Share your highlights with Lightt

Lightt is a new mobile-social photography network for iOS devices, presenting itself as a means through which users can create a "highlights reel" of their life. It's available now as a free download from the App Store. Before using Lightt, users must create an account. This is done through filling in a form of basic information rather than using Twitter or Facebook to prepopulate the various fields. The user may, however, later connect their social media accounts to Lightt in order to find or invite friends. Facebook connectivity switches out to Safari and requires the user to log in manually; Twitter functionality uses iOS 5+'s built-in social features. Once the user is signed up and ready to go, they can begin using Lightt. The app's main screen offers three destinations -- "Happening Now," "Me" and "Featured." "Happening Now" is a continuous stream of moving pictures from accounts the user has specifically chosen to follow. These are continuously presented as an ongoing "movie" of sorts, with thumbnails appearing across the bottom of the screen, the moving pictures themselves taking up the majority of the display and information about the user who posted the clip just underneath the thumbnails. Users may swipe left and right on the thumbnails to move back and forth in time and revisit clips they have already seen if they desire, and the show may be paused at any time by tapping. While paused, the image on display may be shared on Lightt or via email, saved to the user's camera roll or copied as a link to the clipboard. At any point, the user may choose to create their own "highlight" to add to the "Happening Now" stream by tapping the blue camera icon at the bottom of the screen. This brings up the standard iOS camera interface, but instead of taking a single image, pressing the shutter release button again instead causes a series of images to be taken over the course of a few seconds. Once the pictures have been taken, the user may review the short movie that was produced and then upload it to the service, at which point it then appears in the "Happening Now" and "Me" sections of the main screen at the end of the previous stream. It may also be shared on Twitter and Facebook, though in both cases it only appears as a link -- there is no preview of the image on Facebook, though any comment attached does appear as a status update. Any highlights shared on Lightt may be liked or commented upon, allowing for the service to be used as a means of communication as well as pictorial chronicles of various happenings. The service does not appear to support things like tappable hashtags and @usernames at present, but given that some users are already making use of these social media conventions in their comments, it would make sense for these to be implemented in a future update. The app does, however, support push notifications for new comments, follows and likes, allowing users to stay up to date on what is happening. Lightt is a great, fun app that presents an interesting twist on the usual photo-sharing mobile social networks. The idea of creating a personal "highlight reel" over time is an appealing one, and the fact that it is viewable on the Web as well as mobile makes it an attractive prospect. It needs some development, however -- sharing to social networks needs refining to display previews and indications of what the links are all about, and the user interface could use the aforementioned hashtag and @username refinements. It would also probably benefit Lightt to figure out some sort of monetization strategy for the long term, because at present there does not appear to be any way for the app to make money from its users. The team should also look at developing an Android version to encourage more widespread, cross-platform adoption of the service, as they have the opportunity to start a new trend here if they promote it carefully enough. Lightt is currently ranked at No. 334 in Top Free Social Networking apps, and is enjoying a feature spot in the New & Noteworthy section of the App Store front page. Follow its progress with AppData, our tracking service for mobile and social apps and developers.

Social Pro Daily

Share your highlights with Lightt

Pete Davison

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Pete Davison