Yahoo adds new dimension to mobile messaging: silent video

MANILA, Philippines - The name of the game is silence. 

You can type as many text messages as you can and see the person you are chatting with in real time. You can see her world, where she is, how she looks. When she types “LOL” or “haha” you can really see her laugh. When she sends a smiling emoji, you can see that smile as well. 

But you can’t talk, you can’t hear. And neither can she. You can only both chat and watch.

This in essence is Livetext, the new messaging app launched by Yahoo that blends text messaging with silent video.

“Traditionally when you have video there is always a sound to it,” says Arjun Sethi, Yahoo senior director for product management, in a phone interview before the global launch of the new app. “Our goal here is to build an emotional connection through video and be able to help people connect very quickly, no matter where they are at any given time.”

That doesn’t make a lot of sense in the beginning but as you use the app and carry on conversations with friends with no sound, the idea starts to get clearer. The video gives you a window to someone’s world at any given time while you are chatting on the go - 30 seconds here, 20 seconds there or maybe a minute or two later. Maybe you just want to pop a question or say hi. 

The conversation can also last longer, like 15 minutes of catching up, or 10 minutes of swapping jokes while you were both on coffee break. Sethi says its more natural and spontaneous than scheduling a video call, preparing for it, and setting aside time for the conversation.

“We believe that the fundamental unit of communication is video, but we want to move way from the calling paradigm. The way we set up a conversation is formal. We set the time, we set up our schedules. People do that with video calling services and we want to move away from that and wanted to focus on closing the gap between video and texting,” he explains.

Prior to the global launch on Aug. 25, Yahoo introduced the service in Hong Kong and Taiwan last month, and the US, UK, Canada, Germany and France early this month. The Yahoo Livetext app is available as a free download on the Apple Store and Google Play store.

So far so good. #Livetext on Twitter is abuzz with comments on the new service a week after the launch. “Two things are happening: they (early adopters) like it because they can use it anywhere and it’s not the same as video calling in the past,” says Arjun.

Feedback include comments such as ‘it’s fun,’ ‘it feels less boring,’ ‘it stands out,’ ‘it’s a unique way to text,’ and ‘it’s Yahoo’s effort to be cool’. But of course there are those who digress and say that silent video messaging is ‘not cool at all,’ ‘just a trick,’ ‘redundant and useless.’ Many noticed similarities with Snapchat and Periscope.

The good thing probably is that it gets people talking and thinking about the mobile messaging ecosystem and how new innovations may possibly extend or transform the technology.  

The Yahoo Livetex app can be used on phones with Android 4.0 and above and with front and rear facing cameras. Seth says trials show it can work even in networks with low latency. “We want to focus on quality and the network because we want to make sure this could work across network carriers in different regions,” he says.

Another thing about Yahoo LiveText is it doesn’t support group text and it doesn’t save messages. When a session ends, the video and the messages are gone. Yahoo wants users to remember the conversation rather than carry around a social transaction history.

“We are still going to improve the product and group conversations could be a feature in the future but we are currently focused on the one-to-one communication,” Sethi says, adding that in lieu of a group chat, one can go back and forth between rooms or conversations.

“We also don’t support saving the video or saving the conversation because we are focused on communication and the emotional connection. It’ as if you are talking to someone face to face and as if it is a real life conversation,” he says.

Lastly, Yahoo emphasizes that the video session is encrypted end-to-end, while the text messaging function is private and no one can look into it at any given time.