Instead, users can type text over the live video, a gimmick Yahoo says makes the app less rigid than traditional video messaging. Livetext is purely for one-to-one messaging and does not have access to group communication or public broadcasts as is seen on Periscope and Meerkat.
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The app will be available for free download in the United States for Android and Apple platforms on Thursday.
Adam Cahan, senior vice president of video, design, and emerging products of Yahoo, believes that audio can be inhibiting in some situations where you may want to see who you are communicating with, but can’t audibly talk to them. However, both parties need to agree to a friend request before a connection is made between users in the app.
“Welcome to Livetext for iOS, the most natural way to have REAL conversations”. Mr. Sethi and his cohorts then began messaging each other, quite similar to how one would do on any other text message chat, filling space with random questions, comments, and emojis, as the video in the background remained.
Yahoo has launched a new messaging app “Livetext”, which has some pretty unique features promising to give your daily chatting experience a new vibe.
The update unharnesses the company from its ancient Yahoo Messenger product and gives it a more robust tool to compete with the likes of everything from Snapchat to Microsoft’s Skype (sort of, keep reading).
It seems Yahoo is positioning Livetext as more of an augmentation to texting, not a stripped down video chat client. Yahoo’s mobile user base rose 14 percent to more than 600 million, she said during a call with analysts earlier this month.
The app was tested in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Ireland, as well as some US college campuses.
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So Yahoo’s entry into a growing and diversifying messaging environment makes sense, especially as CEO Marissa Mayer pushes to make all of Yahoo’s products and properties “a daily habit”. Sethi said that MessageMe got a bit too bloated, and that his team took lessons from that app’s development while building Livetext at Yahoo.
