Mixbit: YouTube founders step back into the video world
The social video space got yet another competitor Thursday with Mixbit, an app that lets you stitch video clips together from multiple sources to create larger projects in a sort of video mash-up.
The app is now live on Apple’s App Store, and The New York Times reports that an Android version is set to hit Google’s Play store within the next several weeks. The report said that a Web version of the service is also expected to go live Thursday.
The app was developed by two-year-old company Avos Systems, which is led by YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. (Chen and Hurley sold YouTube to Google in 2005.) Other Avos Systems products include the reborn version of Delicious and Zeen, a magazine discovery and publishing service that is still in beta.
For the latest venture, Avos Systems has given users plenty of room to run with their creative impulses. Mixbit allows users to pull together up to 256 clips, which in turn can be up to 16 seconds long. That positions the new app as more of a tool for people who really like to play with video, rather than simply one that you can use to share fun moments with friends. In fact, the app will even let users mix together video that they haven't uploaded, provided that it’s been shared publicly.
To make their videos, users can drag and drop clips as well as cut and rearrange them. The app also lets users work on more than one video project at a time.
Mixbit hits the market as the social video space continues to grow, not only from stand-alone apps Viddy and Socialcam. but also from high-profile players such as Facebook’s Instagram and Twitter’s Vine. Meanwhile, online video viewing continues to ramp up as well, particularly over social networks. Earlier this month, Business Insider released a report that showed that a majority of video is watched on social networks and that video length is actually shrinking to cater to those who want to “snack” on videos.
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