Socialcam was a mobile social

video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...

application for

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

, Android and

Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft Mobile for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design languag ...

, that was launched March 7, 2011 and ended October 28, 2015. It allowed users to capture and share videos online and on mobile, as well as via

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

, and other

social network A social network is a social structure consisting of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), networks of Dyad (sociology), dyadic ties, and other Social relation, social interactions between actors. The social network per ...

s. By July 2012, the application passed 16 million downloads and was acquired by

Autodesk Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that provides software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquarte ...

for $60 million. Socialcam was founded by

Michael Seibel Michael Seibel (born October 7, 1982) is a partner at Y Combinator and co-founder of two startups – Justin.tv/Twitch and Socialcam. He first joined Y Combinator in 2013, advising hundreds of startups, and has been active in promoting diversity ...

, Ammon Bartram, and Guillaume Luccisano. Its facility was located in San Francisco, California, US.

Functionality

Socialcam was well known for the following functionality: applying filters to video, applying themes and soundtracks to video, and smooth integration with Facebook. Socialcam's eventual goal was to replace the default camera app on all smartphones.

Investors

Socialcam participated in the Winter 2012 class of

Y Combinator Y Combinator, LLC (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator and venture capital firm launched in March 2005 which has been used to launch more than 5,000 companies. The accelerator program started in Boston and Mountain View, Californi ...

and raised funding from a large list of Silicon Valley and Hollywood angel investors.

Brands on Socialcam

In 2012, a large number of brands used Socialcam to engage their social media audiences with video content including: Brooklyn Nets, Lipton Iced Tea, New York Jets, Sierra Mist, and General Electric. By the end of 2013, none of these brands were still active on Socialcam. A complete list of Socialcam brands was listed on the site's "brand leaderboard" feature.

Partnership with the Washington Post

On July 9, 2012, the Washington Post announced a partnership with Socialcam, becoming Socialcam's official news partner for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Socialcam and the Washington Post worked together to create London Eyes - an interactive map of user generated videos taken in and around London during the olympic games. Socialcam and the Washington Post teamed up again to cover the 2012 Democratic and Republican national conventions to create "Unconventional: Behind the scenes at conventions".

Criticism

Socialcam's popularity on Facebook suddenly increased in the spring of 2012, via unusually aggressive actions to induce contacts to join. It was criticized as "invasive" and a "bully" by many reviewers, for sharing what users were viewing without them realizing that that would happen. This also led to questions about whether Facebook was playing favorites with what content gets featured. In response to criticism, Socialcam quickly made a number of changes to make its sharing functionality easier to understand.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official Socialcam website
Video software 2011 software Android (operating system) software IOS software Windows Phone software