Poetry in motion

Not another video sharing app you might think. Isn’t EVERYONE working on that at the moment? From Twitter buying up Periscope (which was preceded by the brief Meerkat trend) and Vine, to Instagram (owned by Facebook), most big companies are getting in on video. So, much to my surprise, from all this emerges Hykoo, an app which meshes three short videos overlaid with text to create some good-looking results.

The power of three

According to an interview with Hykoo’s founders, the app is all about getting creative with your surroundings rather than sticking your face in the camera, like you might with Vine. Having checked out some of the videos that have already been shared, this does seem to be the case so far.

Creating your “Hykoo” is a simple process: record three short video clips with sound (you can redo these as many times as you like); chose your text; and then apply a filter of your choosing. You’re then ready to share to the built-in Hykoo social network, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, or choose to save it on the device instead. The video clips are 12 seconds in total, split in a three, three, then six second ratio.

Finding others’ Hykoos is a nifty process, as you can either search for users by name or location, or click on the text you’ve added to your video clips and check out others who have used the same words. The Hykoo social network is already pretty developed with some cool videos from other users.

Some bugs to iron out

However, Hykoo is by no means a perfect creation and was prone to some bugs. A few times the app just refused to reopen and let me record another Hykoo, and navigation was not always so smooth. It also requires Facebook or Twitter login, which will put some users off.

On the plus side, the video creation was always a smooth and straightforward process, with the bar along the bottom allowing you to easily see what you have recorded so you can re-shoot anything that didn’t turn out quite right. And you can save unfinished videos to your drafts if you’re not ready to go public yet.

Just enjoy it

It’s easy to be cynical about the latest app craze and to dismiss it as nothing new, or to question its long-term future, but Hykoo is a very enjoyable way to create some pretty neat video footage. It’s a lot of fun and the results (even for very average film makers) are surprisingly good, managing to fuse together motion and words in a more meaningful and attractive way.