Playing catch-up in the mobile messaging battle, Yahoo announced Yahoo Livetext, a Snapchat-like live chat app.
The app uses mobile phones’ front-facing cameras to launch one-to-one video conversations. The video is presented without sound; users communicate via text that is overlaid onto the videos.
The company’s press release said Livetext “blends the convenience and ease of texting, with the immediacy and vividness of live video, but without the audio — so you can use it in any context.”
The experience is akin to creating real-time personal GIFs with text commentary. As with Snapchat, the video chats are ephemeral and can’t be viewed later.
