Facebook's collaborative iOS music video app is open to all US users
Collab debuted in beta earlier this year.
Collab, a Facebook app that allows users to collaborate on music videos, is now available to all iOS users in the US. The app emerged as an experiment from the NPE Team, Facebook's R&D division, back in May. It was initially available to beta testers in the US and Canada.
You can explore a feed of collaborations, which consist of three videos that are layered on top of each other and play simultaneously. The looped clips last for a maximum of 15 seconds. You can swap in different videos on each layer, and Collab aims to keep them playing in sync.
Plus, you don’t even have to record! Simply swipe on any part of a collab to bring in another video that sounds awesome in your composition. Check it out in action featuring @dhruv_goel, @leslielaine, @craftandjun, @joyboymusic, @cgmelamed, @toff and others pic.twitter.com/tbrtHVHAPm
— Brit Mennuti (@britmennuti) December 14, 2020
If you stumble across a musician whose work you enjoy, you can favorite them and receive notifications whenever they upload a video. Of course, you can add your own clips to any collaboration or create your own project to which others can contribute.
There's no direct integration with Facebook, as TechCrunch notes, but you can export videos through the iOS share sheet. You can post the clips, which include a watermark, on the likes of your Instagram Story or to TikTok, probably the best-known app for short-form collaborative videos.
At least for now, Collab is focused on music, so it's somewhat distinct from TikTok and its clones, such as Instagram Reels or Snapchat Spotlight. It perhaps has more in common with Soundtrap Capture, which allows musicians to layer their parts together, albeit without videos.
