HYPE has been built by a small team in New York City over the course of a year. It’s led by Colin Kroll and Rus Yusupov, the people behind Vine. Vine was sold to Twitter before its launch in 2013. Last week, the parent company announced it is shutting the service down and will be removing the app from mobile platforms.
The timing is right for Vine’s creators to release something new. HYPE aims to bring pro-level video editing and streaming tools to smartphones, changing the “simple and one-dimensional” nature of current apps. In practice, VINE seems to be the result of blending traditional live-streaming, such as Facebook Live and Twitter-owned Periscope, with the interactivity of gaming networks like Twitch and Beam. It also adds elements of Snapchat to get users hooked on the platform.
HYPE’s standout feature is the ability to insert existing media, such as photos and videos, into live broadcasts. Streamers can attach items from their camera roll to the live video, enabling them to show off things that happened earlier in the day or creations made in other apps. There’s also the option to feature comments from readers in the stream, add emoji, themed backgrounds and music and interact with audience members.
HYPE has been in beta testing over the past few months. The app has been used in a variety of ways by its users. Some people have hosted a daily HYPE news show whilst others have discussed the latest video games. Another user shares video clips from across the internet and engages with his audience through “mind activations,” using the app’s polling, questioning and feedback features.
“Put simply, our goal with HYPE is to elevate storytelling on mobile by building the most expressive and flexible creative video tools, coupled with real time input from the audience,” said the HYPE team.
“While developing HYPE, we were inspired by the evolution of TV and desktop broadcasting — these areas continue to grow in quality and expression, while mobile video has remained relatively simple and one-dimensional. We think there’s a better experience to be had, one that uses the phone’s capabilities to full effect and blends the creator’s own media into their live broadcast.”
HYPE is entering a highly competitive field that’s being increasingly dominated by the established social networks. Facebook Live is experiencing very strong growth that’s pushing newcomers out of the market. In September, mobile livestreaming pioneer Meerkat closed down after just a year in the spotlight.
HYPE is confident it won’t end up going the same way though. Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed Ventures, the leader of the app’s first funding round, noted that “founders matter” in web-scale social networks. After Twitter announced Vine’s closure last week, co-founder Rus Yusupov’s response was a tweet that said “Don’t sell your company!”
Liew, best known for being Snapchat’s first backer, thinks that HYPE could start a new era of mobile video. “Who will be the Oprah of mobile video? Who will be the John Oliver? This isn’t just about porting TV genres to mobile video,” he said in a Medium post. “It is about creating new genres, native to the mobile native format and to the mobile-native audience.”
HYPE is available to download today from the App Store on iOS devices. The company plans to launch an Android app in the near future. Early users have generally received the app positively. HYPE will need to establish an interested, active community early on if it’s to have a chance of succeeding, or else it too will be pushed away by the social media giants.