Viddy, available for iPhone and iPod Touch, is a clip-sharing service that allows its users to upload short videos, customize them with sound and filter effects, and share the clips across its network.
Before you can use the app, you’ll need to set up a Viddy account. This is where my problems started. Using my app-devoted email addy, I began the registration process, selecting the user name I typically use for this sort of thing. I still don’t believe it (it’s that specific to me), but after an extremely long registration Viddy told me the name was taken. When I entered in my second choice, the app then told me my email address was already in use. (I never received confirmation from Viddy at that address, so this is clearly a glitch with the duplicate user name.) I was then forced to register for the service using a different email entirely. It was a frustrating start.
Once into the app, you’ll automatically follow Viddy’s creator. You’ll see tabs for favorites, activities and the feed, where you can view Viddy uploads from those you follow, popular clips and rising trends. You’ll also see a “Share” tab for uploading your own clips to the service. Viddy clips are restricted to 15 seconds, which is plenty long enough for some things, but entirely too short for many others. You can shoot video directly in the app or upload from your library. Most of the videos on my phone are, surprise, of my dog doing dumb-awesome stuff and almost all were closer to a minute in length than 15 seconds. Viddy offers a simple-to-use, built-in trimmer for clips that are too long.
After the video is compressed, users can choose one of six filters, such as black & white, vintage or 3D, the amount of effect and how much soundtrack they want to add to the clip. Each filter has a corresponding music clip, but you won’t be able to preview it until the clip has gone through two rounds of loading the bottom status bar. If you like the look and sound of the clip, enter in a title and optional location and tags. You can also configure sharing options for Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and soon Viddy will support Foursquare and Tumblr. Hit “Done,” and your video will be sent to the Viddy network, where other users can fave your clip or leave comments.
The registration process for Viddy soured my experience, not to mention my general dislike for services that require use of a separate network. The ease of adding effects to your clips is Viddy’s strength, but until longer clips are supported I don’t see the app having mass
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