SkylightA startup displaying Tiktok with a more open alternative, launches its mobile application to the public on Tuesday after only 10 weeks of active development. The application, which is supported by Mark Cuban and others, is now One of the many to build above the protocol at – The same technology underlying the social network Bluesky and a growing number of other applications.
Developed by the Co-founders Tori White (CEO) and Reed Harmeyer (CTO), Skylight offers a short video application experience with many familiar features, including an integrated video editor; the possibility of commenting, loving and sharing videos; Configure your own user profile; and follow others.
Because it is also built on the Protocol (or “ATPROTO” for short), users will be immediately exploited in the network of Bluesky of More than 33.8 million users. It means photo application centered on flashesFor example.
The company is financed by a pre-aged Cuban cycle, which said earlier this year that He wanted to finance a tiktok alternative built on the protocol at. Leslie Feinzaig Graham & Walker Venture Fund also invested.
White, who was a travel influencer and is now a self-taught software developer living in Seattle, says that she and the co-founder Hermeyer were inspired to create Skylight when they heard that for the first time Tiktok was prohibited in the United States
In preparation for the ban, which is Currently on breakWhite fell her Tiktok videos. But she was still afraid of losing access to her community and comments. She and Hermeyer had already played with Atproto and had seen the potential.
“The first thing that interested us in ATPROTO was that Bluesky did not fail,” Techcrunch in Techcrunch told Harmeyer The atmosphere conference in Seattle in March. “We have not seen the” failure whale, “he said, a reference to The graph that appeared at the start of Twitter When the application has constantly crushed. “It made us comfortable in underlying technology.”
Harmeyer and White quickly realized that it was an ideal time to build a new social application on the protocol which could be “to the prohibition test”.
By tapping in its bottom of influence, White began to document the development of Skylight on Tiktok, which has helped bring an exhibition to the product and build a series of potentially interested users.
“We started with the distribution,” said White. “I made a video before writing a line of code for that … (therefore) everyone can follow our trip as we build,” she told Techcrunch at the conference. “We were like, Oh my God, we build this thing which, in our opinion, is so cool, but no one cares yet. So we have to build a way to talk about it would be Care, because we know people need it, ”she said.
Today, whites Profile @Buildwithtori Tiktok At nearly 50,000 subscribers, many of whom have transformed into first testers.
Like Bluesky, Skylight supports video downloads for up to three minutes, A recent increase From videos of previously supported minute. But White sees the light of light becoming more than a simple decentralized tiktok clone.
It suggests that Skylight in the future will allow users to personalize their flow, including using new gestures beyond sweeping and scrolling.
The other features of the work include the management of sounds, duets, seams, bookmarks and reading lists.
The application is in beta version on the Google Play Store and is now available publicly on the Apple App Store after the initial tests.