The new video recording app for smartphones, dubbed Wanpai, is made by Avos, a start-up created by YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen after they left YouTube.
“They didn’t think Vine was serving the market. (Vine) wasn’t translated and didn’t work well in China,” Hurley told The New York Times in a phone interview (http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/youtube-founders-focus-on-new-video-tools/).
NYT noted Twitter, to which Vine is tightly integrated, is blocked by the Chinese government.
Also, Hurley acknowledged Vine was the "inspiration” for Wanpai, adding Avos’s development team in Beijing developed Wanpai on their own initiative.
Hurley and Chen founded YouTube, which Google bought in 2006. Google is an investor in Avos, the NYT report noted.
Avos has so far kept a low profile and is working on several projects, including Zeen, an online magazine creation tool still stuck in beta.
On the other hand, Hurley said Avos is working on another video tool, MixBit, which he said would be more original.
MixBit is to be released in July or August, and is in private beta testing.
He would only say MixBit would provide an “intuitive” interface to help people create content easily.
Hurley pointed out current platforms for creating and sharing images and videos such as Twitter and Instagram are too focused on self-promotion, and this may intimidate many.
“What we ended up creating at YouTube is a solution for distribution. What hasn’t been solved yet is the act of creation,” he said.
Crowded market
The NYT report said MixBit will enter a crowded market, with Vine having 13 million users after four months, and Instagram expected to introduce its own quick-video product.
Hurley said he is directly involved in MixBit’s development. “This is a tool that I’m going to use,” he said. — TJD, GMA News
source: gmanetwork.com
