If you're like me, you assumed the recent videos showing up in your Facebook news feed with the tagline “watched on viddy” or “shot with viddy” were just your stupid friends getting suckered into clicking on some Facebook spam.
Well, I was wrong. It turns out Viddy is the latest video-sharing application and yesterday snagged some celebrity backing from Will Smith and Jay-Z.
Viddy didn’t get personal support from Smith or Jay-Z, but the production companies owned by both, Overbrook Entertainment (Smith), and Roc Nation (Jay-Z), joined other investors such as Shakira in a $6 million Series A round of funding. The round of investing announced in early February attracted traditional venture capitalists like Battery Ventures, Greycroft PArtners, and Qualcomm.
Viddy, released in late 2011, currently has over 10 million users and claims to be adding as many as 300,000 additional members a day. The courtship of Smith, Jay-Z and Shakira was a strategic move to help Viddy maintain momentum according to Brett O’Brien. The New York Times claims the celebrity use of social tool is usually a sign the service is maturing and is about to break out from early adopter phase and into the mainstream.
Viddy is essentially the Instagram of videos. The app allows users to take short 15 second clips, apply basic edits, apply a bunch of silly filters, and then share them with friends via Viddy, and the usual social network suspects. It does include a bevy of video specific feature as well such as audio metering, white balance control, focus, exposure, ability to add music and transitions, in addition to the filters. Videos can be commented on, followed, tagged, liked, the can trend, and users can follow others. It essentially appears to take every function of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, then smash them together into a single application.
The adoption numbers provided do seem particularly ridiculous though. If the app maintains its 300,000 user a day adoption rate, Viddy would have over 100 million users by next year. But, chances are if the company becomes that hot, Facebook, or another giant player in the industry will make Viddy the latest billion dollar acquisition.
Viddy is available in the App Store as free universal download.
Source: The New York Times
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