Vurse Video Sharing App Brings Creativity, Ownership And Earning To Social Media

The social media space saw a record 4.9 billion users online in 2023, with the industry growing again to $230 billion, due largely to advertising revenue. Meta still led the way with $113 billion ad revenue in 2022, but the increasing popularity of TikTok saw the Beijing-based video sharing app see a boost for the fourth successive year to $18.49 billion. With a further 1 billion users expected to join across all platforms by 2027, profits are showing no sign of slowing.

How Secure Is Your Data?

Despite record growth in the sector, social media users are still at risk of personal data leaks and often don't have full ownership of their content. Facebook suffered a massive data breach in 2021, with usernames, account details and passwords of over 530 million people available to the public. In 2016 Twitter was attacked by Russian hackers affecting the data of 32 million users. Continued breaches have since raised serious questions over the security of the personal data of millions of online users.

Stalling Social Media

Revenue aside, many social media giants seem to be plateauing (or even regressing) when it comes to innovation. Meta's disastrous run has continued since the company's Reality Labs division announced the Metaverse in 2019. Since then the company has lost an eye-watering $46.5 billion in total value. Twitter has not fared much better since Elon Musk took over in 2022. A blue check mark for verified accounts was the only notable addition, and a rebrand (to X) that no one needed tanked the company's value to the tune of around $20 billion.

With dominant companies stuttering and more simplistic content sharing alternatives like TikTok and BeReal back in vogue, there is a real gap in the market for more engaging alternatives that can also offer better data security and content ownership.

Decentralized Alternative

Blockchain tech is something that we associate with crypto, but its decentralized framework has already proven superior for data transfer, secure storage and tokenization – something which made Web3 gaming a huge hit in 2022.

A Dubai-based company called Vurse has been developing a short video sharing platform that offers a simple yet far more immersive, interactive social experience to users. The Vurse app incentivizes "hyper-interactivity" and creative freedom among its users by providing unique functionality, a more connected experience and a path to earning real money.

What Is Vurse?

The Vurse hyper-interactive video sharing platform is an entire ecosystem where people can apply creativity to their video content and have deeper, more meaningful interactions with others. Users can create their own videos, take part in challenges, vote on others' creations and interact with others to forge exciting new narratives for content.

The platform harnesses AI to provide creators with an advanced set of video tools that boast AR and VR functionality. Unique functions such as the "VS" and "Guessing" challenges offer an exciting twist on traditional video sharing with tangible rewards.

The platform is currently developing its own in-house blockchain technology that will provide secure data storage and monetization for rewarding users and guarantee full ownership of all content to those who create it.

Challenge Yourself

The Vurse "VS" and "Guessing" challenges offer a window into a more interactive social media environment where the viewers can be a part of the action. The "VS" challenge is a 1v1 function in which two users are pitted against each other in a split-screen two-person challenge. The community can watch and vote on their favorite of the two videos for 24 hours – with the winner announced at the end.

Vurse quiz fans can merge their video skills with trivia or any other type of question in the "Guessing" challenge. This challenge enables video creators to splice any question they want that will pop up at some point during the video for viewers to guess the answer to. All "Guessing" and "VS" challenge participants will be rewarded with points for their involvement with these to encourage a more connected experience while stimulating the growth of the user base.

Be Your Own Creator with AI

The Vurse short video platform will apply the latest advanced content analysis and observer AI to its creative tool deck for a more free and tailored creative experience. Video creators will have access to an Advanced Camera Module, (called VCam-3.0) a third-generation camera module that uses AI to allow shooting adjustments based on the surrounding environment.

The Vurse AI-backed customizable recommendation system prompts users to set choices to best suit their individual needs or creative style. Vurse creators also have access to multiple media template tools to add effects to their work and even share their customized template setting (tools, filters and effects) preferences with their fans. The pièce de résistance might be the observer AI to analyze the surrounding environment in a video and then apply special AR and VR features.

Early Adoption

The Vurse app was launched in India as a Beta at the end of October 2023 for the purpose of user feedback. The launch has been successful with 110,000+ downloads, a 40% engagement rate and 1.5 million event actions in the app within the first month. With early signs proving positive Vurse plans to expand into different regions, including MENA (Middle East and North Africa) and Asia in 2024

Catalyst for Social Change

The landscape of social media is undergoing a transformative shift, with simplified photo and short video formats taking some of the spotlight from the tried and tested platforms. In addition, the restricted functionality, absence of widespread revenue distribution and persistent vulnerabilities in data security are continued symptoms of the limits of centralized technology.

Decentralized alternatives like the Vurse short video platform have emerged as solutions, incorporating AI technologies to cultivate a more dynamic and connected user experience. By re-engaging users through its array of unique tools, challenges and community interactions, Vurse can inspire collaboration and shared endeavors for a new generation of creative people.