If you spend more than just an hour or two on YouTube daily, then chances are you know who Casey Neistat is. He's an American YouTube celebrity with more than six million subscribers online. You know what else he had until very recently? An app called Beme. Neistat's video-sharing app officially launched for Android in May 2016 but was bought by CNN in November. Now, the app is officially no more and gone from the Play Store.
Beme was famous for all the wrong reasons, really. It first launched for iOS back in 2015, and Android followed suit a year later. Essentially, you could record a very short clip by placing your phone to your chest (or simply by covering the proximity sensor), and the video would be shared instantaneously with your subscribers. Neistat's vision was idealistic, if not naively impractical: to have an online platform where users can record and share unfiltered, natural, and honest moments.
Neistat's vision was idealistic, if not naively impractical: to have an online platform where users can record and share unfiltered, natural, and honest moments.
Well, as you can imagine, given the fierce competition in the video-sharing arena from companies like Facebook and Snap, Beme didn't really have anything unique to differentiate itself from the crowd. It was awkward and inconvenient to use, and there was no reason to download it on top of your usual "staple apps." Of course, Neistat used his fan base on YouTube to promote his app, but let's just say, Beme's popularity was very short-lived.
But back in November of last year, CNN decided to buy the dying video-sharing platform, perhaps in the hopes of attracting younger readers. And with the acquisition, the company announced that the app would officially shut down on the 31st of January, which is today. And not too surprisingly, the app is officially gone from Google's Play Store. It's unclear whether CNN wants to do something with the app, but unless they find a clever way to incorporate it into their existing CNN app, I don't see the point in keeping it when you have live-streaming features on Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram.
Have you ever used Beme? What do you think CNN will do with the app? Let us know by leaving a comment below!
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