friends, and all the people in this video would love to see it later. "
How to make money from this? Like many apps of this kind, Socialcam currently goes for reach – the maximum number of users — rather than monetisation. When it is said, Seibel says in app payments for additional features can play a role in the app's future, together with the subscription-based pricing, and, where appropriate, the levying of charges for storage as Socialcam users build a collection of videos.
Justin.TV is also looking at the new series of tablets, led by Apple's iPad 2 which comes with front and rear cameras as standard. "For me the iPad 2 and tablets in general are really exciting from a front-facing camera perspective, to make these short video clips where you talk about where you are or what you are interested in, and your face up on the entire screen" he saysWhile declining to give any specific details about a Socialcam iPad app.
In the meantime, have a great effect already Socialcam on Justin .TV's approach as a company. ' We no longer iterating and improving our live video app, ' says Seibel. "We put all our resources to solve the problem more fundamentally. Live is much more a niche case than video clips. "
That is when he comes back to the idea of being the default camera app smartphone users. "YouTube could never control the intake point: they were always to use your phone or digital camera or flip video or webcam," he said.
"But on smartphones, we are all of a sudden that developing economies all these other devices and control the intake point, with the potential to reach many more people than Sony or flip or Panasonic with their dedicated video creation units. Smartphones should completely disrupting the market, except on the extreme high end. "
The great challenge for an app like Socialcam will be competition in trying to become the default camera app: competition from Facebook in particular, but also from handset makers, OS platform owners and other startups with VC money to throw at the social photos n videos area.
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