This article was first published in the December 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Last July, a battle broke out. On one side, the cast of TV show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.; on the other, those from its sister series Agent Carter. But this was no crossover special. Instead, they were competing over Twitter to see who could make the best video using Dubsmash, an app for recording yourself lip-syncing to audio clips -- song snippets, say, or lines from films. (Team Agent Carter won, with a three-person musical effort that included a cameo from Captain America's Chris Evans.)
This may be its most high-profile public case, but Dubsmash enthusiasm isn't limited to Marvel signings. So far, the app has been downloaded more than 75 million times in more than 190 countries.
While lip-sync selfies might seem frivolous in concept, to co-founder Roland Grenke Dubsmash fills a glaring gap in the market. "We thought, 'Video is underused as a medium, so why aren't there nice apps out there so that the average user can create interesting and appealing video content?'" says the 27-year-old Berliner. Dubsmash is free to use and makes money through promotional Dubs, such as the recent campaign for Rihanna's "Bitch Better Have My Money".
The app's success did not come without casualties. Since founding their startup Mobile Motion in 2013, Grenke and his partners Jonas Drüppel and Daniel Taschik released two video apps -- Clipsandwich and Starlize -- that sank without trace. Their epiphany came in extending the range of sounds beyond song snippets, and realising that messaging was just as important as public posts.
Since Dubsmash's launch in November 2014, hundreds of thousands of videos have been created and shared by users including Arnold Schwarzenegger and Cara Delevingne. But Grenke is aware it could have proved a flash in the pan. "To avoid that, it was important to make Dubsmash a means of expression rather than simply a game," he says. "For instance, in Facebook conversations, instead of saying, 'I'll be back in ten minutes,' they're doing The Terminator's, 'I'll be back'." (On any copyright issues, Grenke is confident: "If studios don't want to have their content on the platform, they can ask to have it taken down.")
In August, the company secured Series A funding led by Index Ventures worth $5.5 million (£3.5m). The money will partly go towards making Dubsmash a place for dissemination rather than merely creation. So what's Grenke's tip for lip-sync success? "The more you don't expect the sound being on the video, the bigger the impact," he says. "So if I'm doing a dolphin noise, for instance, it has a great effect."
Dubsmash's exponential rise
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
