Flipagram Wraps 2015 with New Product Announcements
Popular music and "moments sharing" app Flipagram is ending the year on a high note with impressive stats, expanded "Flips" and product enhancements designed to propel it into 2016.
______________________________________________
By Cortney Harding
Flipagram has had quite a year in 2015 – one filled with many ups (the company’s $70 million raise over the summer) and a few downs (they cut 20% of staff in October). Still, they’re ending the year on a high note with the release of a yearly recap feature and the rollout of 60-second song clips.
Clips were previously limited to 30 seconds. Flipagram has deals with all the majors and indies in place – a source tells Hypebot those deals were lump-sum payments, which Flipagram doesn’t comment on. Regardless, the extended clips are meant to offer users more time to create stories from their photo collections and hopefully cement Flipagram as a platform for storytelling and engagement, according to CEO Farhad Mohit.
Mohit adds that Flipagram is positioned to be in the middle of “moment sharing” networks like Snapchat on one end the spectrum and sites like YouTube, where people can post entire films, on the other. He says that the sixty-second clips are almost like user-generated music videos, but can expand an artist’s reach, because people are interested in their friend’s stories and can discover artists through those.
In conjunction with the product announcement, Flipagram also shared its most-used artists and tracks for the year. Meghan Trainor tops the artist list with 3.6 million Flips, while One Direction takes second place with 2.8 million (the site didn’t release stats on how many of those were tributes to departed band member Zayn Malik). Top tracks included “My Main,” by Mila J (featuring Ty Dolla $ign); “Cheerleader,” by Omi; and “Time of Our Lives” by Pitbull and Ne-Yo.
