iWorld
YouTube’s founders challenge Vine and Instagram with new video app
MUMBAI: After months of teasing, the wait is finally over: Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, who brought forth the video-sharing site YouTube, are taking the wraps off their newest project, a video creation app called MixBit.
Versions for Apple mobile devices and the Web are already live, and an Android version is due in coming weeks.
On the surface, MixBit resembles two other leading video apps, Twitter’s Vine and Facebook’s Instagram. As with those apps, users press and hold the screen of their smartphone to record video. Instagram users can capture up to 15 seconds of video, a bit longer than Vine’s six-second maximum. MixBit allows 16 seconds.
But as the name suggests, MixBit is all about mixing and editing video. Both the app and a related website, MixBit.com, are aimed at making it easy to clip and stitch together snippets of videos. Simple tools built into the app allow users to edit each 16-second clip and combine up to 256 clips into an hour long video. The final product can then be shared on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus or the MixBit website.
Think of it as “shoot, mix and share.” You don’t even have to do the shooting – the MixBit site allows anyone to snip and remix any publicly shared video content.
In fact Hurley said encouraging users to remix other people’s videos to create new works is the principal goal of the service, which is the first big product to emerge from Avos Systems, the start-up he co-founded with Chen two years ago. (The company has received funding from the venture arm of Google, which bought YouTube, as well as from Innovation Works, Madrone Capital and New Enterprise Associates.)
“The whole purpose of MixBit is to reuse the content within the system,” Hurley said in an interview. “I really want to focus on great stories that people can tell.”
The ability to create those more complex video stories could give MixBit an edge, at least momentarily, over Vine and Instagram, which are growing rapidly. Vine has no editing tools and Instagram introduced rudimentary ones recently.
But one crucial decision by Avos is likely to hold it back: the app is totally anonymous and communal. Users cannot post their videos under a name, and they cannot comment on each other’s work.
Showing off is a big part of modern internet culture. The competition to create popular videos helped build YouTube into the powerful force that it now is, and it propels social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
iWorld
Micro-Dramas Surge in India, Redefining Mobile Content Habits
Meta-Ormax study maps rapid rise of short-form storytelling among 18–44 audiences.
MUMBAI: Micro-dramas aren’t just short, they’re the snack that ate Indian entertainment, and now everyone’s bingeing between the sofa cushions. Meta, in partnership with Ormax Media, has released ‘Micro Dramas: The India Story’, a comprehensive study unveiled at the inaugural Meta Marketing Summit: Micro-Drama Edition. The report maps how the vertical, bite-sized format is reshaping content consumption for mobile-first audiences aged 18–44 across 14 states.
Conducted between November 2025 and January 2026 through 50 in-depth interviews and 2,000 personal surveys, the research reveals that 65 per cent of viewers discovered micro-dramas within the last year proof of explosive adoption. Nearly 89 per cent encounter the format through social feeds and recommendations, making algorithm-driven discovery the primary engine rather than active search.
Key viewing patterns show a median of 3.5 hours per week (about 30 minutes daily) spread across 7–8 short sessions. Consumption peaks between 8 pm and midnight, with additional spikes during commutes and work breaks classic “in-between moments” that the format fills perfectly. Around 57 per cent of viewing happens in ambient mode (while doing something else), and 90 per cent is solo, enabling more intimate, personal storytelling.
Romance, family drama and comedy lead genre preferences. Audiences show growing openness to AI-generated content, 47 per cent find it unique and creative, while only 6 per cent say they would avoid it entirely. Regional languages are surging after Hindi and English, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada dominate consumption.
Meta, director, media & entertainment (India) Shweta Bajpai said, “Micro-drama isn’t a passing trend, it’s rewriting the rules of Indian entertainment. In under a year, an entirely new category of platforms has emerged, built audience habits from scratch, and created a business vertical that is scaling fast.”
Ormax Media founder-CEO Shailesh Kapoor added, “Micro-dramas are beginning to show the early signs of becoming a distinct content category in India’s digital entertainment landscape. When a format aligns closely with how audiences naturally engage with their devices, it has the potential to scale very quickly.”
The study proposes ecosystem-wide responsibility, universal signposting of commercial intent, shared accountability among advertisers, platforms, creators, schools and parents, built-in safeguards, and formal media literacy in schools.
In a feed that never sleeps and a day that never stops, micro-dramas have slipped into the cracks of every spare minute turning 30-second stories into the new national pastime, one vertical swipe at a time.
