CALIFORNIA: Facebook released its own video app, Riff. The app, which is being regarded as a Snapchat and Vine hybrid, is out across the globe in 15 languages both for iOS and Android.
Riff allows its users to shoot videos up to 20 seconds. First, users begins with a clip which they can shoot anything of their interest. It can be a feat, a trick, a birthday wish or whatever. The user then gives an open ending title to this short clip before sharing it to friends.
The title is important to hint other friends what sort of scenes they are supposed to add. These friends will receive an invitation, through a notification, to make their contribution in the clip. This activity can then be prolonged to friends of these contributors. Despite introducing topics which can incorporate more scenes before making a rival video based on coalesce of various friends, users can also see what is trending and then contribute in it–something similar to Vine.
“The potential pool of creative collaborators can grow exponentially from there, so a short video can become an inventive project between circles of friends you can share to Facebook or anywhere on the Internet,” Facebook’s Riff Product Manager Josh Miller said in an interview with The Verge.
Ephemeral messages and image sharing service SnapChat’s massive success has inspired many businesses to inaugurate similar services of their own. Facebook has done more than one stunts to launch an app in competition of SnapChat. For example, its Slingshot, Paper, Rooms, and Groups, all share some similarities with Snapchat in one way or the other but none of these could attain even half of the popularity which SnapChat has enjoyed in short period of time.
Facebook is hopeful to turn things around this time. Success is great but even if it fails again, it will still learn another lesson from from those, like Snapchat, who have succeeded in their efforts.
“I love those Snapchat public stories, but for me those are a little more editorial in terms of like ‘I’m not at that event, and it feels like I’m there now,’” said Josh Miller. “We don’t know what a Riff is going to be good for, and our hunch is that we’re going to learn from the best ones in the community.”
