Two months after the launch of Airtime, the app has only 1,000 daily and 90,000 monthly active users, according to AppData. In order to make good on the $33.5 million fronted by its investors, Airtime desperately needs a jumpstart to its distribution method.
“Airtime planned to reach millions through real-time Facebook Chat invites to video calls,” reports TechCrunch. “But private messages can’t go viral, so two months after launch it’s hoping for growth through public video posts to Twitter and Facebook.”
Airtime has started a limited public release of the video posts, along with Twitter integration and its newly enhanced buddy list, in hopes that “Airtime users gain ways to tempt more friends to hop aboard, and not just one at a time,” explains the post.
The buddy list has been redesigned to include people in three categories: those currently logged into Airtime, those currently on Facebook but not Airtime and anyone else who is offline, making friend-finding much easier.
But is video-based social networking something that’s really going to take off? It’s different than the quickness of text and photo sharing.
“Video posts could certainly give people a reason to take some quick Airtime, but not if they drag on like a voicemail,” suggests the post. “It might take a time limit, or an entirely new type of interaction, but the products needs to feel lightweight. Because if users think the minimum session takes too long, they’ll never see how Airtime could humanize the Web through face-to-face interaction.”
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