We’re not Dubsmash: Velfie

The velfie craze has taken India by storm, thanks to Bollywood actors, sporting personalities and even the prime minister posting online videos of themselves on social media. As companies and celebrities increasingly turn more social media friendly, the velfie is fast emerging as the medium of choice for many celebrities across Facebook and Instagram.

The global phenomenon started with the launch of German-developed Dubsmash in November 2014, and now boasts of over 50 million downloads across 192 countries. Another app called Velfie has also emerged. It has over 200,000 downloads and is already operating in around 140 countries. However, co-founder Ankush Johar insists they’re not the Indian jugaad to Dubsmash.

“Dubsmash is true to the world of dubbing. That’s how it was created and has evolved. We’re not just about lip sync. That’s why we’re not called LipSyncfie or Lipfie or Dubfie. A comparison with Instagram or Twitter would be more appropriate than with Dubsmash”, he says.

Johar claims Velfie is developing its own social networking platform, and has features like pause or filters and is working on add-ons like animation and stickers that would enhance the user experience without the hassle of post-production. It is also integrating with Facebook Messenger and two other messaging services by the end of the year. However, WhatsApp is not on the list. The company is also toying with the idea of transmitting only sounds.

“Facebook is primarily for friends. Twitter is for broadcast with text and images. Velfie aspires to be that for video, live or otherwise. That’s much more than the fad of lip sync”, Johar adds.

Driving factor
The country has come a long way with social media, the Selfie phenomenon, and now the Velfie. Johar believes vanity plays a massive role in the success of these trends.

“The vanity in a human being pushes them to showcase themselves in the best possible form. That is why heroic films are hugely successful. People look up to these figures, and syncing somebody’s voice and one’s face puts them in a position to be the star”, Johar says.

No 3G? No problem
While the selfie phenomenon may have made it big, when asked if the video selfie would be impaired by the low internet bandwidth in most areas with a mere 7-8% of the population currently on 3G Johar says, “Our systems are designed with the emerging market in mind. The app is light, and a sound snippet is between 20-400 KB while the final video can be 600 KB to 5 MB at the maximum. All this can be achieved even with a GPRS connection.”

Clicking velfies all day?
Selfie was charged with accusations that it nudges one’s narcissistic self. With the Velfie following in its footsteps, the Velfie co-founder however doesn’t plead guilty of turning healthy individuals into narcissistic ones.

“Vanity taken to an extreme is narcissism. There is a possibility of fundamentally narcissistic people to be on our platform. Only time will tell if we need to put curbs on the system.”

When asked what the system can do to curb such acts Johar says, “As a responsible organization we can build our algorithms to ask for confirmations like ‘Isn’t this getting a bit too much?’ or ‘Are you sure you want to post this?’"

The concept is not new to the industry. Google Labs designed a similar functionality into Gmail where if one sends an email post 11 pm, it presumes him/her to be drunk, and asks for a double confirmation.

When asked how he sees the Selfie vs. Velfie tussle panning out, Johar clearly thinks the Velfie has an obvious edge, after all, “if a picture is a thousand words, a video is a thousand images.”

(Image credit: Indiatimes)