If you were one of the millions who mourned the passing of short video app Vine–and the subsequent axing of its sequel V2–you may be happy to know that the man behind it is back with a brand new app. It’s called Byte and it is a short-form video app that lets you post short six-second videos with the same looping magic that made its predecessor so popular.
The company revealed this in an announcement on Twitter that they would be “bringing back 6-second looping videos and a new community for people who love them”. With Byte, you can shoot or upload your clips to the app, then share them with the community.
This means that the new app will incorporate social features that users have come to expect in this day and age, like a feed, profiles, notifications as well as a discovery page called Explore. In fact, the whole user interface reminds me a lot like if Instagram and Spotify had a baby, then dressed it up in neon. It looks pretty awesome.
That being said, the world Vine left and the one Byte is entering is very different. Since Vine’s departure, a whole host of micro video sites have popped up to carry on its legacy, with one of the most popular ones right now being the Chinese app TikTok. To make matters worse, right now Byte doesn’t have support for stuff like augmented reality filters, transition effects, or even the remixability that you may find in an app like TikTok.
What the company’s founder, Dom Hofmann, hopes will differentiate Byte from the competition is a big early focus on helping their creators make money–something sites like TikTok and many other micro-entertainment platforms don’t offer. And that’s encouraging since that was one of the bigger issues that plagued Byte’s predecessor.
In an interview with TechCrunch, Hofmann said that Byte was already looking at a whole bunch of monetisation options but have decided to start with something along the lines of a revenue share plus supplementing that with their own funds program. The details, however, have not been fully revealed but they have said that the company looks to be starting the pilot version of their partner program soon.
It remains to be seen if something like Byte will be successful. After all, the landscape is very different right now and creators have plenty of platforms to choose from these days. However, a focus on getting creators paid is always a good sign, and it’s one that could not only help existing popular creators find a steady ad income, but also encourage budding talents who may not be able to secure the big advertiser bucks by themselves.
