Keek’s fast-growing ‘kred’ (with video-sharers)
You may not have heard of Keek the social app because Mashable says it has “maintained an under-the-radar presence” since it launched in 2011 but is “steadily gaining both users and notoriety in the shadow of networks such as Vine, Instagram and Snapchat.”
What’s most different about it is that videos can be as long as 36 sec. (up from Vine’s 6-sec. max and Instagram’s 15 sec.). Video or text replies are cutely called “keekbacks.” And there’s a “Likes”-like popularity piece, except Keek users can get more and more “kred.” Teens can find followers through their Twitter or Facebook accounts or among the Contacts on their smartphones. “Keek also helps you find users to follow by organizing uploads by Latest, Popular, Random and Featured, as well as maintaining a list of its top 100 users,” according to Mashable. Keek likes the number 36, because along with the 36-sec. max video length, 36 is the maximum number of users who can privately chat with the app (parents might want to ask Keek users if they use that feature and, if so, only with peers they know in offline life). The app works on iPhones and Android, BlackBerry and Windows phones, and – Keek says – its 60 million+ users are young (85% 13-25) and increasingly all over the world.
Keek is not to be confused with Kik, a popular texting app (the No. 1 messaging app among Australian teens, I was told when there last spring) – though they’re probably pronounced the same way in some parts of the world. But Kik Messenger itself got multimedia late last year, Mashable reported, which means that these social apps seem to be getting more alike than they’re differentiating themselves, and differentiation becomes as much about which one your friends use as product features. But even small distinctions can make a big difference to some users (very often young ones).
Dear readers: Social apps multiply like rabbits (there are well over 1 million apps in the Apple and Google Play App Stores alone, probably most of them social), so NetFamilyNews just focuses on category leaders, innovators and trends.
Related links
- Mashable’s “Beginner’s Guide to Vine,” Twitter’s video-sharing app, which reportedly saw 403% growth between the first and third quarters of last year
- Mashable on the private messaging craze of late (in social media apps, including Instagram)
- “Details, context on Rounds, Vine & other video sharing apps”
- “Posting, sharing, shooting video: Study” this past October
- “Instagram adds video” (last June)
- ConnectSafely’s parents’ guides to Instagram and other services and issues
