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Riding on TikTok’s coattails, nearly all of the major social apps over the past few months have expanded their services and introduced new live streaming as well as short-form video features.
Meanwhile, TikTok continues to lead the social video app space and captivate its audience with features like 3-minute videos to allow for more creative space. Seeing the rise of video features, mainstreams like Twitter continue to sweeten up the deal too by adding short-form video features like ‘Fleets’ and story-like ads.
Social apps with a short video or video-sharing features are especially hyped among the Gen-Zers, and some millennials, who love storytelling and expressing themselves. Case in point: the dramatic rise of TikTok-like apps and mainstream social apps tapping into video features. Given the expanding number of traditional social media platforms and standalone apps in this arena, we are certain that short user-generated videos will be a long-term feature of the social media landscape.
So, here’s a list of some of the finest social video-sharing apps. They feature user-generated content from both original entertainers and creators, as well as users.
1. Instagram
Instagram used to be a photo/video sharing app. It had a short-form video as well as IGTV, the long-form video feature. Seeing the dramatic rise of TikTok, Facebook decided it was about time their acquired social video app ‘Instagram’ had something this wild. Reels was launched to be TikTok’s cloned rival.
In fact, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, mentioned in an Insta video that Instagram is no longer a photo-sharing app. Instagram is headed towards becoming ‘TikTok’. He mentioned that the company wants to “embrace video more broadly.”
Even though Insta’s IGTV was already catering to users, allowing them to watch short-form video material in a portrait (vertical) format. This feature was intended for smartphone users, and its simple scrolling and tapping gestures delivered a plate of easily digestible content. IGTV is available as a standalone app or as a feature within the Instagram app.
If you’re a user, you can use IGTV to catch up with the latest content from your favorite creators or upload content that can be as long as 10 minutes. Reel bears resemblance with TikTok’s video-creation workflow, you swipe down to move from one clip to the next, much like in ByteDance’s TikTok.
You know a certain feature is likely here to stay when the mainstream social apps jump the bandwagon. As is the case with social video features.
Instagram is an active player in the social video app scene and has recently announced that it is working on its own version of Twitter’s Super Follow feature, which would enable digital creators to post “exclusive” content to their Instagram Stories that would only be viewable to their followers if they paid a membership fee
2. Snapchat
Rated 4.3, Snapchat is TikTok’s arch-rival. Snapchat opens right to the camera, allowing users to take photos using its augmented reality filters or create videos to share with their network. Snapchat is a photo-messaging and mobile app that allows users to send self-destructing photographs and videos, so all content you publish will be auto-deleted and gone forever based on the timeframe you set for recipients to see them. It doesn’t leave a trace and you don’t have to worry about it because it’ll only be there for a brief time.
Picaboo was the original name for Snapchat. Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown came up with the idea. Their basic idea was to design an app that would automatically destroy any photos and videos shared within it.
Snapchat has a defined unique user-base. Its filters are a major reason why the app became so popular with people. Another reason being Snapchat stories, which became a trendsetter. But that’s not it. Snapchat didn’t hit breaks just here. It announced ‘Spotlight’ to shine the light on the most entertaining Snaps, regardless of who created them. And just recently at the Snap Partner Summit 2021, it announced Snap Story Studio, a stand-alone iOS app for creators to allow them to create content to perfection.
What I really love about Snapchat is that it never holds back on creative freedom and I think I’m not the only one.
3. Likee
Likee – formerly LIKE Video – popular for its short-form video feature is another TikTok clone. The social video app provides a variety of interesting ways to make short music videos and share them on social media. The users can choose music, record video, and then edit it with stickers, filters, effects, speed it up, or slow it down. In addition to the free access music library, it allows users to post their own music, as well as apply animations and effects to existing videos as well.
In addition to music snippets from every genre, users can add dialogue from prominent TV advertisements, shows, and flicks to their clips, or even create their own audio.
Users can also enter special themed events to earn real money by accumulating likes and expanding their following by watching movies created by amateur filmmakers worldwide.
The tools are not only entertaining and simple to use, but their user community is huge enough to make surfing worthwhile.
4. byte
Remember Vine and its terrible demise in 2016? You may have already heard about its rebirth in the form of a ‘byte’ earlier this year. For those unfamiliar with Vine, it was a user-generated 6-second-long (mainly funny and cringe) social video platform that served as a predecessor to today’s most popular platforms such as TikTok.
Dom Hofmann, Vine’s co-creator, initially shared his plans to start working on Vine 2.0 in 2019. However, due to a budget shortage, the launch was postponed. Finally, in January 2020, Dom released the 6-second video-sharing app byte to tremendous applause. As per data from Sensor Tower, the app saw well over 1.3 million downloads in the first week of its launch alone. 2020 is also the year when byte rose to the number 1 spot on the app download charts in August. This depicts how TikTok has inspired the rise of short-form video apps.
Despite being a fledgling app, byte’s content and user-base are growing. Rumor has it that it is a 6-second clone of the TikTok app. There’s more juice to this story.
Vine’s successor was recently purchased by another TikTok clone that goes by the name ‘Clash’.
5. LBRY
Blockchain applications have gained a lot of momentum in recent years due to their promise of decentralization, digital security, and freedom from corporate hegemony. LBRY is a social video app that gives its users ultimate control over the content they create.
Because the videos are distributed via blockchain, only the owners have the ability to delete or edit the content. The short-form videos are not subjected to regional restriction because they are saved in smaller bits through a decentralized network. Furthermore, the user-friendly interface allows for a seamless browsing experience similar to that of YouTube. The LBRY app is available for download on a variety of PC platforms as well as Android. While there is no predetermined fee, authors can expect to earn around $2 per thousand views.
Want to build a TikTok-like App?
The social video app space is hot and a highly competitive one right now. And seeing TikTok’s ascent to fame and mainstream-hood, many more Tiktok clones have surfaced over the last 2 years especially.
Want to make the next big social video app? At CitrusBits we’ve designed and developed real-time audio and video streaming social apps like Erupt for some of the biggest names in the industry like Hollywood’s Emmy-winning film producer Edward Walson and former ABC News/GMA producer Bryan Keinz. Our extensive experience combined with our arsenal of popular third-party tools like Hive and Agora places us among the top mobile app developers in the US.
CitrusBits is a leading social app development service provider that specializes in creating innovative and engaging social media applications. With their extensive expertise and experience in the field, they are well-equipped to assist businesses in developing cutting-edge social networking apps that cater to their unique requirements.
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