JumpCam has family and friends leaping from video to video to create memories on Android now

Hot on the heels of an iOS launch, JumpCam has released its collaborative video application in Google Play.

JumpCam is a nifty app that lets friends and family create videos together. The idea is that everyone in the group can contribute a clip to the final video, so Jumpcam’s team needed to develop an iOs and Android version simultaneously. The app is available for free, and you can register in seconds via Facebook Connect.

Chief executive David Stewart introduced me to the app to chronicle a particularly raucous curry and games night. It is part of a new breed of video technologies that may soon replace complex editing tools, like Final Cut Pro.

On JumpCam, you can easily add sound, music, and incorporate clips from other folks at the event. The result isn’t as slick as a professionally edited video, but it’s not far off.

In a phone interview Friday, Stewart offered some salient advice for fellow entrepreneurs. He said the company intentionally raised enough money to develop strong offerings for Android and iOS. Over the summer, JumpCam closed $2.7 million in funding from Google Ventures, Trinity Ventures and others.

Stewart does not believe that the next generation of consumer-facing apps can succeed on a single platform, particularly those with a collaborative element. “I think that iPhone first is a myth,” he said. “To validate a product like this on the market, you need to have it available on the two domain platforms.”

Stewart believes that “good engineers are just good engineers,” so it shouldn’t be problematic for the team to shift from iOS to Android. The far greater challenge is the subtle distinctions between the functionality, including camera / video, on Samsung, Motorola and other Android devices.

JumpCam is primarily focused on consumers, but Stewart hasn’t ruled out an offering for small businesses. He recently noticed that employees at a soaps and shampoo company in Maryland were using the app to produce videos of the shipping process.

The app could also prove to be highly useful for professional and citizen journalists — I recently used a similar app called Tastemade to whip up a video of a food festival in a matter of minutes.