Tech

I tried the latest rival to Snapchat, but I'm not convinced it'll be the next big thing

Tim Stenovec

2015-07-30T19:35:14Z

livetext yahoo — Livetext is video chatting without sound. Yahoo

Judging by the promotional photos for Yahoo's new app Livetext, which show tanned, college-aged models on the beach and the ski slopes, I seem a little bit beyond the demographic the huge internet company is going for.

Yes, I'm a, cough, "millennial," (and I like to go to the beach and ski!) but at 31, I'm on the older side of those born between 1982 and 2002.

But I was still excited to give it a shot.

Livetext, which Yahoo announced Wednesday but didn't come out until Thursday, is a new messaging app that allows you to make video calls. But the catch is that the app has no sound — all of the communicating is done through text, emoji, and facial expressions.

Think of it like a video call like FaceTime or Skype, but on mute, and with the ability to overlay the video with text and emoji.

Yahoo says the app is designed to be a simpler form of communication like texting, but include video to make it more expressive and personal.

I understand what Yahoo is getting at. Taking selfies in public has somehow become socially acceptable, but holding the phone out in front of you while someone's voice is blaring out of the speakers just shouldn't be done outside of your own home.

But I still found that making a video call, without actually being able to hear anything, was awkward and not actually that useful.

Here's what it's like using Livetext.

Instead of talking, you communicate with text, emoji, and facial expressions.

So share your best duckface in silence.

I thought I'd have to sign in with my Yahoo account, and I have no idea what that password is, so I was pleasantly surprised when I could create with only my phone number. You can also sign up using your Yahoo email.

If you're already signed into Yahoo! on another app, like my colleague Steve, who uses the Yahoo Sports app, then you can skip this step because it already knows who you are.

Give your name to the app.

Then you create a username. I just used the same one that I use on Twitter, which timsteno.

Time to get a profile photo. You can either take a photo of yourself, or grab on from your camera roll.

I picked a photo from my camera roll, of my little brother and me from a recent vacation.

Screenshot

Here's my photo and Livetext ID.

Screenshot

Now it's time to find people to Livetext with...

...but I didn't have any friends who had downloaded Livetext. Like any new app, growth — not only getting new people to use it, but existing users to keep using it — is going to be the challenge.

I knew Steve had the app, so I could add him by typing in his Livetext ID, which is stevekovach. Add him!

After Steve approved my request, he showed up along with Jillian, another colleague I had added. I tapped the picture of Steve to start Livetexting with him.

At first we had some trouble connecting, so I quit the app and started over.

But then it started working. Here's the beginning of my chat with Steve. The circle at the top right corner shows the live video from my camera that shows up on Steve's screen. You can tap the video of you to flip the camera around.

You can type emoji and watch the person's reaction on the screen.

Here's what Steve was seeing on his screen while we chatted.

Along with your keyboard, the text and emoji take up a big portion of the screen, and if you're typing fast they can disappear quickly.

But you can scroll to see older parts of your conversation.

I also texted my friend Jason (who until recently actually worked for Yahoo!, but as the tech editor) to add me on Livetext.

The app briefly froze while we were using it, alerting Jason with the "ashamed monkey" emoji. 🙈

livetext jason 13 — So, is this the next hot social network? Screenshot

It's clear that Yahoo is trying to tap into the popularity of Snapchat, and is going after the huge and growing number of people who use the messaging app, which allows you to annotate text and video to share with as many people as you'd like.

But Yahoo has a tough task ahead of it to convince people to actually start using — and keep using — Livetext.

Developing an app that keeps people interested is really hard. With the exception of Messenger, which Facebook pretty much forced on everyone, and of course its own mobile app, Facebook has never quite gotten it right with other apps. Instagram and WhatsApp, which are both immensely popular, were purchased by Facebook after they had relatively huge — and quickly growin — user bases.

But Slingshot, Poke, and Paper, to name a few that Facebook developed from ground up, never caught on.

And people don't exactly associate Yahoo, the once dominant internet portal, with cool products.

Yahoo! has seem some success with its weather app, however, which is beautifully designed and very useful.

We'll have to wait and see if it can do the same with Livetext.