{"id":4777,"date":"2017-04-18T16:02:49","date_gmt":"2017-04-18T16:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/tumblr-launches-cabana-a-new-app-for-watching-videos-with-friends.html"},"modified":"2017-04-18T16:02:49","modified_gmt":"2017-04-18T16:02:49","slug":"tumblr-launches-cabana-a-new-app-for-watching-videos-with-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/tumblr-launches-cabana-a-new-app-for-watching-videos-with-friends.html","title":{"rendered":"Tumblr launches Cabana, a new app for watching videos with friends"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

Tumblr today is launching<\/a> a new app, called\u00a0Cabana<\/a>, which allows a group of friends to video chat and watch videos together, in real time. The app is being introduced under the Tumblr brand, and will cater to the type of users who frequent Tumblr\u2019s blogging service \u2013 teens\u00a0and young adults \u2013 but it\u2019s not currently designed to interoperate with Tumblr\u2019s product or take advantage of the existing relationships between fellow Tumblr users.<\/p>\n

Instead, Cabana came about more through happenstance than strategic direction.<\/p>\n

Tumblr founder and CEO David Karp<\/a> ran into Jason Lee<\/a>, Director of Product Management at Polyvore Labs, at a Yahoo leadership offsite earlier this year, where Lee was demonstrating the product.<\/p>\n

Polyvore Labs is an internal incubator inside Yahoo \u2013 the company that acquired both Tumblr<\/a> and the fashion site Polyvore<\/a> in years past. (Yahoo is also in the process of being acquired by Verizon<\/a>, which owns TechCrunch\u2019s parent company, AOL.) The Labs group\u00a0includes engineers, designers and product managers from the Polyvore team.<\/p>\n

It has developed other products in the social and\u00a0lifestyle space, but none have ever made it to a public launch, until Cabana.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just immediately clicked for me as this experience that every internet-connect human has had at this point,\u201d explains Karp, of having watched the Cabana demo. \u201cYou find something incredible on the internet \u2013 that latest\u00a0viral video that\u2019s hilarious or profound, or that obscure thing that means a ton to you \u2013 and then you\u2019re dragging your friends over to your computer to watch it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

That same sort of thing also happens on Tumblr to some extent \u2013 people find interesting content and share it with others.<\/p>\n

However, the difference between the two products is that Tumblr is essentially a network of strangers who share\u00a0your interests \u2013 perhaps in anime, or art, or some TV show fandom \u2013 but Cabana is meant to be used with a group of real-life friends.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

If this sort of co-watching experience\u00a0sounds familiar, it\u2019s because there\u2019s quite a bit of\u00a0action in this space already.<\/p>\n

The recently funded iMessage-based video\u00a0chat app Fam<\/a> has plans to move into the area of group video viewing, but there are existing apps from others\u00a0who are doing this as well. We recently covered one of those efforts called Let\u2019s Watch It!,<\/a> an app for watching YouTube or Twitch videos with friends.<\/p>\n

But truthfully, there are a slew of services for group video viewing, including Gaze<\/a>, MyCircleTV<\/a>, ShareTube<\/a>, Togethr TV<\/a>, Rabbit<\/a>, Rave<\/a>, Houseparty<\/a>, and many, many more. Even YouTube is experimenting in this space with an app called\u00a0Uptime<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The co-viewing experience is also more broadly part of the appeal of the newer live-streaming video services, like those from Twitter\u2019s Periscope and Facebook Live.<\/p>\n

So the question is not really whether co-watching is going to be a thing \u2013 it\u2019s a thing<\/em> \u2013 \u00a0but, rather it\u2019s who will win this\u00a0thing if this is a\u00a0thing that is\u00a0to be won.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

How Cabana Works<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Cabana, up to six friends can hang out in a \u201croom\u201d in the app, where they share videos from YouTube that they watch together, in real-time and in sync. You can participate in\u00a0only one room at a time, but you can leave and rejoin rooms freely.<\/p>\n

