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When YouTube star Casey Neistat launched his Beme video app last summer to his nearly one million subscribers, it blew up right out of the gate: In just a few days, half a million people downloaded the app and double that number of videos were uploaded to the platform.

It was deemed one of the most unique, freshest takes on social video sharing — a concept that didn't allow you to edit, filter or manipulate video in any way before posting it for others to see. But the beta version — buggy and still in the early development stages — didn’t live up to all that was promised.

“Because of my social reach and the way we announced Beme on YouTube, the news was shared organically, quickly,” Neistat told Mashable. “We were taken aback by the enthusiasm it received. But soon after, we had an 'Oh shit, moment.' The app wasn't where we wanted it to be and so many people were downloading it. We still had a lot of work to do."

At the core, the model was familiar: An app that lets users create and share videos up to 8 seconds long, which disappear after viewing. But unlike the vetting and editing that most other apps allow for (even Snapchat lets you stop, think and add text or drawings), videos are automatically posted to the platform — without the ability to preview.

It's a scary yet refreshingly raw idea. The premise is about getting you to stop staring at your phone to capture a moment, so you can still live in it.

To capture video, users open the app and cover the proximity sensor to start recording — on iOS and Android phones, it's located near the top by the speaker where you'd typically hold your ear. When you stop covering the sensor, the recording stops and the clip is shared. On the receiving end, there was no way to Like or favorite a video; instead, users respond by sending photos or videos back.

Neistat should have seen the hype around the app coming: After all, his YouTube videos alone bring in over a million views a pop — and he posts one each day. But not long after the launch, the buzz dwindled.

“At the end of last year, we had a harsh realization that we were not such a shining star and were much more aligned with other social media launches. Downloads slowed to a few thousand a day from a much more robust number and active engagement became a lot less than what it was.”

"But soon after [the launch], we had an 'Oh shit, moment.' The app wasn’t where we wanted it be," Neistat said.

As a result, Neistat spent the past few months dodging questions about the app, as the company worked on a new look and adding other features. The latest update launched on Monday and is now available for download. 

“The Beme brand represents transparency and being authentic, and I’ve always been open with my audience on YouTube," he said. "It’s been hard to keep a secret about what’s been going on with the company. People ask, ‘Is it dead?’ ‘Why don’t you talk about it?’ It’s been tremendously difficult to ignore these comments and a huge conflict for me not to talk about it.”

But Neistat says responding to comments would generate a level of interest Beme wasn’t ready to receive.

“We didn’t want more people to download the app until it was ready,” he said. “We learned a lot from that beta period and hope the time we spent heads down working on it will benefit the user experience in the long run.”

Now, Neistat — with an even healthier YouTube subscriber base (it has more than tripled since Beme launched in July) — is ready to re-introduce the app today to his fan base, alongside co-founder and chief technology officer Matt Hackett, a former VP of engineering at Tumblr. 

The update includes features more closely tied to its core mission, including an organized scrolling feed that highlight the raw videos shared. It’s possible to go back in time to see other Bemes, or videos, too. And they no longer disappear like they once did; in fact, you can browse through up to 25 at once to get a fuller understanding of who someone is. There are also new profile pages, which house a user’s photo and their most recently-shared content.

“We launched the primitive product a year ago, but it involved a few steps to receive a video. We worked to make seeing Bemes a lot easier now, too," he said. 

While in some ways, the concept still sounds a bit like Snapchat — which Neistat says is his favorite social media platform (aside from Beme) — he considers this app on the other side of the spectrum.

“I’m not against the norm and creative pieces of content, but I wanted to see this too.”

“On Snapchat, I see so many fun faces, filters and drawings in my feed, and all of these are creative expressions. However, Beme is less about an expression that represents you creatively and more about sharing what is in front of you as a raw piece of video.”

Overall, with Beme, you get a stream of content and moments shared by people in a non-filtered or manipulated feed.

“Some critics said the unedited video concept was ironic because I am a video creator, but it’s not like that — it’s about seeing something true,” he said. “I’m not against the norm and creative pieces of content, but I wanted to see this too.”

Although Neistat said the company will continue to improve and roll out new features in the months ahead, he’s much happier with where it is now

“The app is now a much more compelling version of what we want to do,” he said. “If we had a typical launch, we would have learned the same thing under less stressful circumstances, but because so many eyes were on it, perhaps we got even a lot more out of it this way.”

Bonus: Here's how you unlock the secret emoticon keyboard on your iPhone

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