Everyone knows the sensation once we ship a humorous TikTok video, anticipating a response from a pal, solely to obtain a fundamental laughing emoji or, worse, no response in any respect. Seen goals to resolve this with its new social app, the place buddies report a reside video response to content material you ship them.
The video messaging app, out there on iOS gadgets, was co-founded by seasoned entrepreneur Faheem Kajee and actress Karen Gillan, finest identified for her position as Nebula in “Guardians of the Galaxy.”
With Seen, you possibly can ship movies in personal one-on-one iMessages or group chats with as much as 11 folks. When recipients are despatched content material, they need to report a video of themselves, which is just considered by the sender and mutual buddies within the group chat. The sender then has to reciprocate with a video of themselves reacting to their pal’s response. The corporate hopes its app will create an genuine and interesting approach to work together with buddies.
One of many app’s key options is a TikTok integration, permitting you to share movies with your folks on Seen straight from the TikTok app. The app additionally affords a scrollable feed of well-liked TikTok movies in addition to the power to add movies out of your iPhone’s digital camera roll. Integrations with YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels can be launched sooner or later.
Seen launched on the App Retailer earlier this month and already has hundreds of customers. The corporate mentioned it has plans to roll out an Android model quickly, however it didn’t share a selected launch date.
“Our broad goal is creating a platform that helps people connect with one another that feels very real,” Kajee advised TechCrunch. “[Sharing video reactions] is better than just getting a thumbs-up back. It prompts a broader conversation, and there’s a sense of results from seeing somebody’s reaction.”
Kajee is the co-founder of three different startups: beverage firm Second, e-commerce platform Preliminary and style social app Discovered (previously Pashash). In the meantime, this can be Gillan’s first time founding a tech startup.
“[Gillan] has been involved in both the actual conceptualization and the nitty-gritty process, which has been amazing and very unexpected for a big Hollywood actress…Karen is really helpful for the distribution stuff,” Kajee mentioned.
Along with having a film star as a founder to assist with person development, the app has acquired help from notable traders, together with Twitter co-founder Ev Williams, Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin, former Crunchyroll CEO Kun Gao, founding CEO of Rotten Tomatoes Patrick Lee and others, leading to a complete of $1 million in funding.
Reacting to personal video messages is simply the primary iteration of Seen. The corporate later plans to introduce a public feed to find different customers and can also be contemplating the potential for well-liked content material creators interacting with followers one-on-one to get their reactions earlier than posting movies. Different potential use instances for the app might be stand-up comedians testing out new jokes or seeing a response from an “investor when they open a pitch deck,” Kajee mentioned.
The corporate additionally intends to introduce monetization options like premium choices comparable to video games and filters inside the app. Promoting is one other space it needs to discover, nonetheless, Seen is taking an attention-grabbing method that goals to assemble person response information.
“When you’re scrolling through the feed, there would be some content from users, some content from friends and some content from advertisers,” Kajee famous, including that customers may have the choice to react to an advert, which Seen would then collect “anonymized data on aspects such as the type of emotion, areas where an individual paid attention, and the degree of attentiveness.” The reactions to advertisements are solely accessed by Seen, not different customers or the advertiser.
“Those data points are so valuable, and it’s something that nobody else has access to, which makes it really interesting,” he mentioned.
Response messenger apps have been a pattern amongst startups prior to now — comparable to Collect, Reactr and Samba — but didn’t seem to take off as founders might have hoped. Now, 10 years later, the launch of Seen comes at a time when there’s a rising demand for extra genuine and significant connections on-line, particularly among the many youthful technology. The founders hope that this app will handle the necessity for real interactions, significantly at a time when many individuals are feeling the consequences of a loneliness epidemic.
