Video Really Is The New Way To Message

Tech Co

We all remember when video messaging was limited to webcams but for a younger generation phones are making it easier to record and share video. Snapchat is one of the most popular apps out there now and the reason we love it is that we can use it to send picture or short video messages that get deleted once they're sent. But the fact is you can't actually do much to video on the app.

Fortunately for us there are other apps out there for recording and sharing video that seem to have some sort of focus on music and we're not talking about Vine or Periscope.

The first app I'm going to mention is Cizoo, a French app that seems to be slowly making appearance on the scene. Cizoo videos are shorter than Snapchat videos but the beauty of them is they allow you to add a backing track. The song must be in their library so there might not be everything that you want but it's at least categorised neatly. The track you pick will be 10 seconds long and you can listen before you start recording the video. On the video you can speak, show something, sing along or whatever you like. It's the sort of short musical message that we all sometimes want to send for one reason or another. The video loops and there's nothing I can find on saving or whether the video is deleted from their servers or not so be careful but it looks to be a lot of fun. Cizoo is currently only available on iOS only but once their user base grows that will hopefully change.

Here's their ad:

The other app I'd like to talk about is bigger than Cizoo and has been around for a while but they've only just included the option to directly message someone. Flipagram is an app available on iOS, Android and Windows phones. It allows users to create videos up to 60 seconds long from pictures or videos with music added. There is a music library that you can choose snippets of some free tracks or they'd encourage you to buy others. If you didn't want to buy a song as you already have it, provided it's on your phone then you can use it unless there are copyright issues. And if you're using a video clip then you can choose to mute it or not and you can select which frames of the video to use, add more clips and pictures and so on It's neat and very simple to use, I tried it out myself and though I'm not going to share my efforts - I don't think anyone wants to see my dog just sitting there with Little Mix playing - I can tell you that it is a fun little app.

The real beauty of Flipgram is the sharing though. You can share it on your connected Facebook or Google+ or you can share on a bunch of different social media services including Flipagram's own site where you can watch a lot of different videos. If you wish to send it privately your friends don't even need the app - their name just comes up from your contacts on your phone. You also don't have to share videos if you'd rather just keep them hidden on your account.

Flipagram isn't necessarily built to be a video messenger but it's a good mix of a video social media platform and a messenger that I hope will grow in popularity.

Here's an example of a video from the Flipgram site so you see what you can do even if you only have pictures:

View on Flipagram

Both apps take the idea of what Snapchat or Vine can do and have improved on them in different ways. I doubt these are going to be the only apps like this that pop up and I look forward to seeing what the next ones can do.

Rosina Brooker

Rosina is a Songbird rookie with a degree in Creative Writing. She's trying to focus on her novel on the side but is hoping that Content Writing will turn out to be a good career choice in the mean time! Follow her @RosinaAtSMF

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