You can add friends by username or upload your address book from your phone to find your friends, then either create a \u00a0room to hang out in, or join an existing one. These rooms can be public or private \u2013 the latter by \u201clocking\u201d the room \u2013 and you can invite friends to come in by tapping \u201cHey!\u201d<\/p>\n

Once you\u2019re in a room, you\u2019ll find the\u00a0tools to lock the room, flip your camera around, mute your mic, add friends, as well as search for videos and share them with the group. Friends can even swap out the currently playing video for another at any time. You can also exit the room to browse your phone while the conversation continues, which puts you on \u201cPause.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n\t\t \"\"<\/p>\n

    CabanaHangOutWatchStuff<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n
  2. \n\t\t \"\"<\/p>\n

    CabanaHangOut<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n
  3. \n\t\t \"\"<\/p>\n

    CabanaWatchVideosTogether<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n
  4. \n\t\t \"\"<\/p>\n

    CabanaBrowseVideos<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n
  5. \n\t\t \"\"<\/p>\n

    Tumblr_Cabana_PressImages_2017.04.11-07<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The app was built in just two months\u2019 time, says Lee, and was designed to offer a\u00a0spontaneous feeling and experience.<\/p>\n

    \u201cIn Cabana, we try to blend the experience of hanging out and watching,\u201d says Lee. \u201cWe keep your face front-and-center along with the video. Instead of focusing on text-based on emoji-based conversations, we give you friends\u2019 full face and range of emotions\u2026we think that\u2019s pretty unique and differentiating feature that allows you to really recreate the experience of being together while\u00a0you\u2019re apart.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cThe thing I thought was so cool when Jason demoed this is that just it seems\u00a0so human\u2026they captured this type of hanging out that so many of us do,\u201d adds Karp.<\/p>\n

    A new home for brands ads\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

    YouTube\u2019s videos are available through an API integration in Cabana, not an official partnership, to be clear.<\/p>\n

    But assuming this proves popular, Cabana could expand to include videos from other social sources in the future.<\/p>\n

    Karp sees a path for this, having taken a similar position with regard to live video on Tumblr. The company had originally\u00a0considered building out its own video platform and publishing tools,\u00a0but later decided it made more sense to work with partners, like YouTube, YouNow, and others<\/a> when it came time to move into the live video space itself. Cabana could eventually do the same.<\/p>\n

    There\u2019s also overlap with Tumblr when it comes to brand advertisements, Karp believes. The brands currently advertising on Tumblr may want to reach a similar, young demographic \u2013 those aged 13 through 18 \u2013 through the Cabana app. (Over half of Tumblr today is\u00a0teens and millennials, ages 13-34).<\/p>\n

    But there is not advertising in Cabana at launch, nor a definitive plan as to\u00a0how it would be integrated in the future.<\/p>\n

    While Cabana\u00a0is the first standalone social app to emerge from Tumblr, it\u2019s not the first time Tumblr has tried to branch out into other mobile apps.\u00a0Back in 2012, it launched Photoset<\/a>, a separate app for posting photos to the social web, including Tumblr. (This app was later shut down.)<\/p>\n

    But though it\u2019s a separate product, it\u2019s not a pivot for Tumblr itself. The site today is still active, with over 340 million\u00a0blogs on its platform. The company declined to share its active user base, but one third-party report<\/a> from early\u00a02016 pegged Tumblr as having 23.2 million users here in the U.S. Tumblr is available worldwide so this is not the full picture, though the report did claim that it would add fewer users over the next few years than rivals like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.<\/p>\n

    The issue for Tumblr is that the way users are connecting today on mobile is changing \u2013 we\u2019re more likely to message and chat, than share blog posts. But Tumblr claims it has made the mobile transition, saying over 80% of its users access its service on mobile. Still, Cabana could help Tumblr enter the\u00a0new era of video chatting, if it succeeds.<\/p>\n

    Cabana is initially available on iOS<\/a> with an Android launch planned for May.<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

    Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/MmMtSTmTIG4\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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