Mindie, the ‘Vine-meets-music’ startup, has been developing nicely since we first covered it in October last year. Today it’s rolling out an update that brings the iOS app, and the platform that underpins it, to a new level of maturity.
As a quick recap, Mindie allows you to record a ten-second video loop and then add a clip of licensed music over the top. While that may sounds like nothing more than ‘Vine with pop videos’, the result is a community of often very creative users that do things you can’t do with Vine. Take this video below, for example – it was a joy to stumble upon it yesterday while playing around with the revamped app (click the speaker icon to hear the music).
The app update brings with it better discoverability, with the addition of feeds for popular and recent posts. While the creativity demonstrated in the best ‘mindies’ doesn’t always match the best posts on Vine, the addition of a soundtrack to every video forces users to think differently, leading to some enjoyable results that are worth exploring.
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Today’s update also brings with it filters (accessible by swiping left-to-right) and the ability to import video from your Camera Roll. The latter feature opens up new opportunites for adding video shot offline or on other devices.
Mindie’s founding team won’t discuss user numbers in detail but say that the past few months since the team moved from France to San Francisco have been all about turning the app into something that can justify its existence in a world where services like Vine and YouTube are already established. “We think we truly found [that justification] as our [users] are making unique content that feels like an everyday storytelling of their lives… those feel-good videos make Mindie a sticky platform,” says Stanislas Coppin. “On the last beta our metrics have increased significantly.”
“This release is about setting up the basis of a durable video channel on mobile: Easy contribution, fast and intense experience of consumption,” adds fellow co-founder Clément Raffenoux.
Mindie’s app still isn’t perfect. It needs more flexible sharing options and better support for embedding videos on third-party sites. Also, the fact that the team won’t discuss user numbers indicates that there’s still work to be done there. Still, it’s a slick product with real creative potential, so it’s certainly worth keeping your eyes and ears on.
This article originally said Mindie videos are seven seconds long, it has been corrected to ten.
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