Skylight, a startup taking up TikTok with a extra open various, is launching its cellular app to the general public on Tuesday after simply 10 weeks of lively growth. The app, which is backed by Mark Cuban and others, is now considered one of many to construct on high of the AT Protocol — the identical know-how that underpins the social community Bluesky and a rising variety of different apps.
Developed by co-founders Tori White (CEO) and Reed Hermeyer (CTO), Skylight gives a short-form video app expertise with many acquainted options, together with an in-app video editor; the flexibility to remark, like, and share movies; arrange your personal person profile; and comply with others.
As a result of it’s additionally constructed on the AT Protocol (or “ATProto” for brief), customers will instantly be tapped into Bluesky’s community of over 33.8 million customers. Meaning movies posted on Skylight might be seen and engaged with by customers on Bluesky and different ATProto-based apps, just like the extra photo-centric app Flashes, for instance.
The corporate is funded by a pre-seed spherical from Cuban, who mentioned earlier this 12 months that he needed to fund a TikTok various constructed on the AT Protocol. Leslie Feinzaig’s Graham & Walker Enterprise Fund additionally invested.
White, who was a journey influencer and is now a self-taught software program developer dwelling in Seattle, says she and co-founder Hermeyer have been impressed to create Skylight once they first heard that TikTok was getting banned within the U.S.
In preparation for the ban, which is at present on pause, White had backed up her TikTok movies. However she nonetheless apprehensive about shedding entry to her group and feedback. She and Hermeyer had already been taking part in round with ATProto and noticed the potential.
“The very first thing that us about ATProto was that Bluesky was not failing,” Hermeyer advised TechCrunch at the ATmosphere Convention in Seattle in March. “We didn’t see the ‘fail whale,’” he mentioned, a reference to the graphic that appeared in Twitter’s early days when the app was continuously crashing. “That made us really feel comfy concerning the underlying know-how.”
Hermeyer and White quickly realized this was a super time to construct a brand new social app on the protocol that could possibly be “ban-proof.”
Tapping into her influencer background, White started documenting Skylight’s growth on TikTok, which helped convey publicity to the product and construct a following of probably customers.
“We began with distribution,” White defined. “I truly made a video earlier than we ever wrote a line of code for this … [so] everybody can comply with our journey as we construct,” she advised TechCrunch on the convention. “We have been like, oh my gosh, we’re constructing this factor that we predict is so cool, however nobody cares but. So we now have to construct a approach to inform folks about it in order that they would care, as a result of we all know folks want it,” she mentioned.
In the present day, White’s @buildwithtori TikTok profile has practically 50,000 followers, lots of which became early testers.
Like Bluesky, Skylight helps video uploads of as much as three minutes in size, a current enhance from the one-minute-long movies supported beforehand. However White sees Skylight turning into greater than only a decentralized TikTok clone.
She hints that Skylight sooner or later will enable customers to customise their feed, together with by using new gestures past swiping and scrolling.
Different options within the works embrace assist for sounds, duets, stitching, bookmarks, and playlists.
The app is in beta on the Google Play Retailer and is now out there publicly on Apple’s App Retailer after preliminary testing.
