Facebook today launched a new app called Riff, which is designed to let people create collaborative videos with their friends by linking multiple videos surrounding a single topic.
After downloading the app, anyone can begin a Riff video by shooting a clip and giving it a topic. From there, your friends will get a notification to watch what's been uploaded already and an invite to add their own clips to the topic, building on the video. As the video is passed along and more people add to it, it gets longer and longer.
Video must be shot within the Riff app, as there are no uploading tools, and to encourage people to submit their own videos to contribute, there's no liking or commenting. Because some of the Riffs can get long, there are fast forwarding tools, and original Riff creators can moderate new clips to delete portions of the video if necessary.
Facebook has an example video from Riff available on the new Riff website, created by the cast of An American in Paris on Broadway.
Riff is the latest app coming from Facebook's Creative Labs project, which has also produced apps like Paper, Groups, Rooms, Mentions and Slingshot. Of the apps that have been created by Facebook's Creative Labs, Paper, a news curation app with a magazine-style layout, has proven to be the most popular.
In an interview with TechCrunch, Riff's product manager Josh Miller said Riff was inspired by the videos that were shared during the Ice Bucket challenge, where thousands of people dumped buckets of ice water on their heads in support of ALS and then challenged friends to do the same.
Riff can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]
Article Link: Facebook Launches New 'Riff' iOS App for Collaborative Videos
