Smule’s New Smuush Turns Vine Clips Into Crowdsourced Music Videos
Smule has focused on apps that typically allow everyone to participate in making music. With the launch of Smuush, they are now experimenting with tech that turns community participation into music videos. Smuush gathers Vine videos with the same music-related hashtag, identifies the ones that are made while playing the actual song and then stitches some of those together into a complete music video. Currently it's in demo mode but they will be opening things up and sync licensing is part of their planning from the beginning.
Turner Kirk is the marketing guy at Smule who led the team that created Smuush. Kirk introduces Smuush in an in-depth blog post. He says was trying to find a different way to involve Smule in social sites than simply opening an account and posting away.
In the process he came up with this simple equation:
But since many of us studied math in a different time and headspace, he also shares this video:
Smuush by Smule | Demo
Basically Smuush connects vine videos creating a version synced to the song. The process is automated and the app will create a new version each time it's run.
Though you can't make your own Smuush videos yet, the idea is to make it more widely available which will also open up marketing possibilities for musicians.
I was informed by email that they will be properly licensing music:
"We pay sync licenses for all our songs. The more our users interact with a song, the more money songwriters make. Smuush has the potential to boost people's desire to interact with a song (so they can see themselves in a music video)."
If you're interested in encouraging the process, Smuush is asking you to tweet the song you want to see Smuushed next to the @smule Twitter account.
Smuush is a great response to the question of how to participate in social networks in a new way. I'm looking forward to seeing how things develop.
More:
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch) also blogs at DanceLand. Send news about music tech startups and services, DIY music biz and music marketing to: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
Awesome job. Congrats to the Smuush team!