Developer: Chumkee
Price: Free
Version Reviewed: 1.0
Device Reviewed On: iPhone
Chumkee is a brand new mobile social network built from the ground up for the iOS platform. Unlike websites like Facebook and Twitter, Chumkee functions exclusively on iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.
While my users might be thinking, “Another social network? Really?” – and I can’t fault them for this initial reaction – Chumkee does offer an experience that is ultimately quite different from, say, Facebook or any other photo-sharing social network. In fact, this app is about more than merely sharing photos and videos for the sake of sharing them. The idea here is conversation through the use of photos and videos.
When users boot up the app, they’re greeted with a main screen layered with user’s uploaded photos and videos. Users can sort through the different thumbnails by dragging them and moving around the screen. A list-style version of the experience is also available for those who don’t dig Chumkee’s unique style of interface. But the decision behind the interface is more than aesthetic, as it represents the underlying idea of the app – conversation through imagery. The initial impression is that all of these animated thumbnails are live. And that there is an ongoing conversation going on right that very second that users can join. In truth, everything is simply recorded, of course, but the bit about the app containing on-going conversations is true as well.
Users create their own profiles, from which they can upload images and videos. They can also browse other user’s uploads and reply to them easily with their own uploads. Recording video from within the app is intuitive and uploading to the service is seamless.
In practice, Chumkee reminds me of a sort of video version of Twitter. It has many of the same features as Facebook – users can “like” uploads and leave comments – but the overall nature of the activity on the service certainly reminds of Twitter.
For users interested in checking things out, the Chumkee app can be downloaded for free on the iTunes App Store.