The beat of ordinary life inspires alumni to create an app to capture the memories

Two speeds seem to dominate social media lately – dawdling and dashing.

In the slow lane are Facebook posts of us all looking awesome in posed photos, dabbling in weird quizzes or rambling about movies, politics and sports. Meanwhile, a river of fleeting images, jokes and practiced antics rushes through Snapchat and Vine.

Two Chapman University alumni are convinced there’s a gap in the middle of it all begging to be filled. And that’s why Jonathan Miller ’15 and Sean Thielen ’15 created
Beet
, a new video sharing app for iPhones that offers users a place to just be themselves in six-second videos chronicling everyday lives.

The power of ordinary

The concept is simple. People use the app to record six-second moments from their days, ranging from pretty cool to whatever. Beet automatically stitches them into an ongoing montage. Think of it as a movie of your life in progress. Without the junior-high-esque chase for “likes” or editing functions to doll up the images. Share, or don’t share. Follow others, or not. Or fall somewhere in between, choosing selectively.

“We’re walking the line between a personal, intimate diary and also having this presence with people you care about and people who care about you. It’s sort of home movies for the 21
^st
century,” says Miller, who graduated with a degree in advertising and public relations.

Each week Beet users receive what Miller and Thielen call
This Week in the World
, a short compilation of randomly-selected Beet videos set to happy music. It’s a little voyeuristic, “but not in a bad connotation,” Thielen says. They prefer to see it as an opportunity to see a bit of universal humanity among Beet followers.

The pair were inspired to create the app when in their senior year they noticed that friends were growing sentimental about their university days and seemed eager to preserve significant moments, as well as ordinary memories with close friends. So they shaped the app’s tenor and clean design with an eye toward less goofiness and more substance. They named it Beet, spelled like the vegetable but an allusion to the beat of time passing by – can you tell Thielen was an English major?

“It’s much more serious than Yik Yak or Snapchat,” Thielen says, referencing two apps popular with the quick-photo and banter demographic.



They credit public relations and advertising faculty Veston Rowe, associate professor, and Damien Navarro, adjunct professor, for guiding them through the brainstorming and Chapman’s
Launch Labs
for advising them on business practicalities.

Surprises along the way

And business decisions have already arisen. Surprising them after the June launch was the uptick in young parents who quickly adopted the app as a way to, well, not miss a beat of their children’s fleeting childhoods. Miller and Thielen were quick to respond to that market by adding more advanced privacy features and the option to create albums.

They’ve also caught the interest of investor and former Walt Disney Co. chief Michael Eisner, who through an underwriter they pitched during development backed them with some start-up support. So they’ve been able to use the summer to start on an Android version and work up a way to invite brands to curate crowd-sourced stories on Beet.

Approving shout-outs in
USA Today
,
Adweek
and
The Guardian
have also come their way.

Looks like the beats will keep on coming.