As played out as the “if ___ had a baby with ___ you’d get ___” is, it’s the best way to describe Digisocial. Cross Instagram and Soundcloud with a dash of SoundTracking, and you’ll get Digisocial. The gap between video and photography apps is what the new app is trying to fill.
There’s two emerging pain points that Digisocial wants to solve. First, it’s expensive to maintain most smartphones these days. Second, mobile users want a quick, easy, and efficient way to communicate with each other. And the latter we’ve noticed is bound to break out to be the next biggest breakout industry this year in mobile. All you have to do is look at the messaging apps being used today, and Facebook’s aggressive strategy to capture a share of the mobile messaging market.
Digisocial takes photos that you’ve taken on your phone or from the Web and combines them with sound clips – it’s also less data-intensive to stream audio than a YouTube video for instance. Instead of pulling in music, which is SoundTracking’s claim to fame, the app wants you to record everyday sounds that could accompany a photograph that you’ve just taken with your iPhone. And naturally, you’ll find Instagram-like photo filters to boot. All the content created on the app can then be share through your Digisocial profile where friends can view and interact with your content.
The app isn’t entirely focused on media experiences however, and is also diving into messaging territory. “We deliver the full-fledged social network, but we also give people at the same time, the ability to send hi-def instant voice messages recorded in real time and uploaded to each other along with text and photos,” Digisocial VP Marco Mereu says. Users can chat with Digisocial friends through push-to-record voice messaging and comments, while browsing your friend’s profiles.
First and foremost, Digisocial is a social network — something Mereu makes clear, and says it necessary in the face of acquisitions and partnerships that leave users with fewer and fewer social networking options. For instance Pinterest just acquired Punchfork and shut the app down indefinitely. The consequence is that we’re left hanging with these platforms that pocket revenue from what they know about you and your interests. “Even if you know that your information is being shared, your content is being shared and basically used in any way they want, people don’t really have any other choice and continue to use it.”
Mereu emphasized the app’s strict policy over its users’ privacy. Digisocial takes a completely different approach. “We don’t view users as products,” Mereu says. “We don’t serve ads, we don’t serve content directly at a user, we don’t utilize those ad mechanics, we don’t share our user’s information with third parties.” He says that the user’s content belongs to the user, which is a policy privacy-minded users would support. He adds, “We think Digisocial is going to give users the same level of quality as the popular social networks, but give them the ability to control their own content.”
