New app Vervid wants to be the 'YouTube of vertical videos'

The ubiquitous advice for smartphone users, including first-time mobile reporters, is to turn your phone and just film horizontally already.

But could this attitude of favouring a desktop-centric format become a relic in the world of online video?

The popularity of apps like Snapchat or Periscope, and the growing numbers of mobile video viewers, could mean an attitude change is on the horizon.

"Why are people getting so angry at vertical videos?" This is one of the questions that put researcher and industrial designer John Whaley on the path to creating Vervid, an app that wants to be 'the YouTube of vertical videos'.

Once considered the medium of amateur smartphone filmmakers, vertical video is now becoming a format media outlets can no longer ignore on mobile.

We do want to open up people's minds to the idea that human behaviours around video, especially mobile video, are evolvingJohn Whaley, Vervid

"[It's] not quite as taboo as it used to be," Whaley told Journalism.co.uk, explaining his vision for Vervid in a recent podcast.

He said filming vertically, and generally holding phones vertically to watch other videos, is a "mass behaviour" particularly for the young "selfie generation".

"To this day [it] has been considered disposable content because you think of things like Snapchat," he said. With Vervid, Whaley and his team want to create a space designed exclusively around vertical video, as Instagram or Vine were designed for square.

"Vertical video has got a lot of push back from pretty much everybody across the board who watches YouTube because vertical video looks really bad on YouTube. And the reason why is because YouTube is a desktop-first, horizontal-first platform."

As people are increasingly watching video on mobile, the platforms also need to evolve, he said. Vervid has already secured its first investment and is due to launch in private beta for iOS this month.

The app will allow users to upload videos from their camera roll, as Whaley believes most people shoot video with their phone's native camera rather than through a third-party app.

Vervid has a built-in editor designed for the vertical aspect ratio, where users can stitch together short clips and upload a final video of five minutes in length at most.

The app also has "profile bursts", short Vine-like videos that will serve as profile pictures across the platform.

What made sense five years ago is completely changing now that we're shifting our behaviours with these mobile devicesJohn Whaley, Vervid

The next step after going live on iOS is to build an Android version, as well as an Apple Watch app to highlight updates from within the Vervid network.

"There's a lot of vertical video out there and the problem is that it doesn't have a great place to go, because I think we can all agree it doesn't belong on YouTube," he said. "That place... needs to be a mobile-first platform."

Vertical video is a challenge for outlets and particularly broadcasters who have built their business around horizontal video – whether that's watched on desktop or on TV.

Landscape video is not going away, and Whaley told Journalism.co.uk there's a time and place for both styles. But for publishers aiming to increase their video views on mobile, vertical could be an opportunity.

"We do want to open up people's minds to the idea that human behaviours around video, especially mobile video, are evolving.

"So what made sense five years ago is completely changing now that we're shifting our behaviours with these mobile devices we carry in our pockets," he said.

Check out this Journalism.co.uk podcast to find out how broadcasters' attitudes towards vertical video are changing and how to make vertical video look better on a horizontal screen:

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