Clash App Takes on TikTok and YouTube
Before there was TikTok, the long since defunct Vine was the short social media platform. Now one of Vine's founders and one of its creators are pushing to build a new video app to help creators make money easier than they can on TikTok or any of the other crowded social media apps.
Clash rolled out new features on Tuesday that let anyone make money from videos regardless of follower count – the strategy is a direct response to companies like Instagram and YouTube, where creators have to be "verified" to earn any form of cash.
The startup is the result of two companies merging. Byte, created by Vine founder Dom Hofmann and billed as a sequel to Vine, was acquired by Clash CEO and co-founder, Brandon McNerney, former Vine content creator and creative director at NeoReach. Clash debuted last summer.
But, it relaunched this week with new features that gives creators the ability to shoot and edit videos in-app, share their content and earn.
Clash CEO and co-founder Brendon McNerney
McNerney wanted to create an app that gave creators the ability to make cash on social media without brand deals.
"I was still getting text messages from friends every weekend like hey I need another brand deal, I can't pay rent this week," McNerney told dot.LA. "I wanted to build something you know as a former creator, that was inherently easy and fun for creators to use, and also receive support directly from their audience."
Clash is entering a crowded market where social media companies apps like TikTok, Facebook and Snapchat are in need of content and luring creators with dollars.
But unlike most platforms that service the top 2% of creators, Clash was created with the small creator in mind.
"Part of that was rebuilding byte with the latest and greatest creative tools, but also making sure that it was really easy to share and earn," COO Justice Tention told dot.LA.
A key feature of the app includes "drops," which are digital goods that can be sent to creators from their fan base to show their appreciation and support (virtual tip-jar).
Once a creator earns 2,500 "drops," equivalent to $25 USD, the creator can then cash out using PayPal or Venmo at the end of each month.
"We see a lot of creators on TikTok and Instagram putting Venmo or PayPal links in their bio, asking for money and so we wanted to just go with what creators were using." Tention said.
For now, Clash will not take a cut from the creators, but that may change in the future. The app is free and available in the Apple App and Google Play store.
The company has $9 million in venture funding raised so far, backed by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian's firm Seven Seven Six along with M13, Plug and Play Tech, and ACME Capital.
Correction: An earlier version stated that the app was available on Google Play. Clash won't be available on Google Play for a few weeks.
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OpenDrives' product is a physical drive enabled with software that lets production editors avoid the time consuming process of compressing and decompressing video files. That's especially valuable in increasingly collaborative workflows that require rendering and sharing large files extremely fast.
Rievers was named as vice president of operations, a role that will let him put these tools in the hands of editors producing live esports events, something he knows well.
"The pain point for us is really the storage not being able to handle the content, or not being able to provide the content fast enough, or at full resolution for the editor," Rievers explained. "It's not allowing the editor or the producer to focus on their creativity. With OpenDrives, it's like the system is not even there."
Rievers spent nearly four years at Activision as head of post-production, managing a team of editors that quickly turned around footage for live events like the company's annual BlizzCon showcase and esports matches in the Overwatch and Call of Duty Leagues. Prior to that he was a post-production manager at Univision for four and a half years, and led live production on the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
While producing these events, Rievers and his team quickly noticed that where the digital files were stored – and how quickly they could be accessed and edited – greatly impacted how the overall final product would look.
"As the end user, the last thing I want to have to worry about is what storage I'm working with, (and) the thing about open drives is that it's it's the best thing I've ever seen," Rievers said.
He joked that he tried many times to push OpenDrives' network-attached software's limits as a customer, and was impressed by how well it worked under pressure.
"Every chance I had to test or to demo OpenDrives, I did my absolute best to try to break it and fight it," Rivers said. "If it wasn't me, it was one of my editors… and nobody could break it."
OpenDrives chief operations officer Sean Lee.
Rievers argued that he was interested in the OpenDrives software not just because it was fast, but because when he used it he actually almost forgot it was there, but it did the heavy lifting in the background for his team as they rapidly edited, produced and shipped dense video files.
OpenDrives chief operations officer Sean Lee said OpenDrives wants to run in the background without disrupting the workflow.
Lee spent years working at NBCUniversal production prior to joining OpenDrives.
Often he'd have a problem that'd need "to be fixed within the hour because I have a deadline to meet. If my storage isn't working, and I'm not having this good experience, I may have hundreds of VFX artists or editors just sitting around waiting for this thing to work."
Lee sees opportunity opening up as pandemic restrictions ease. The esports leagues will resume live broadcasts from around the world as they compete in real-time, meaning they might benefit from upgrading their storage.
"If storage is doing its job, you should not even know that it's there," Lee said.
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