Judging by the download stats of a new mobile video app for the iPhone [1] , people seem hungry for a fresh way to shoot and share short snippets of their lives.
Called Klip [2] , the new app from serial entrepreneur Alain Rossmann has been downloaded more than 100,000 times in just over a week, making it the fastest video app to reach that milestone, the company said.
And why, especially given that there are so many other choices for taking and sharing videos on the iPhone? Because Klip tackles some of the traditional problems iOS video players have had and appears to blow right past them.
For starters, the app is built on top of new adaptive streaming technology Klip built in-house. The upshot of the system is what Rossmann said is the world's fastest video start. Given even mediocre bandwidth, Klip is meant to be able to start playing videos almost instantly. And on the back end, the company's technology checks your available bandwidth every four seconds and adapts the playback quality to match it. That means if your signal fades, instead of getting a little spinning wheel while the app tries to catch up, you'll continue to get video even if the quality degrades a bit.
This, of course, relies on there being enough bandwidth to deliver video. But assuming you're not in a total dead zone, you're likely to be able to get playback without interruption in almost any situation, Rossmann suggested.
Another selling point for the free app is its user interface. Rossmann, who has a long history of working with both video and mobile technology, and who was a very early Apple employee who worked closely with Steve Jobs on the original Macintosh team, said he and his team of just fewer than 20 people concentrated on designing an app that was built from the ground up around delivering a high-end user experience.
What that means practically is that what you see when you launch Klip is a series of yes, "klips" arrayed up and down the screen. But what's particularly interesting here is that you can get a very quick preview of any of video by simply running your finger across it. Want to see previews of all of them? Shake your iPhone briefly, and that's what you'll get.
And, of course, Klip users can quickly share their videos on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
Rossmann said that Klip was founded with $2 million that came from himself and Matrix Partners. At the moment, the company has no revenues, and doesn't seem set on a business plan. He said that Klip is considering licensing its technology to others, but that that isn't necessarily how it will generate income. Rossmann said that he's counting on large numbers of users eventually providing plenty of opportunities for monetization, even if the company isn't entirely sure yet how it will cash in on them yet.
For now, Klip has to convince iPhone users that its technology is superior to that of a wide number of others, including Tout, Socialcam , and Qik. But if its 100,000 downloads so far, and appearance at number 17 on the Apple App Store's top charts are any indication, the users are coming.
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