Trio sparks creativity with easy multimedia collages

Mashups. That’s what the kids are into these days, and a brand new app called Trio is making the process of creating them swift and dead simple.

Mashups — compiling different multimedia elements into a single overarching message — sounds cool but it is not the easiest thing to accomplish, especially when you’re gathering material from disparate sources.

Trio, a hybrid social networking and creative app, provides artistic elements that cater to nearly every taste to let you easily find and remix images, videos, animated GIFs, looping videos and music. Elements come from Instagram, Vine, Giphy, iTunes and movie clips. Achieve any attitude you want with your creation, depending on what you include and juxtapose into your work.

Of course, you do not have to use any of the packaged materials for your mashup. You can use the app to pull together all of your own or your friends’ photos, videos, GIFs and music. The app also gives you several fonts for placing text and even lets you do voiceover recording

The social aspect of Trio facilitates connections and interactions with other Trio users. An Explore tab lets you use the popular swipe gesture to move from one mashup to the next. The app features built-in challenges to users such as What’s on TV, Things in my Purse, and If I was in the 1920s to spark the imagination and promote fun competitions.

And of course, you can like, favorite and follow to your heart’s content. An Activity tab keeps you in touch with other users who liked your stuff.

One nice aspect of Trio is that no third party elements are contributed anonymously. There is a linked attribution to every asset, which can serve to drive traffic and purchases to original content owners.

The content on Trio is available either via public APIs or is covered under fair use, and in all cases it has linked attribution back to the original sources, just like Pinterest. Music that you use goes back to iTunes so that you have the opportunity to purchase a track you chose or buy the album it’s on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lqD5eNEjlQ

Trio does envision some monetization from this eventually, especially from brands that like to have users create narratives around their products. Affiliate referrals too, allow for a revenue stream when users purchase a work they incorporate into their mashup.

Think of Trio as an easy way to create an animated collage that gives kids and playful adults a quick way to express their thoughts and emotions and share them with friends and family.

Trio works with iOS 7 and later and is available for free in the App Store.

➤ Trio [iOS]