“Trio” IPhone app brings the mash-up

 Instagram dominates the market for photos, Vine specializes in videos, and Twitter floods the arena with ‘tweets.’ However, a new app is now gaining a foothold in the social media market in a gap that has yet to be explored.

Trio, one of the most recent, up and coming iPhone app geared toward teens, gives the user the ability to “mash-up” videos, photos, and music, enhancing a high school student’s repertoire for expressing their creativity and day to day thoughts.

“I’ve had Trio for about a week. I haven’t tried creating my own “mash-up” yet, but as far as I can tell, it’s entertaining and fairly easy to use,” junior Emma Johnson said.

The creative minds behind the app include CEO Misha Leybovich, along with CTO Clay Garrett. Each brings a multitude of experiences and skills to the table. Leybovich is an MIT rocket scientist and Garrett was a member of a boy band with a background in Art and Design.

“When we were creating the app, Clay and I tried to identify the barriers to creativity for the present social media user,” Leybovich said.

On present social media sites, teens experience a heavy pressure to post remarkable pictures on a daily basis. However, most daily lives are fairly routine and homogenous which, in turn, result in similar posts.

“Trio allows you to create mash-ups from videos and pictures borrowed from other sources. You are not limited to only your camera roll. After all, not all of us can be on vacation seven days a week,” Leybovich said.

Instead of focusing on ‘how awesome someone’s life is,’ Trio highlights and celebrates the creativity and humor of each mash-up’s creator, enabling each user to essentially remix the world around them.

“I hadn’t heard much about Trio until a friend told me about it. I downloaded it, and as I’m learning about the app, I like it more and more,” junior Megan Williams said.

In order to avoid copyright issues, Trio links each clip to its original source. Instagram and iTunes are just a few of the resources available.

“Trio is not trying to steal users from other sites. On the contrary, Trio is actually sending more viewers their way. While watching one of the mash-ups, viewers hear songs they want to buy or movies they wish to watch. The links on the Trio app guide users to sites in order to view or even purchase the media,” Leybovich said.

The app was officially launched on March 4. The company’s ambition is to make the App Store’s Photo and Video “Top 5”, competing alongside other social media titans such as Facebook and Instagram.

“Our target audience is teens like you,” Leybovich said. “We want your feedback so that we, as a company, can make the Trio experience the best that it can be.”