Remember Vine, the six-second video phenomenon that went from startup to juggernaut under Twitter ownership, then Twitter shutdown in October 2016? At least a few hundred thousand customers do, as 100,000 have been trying on the new Snakt platform for size. Clearly, Vine has been missed—so much so that cofounder Dom Hofman has announced on Twitter (fittingly) that he’s working on a follow up to Vine. No further details have emerged since the November 2017 hint.
But a new platform called Snakt is moving full speed forward with plans to make a formal announcement next month at SXSW. In a phone interview with cofounder and COO Tristan Snell I learned the following:
Snakt has quietly emerged on the Apple store, where a large community has quietly assembled during the open beta leading up to the launch. Online personalities including Flo Rida, King Bach and Clarity will be leading the way, Snell said, with 60 second video “loops” to herald the return of the short form videos “creators love to make and viewers love seeing.”
The platform will include sketch comedy, such as a Snakt-powered comedy show by YouTube personality Philip DeFranco called DeFranco Now. In addition to filling the promotional void left by Vines and other platforms, Snakt will bring the following features:
- At the top of the list, Snakt is premiering the ability to post video replies, making it, to the company’s knowledge, the first true V2V (video-to-video) platform. Creators (posters) can approve or reject the video comments. But the capability, the company believes, will engender a new level of interaction and engagement. A media personality like Flo Rida, for example, could solicit dance submissions and receive hundreds of responses for all to enjoy. Copyright and attribution will not be a problem as brands will receive license right to use and share the posted material, and attribution will travel along with submissions. So the credit for material submitted is automatically “baked in,” the company said.
- For entrepreneurs, the platform could take customer service to an entirely new level as representatives and customers could video responses to each other in their own preferred time, from an asynchronous platform. “It’s like a ‘video Twitter,’” Snell said.
- For influencers and marketers, the platform will create new content marketing possibilities such as short messages to say “hello” or to give a quick video look at a way to wear or use a new product.
- The video loops can be embedded in Tweets, articles and potentially even in emails as the program progresses.
There will be more advances as well, the company promises, as its beta user base is reaching critical mass. Clearly, the short form video functionality left behind by Vines has been missed. But the interest remains and opportunity for marketers is increasing as Snakt and others step forward to fill this interesting void.
