Israeli supermodel launches iPhone app for social video (exclusive)

The first users of Minit, an iPhone app to record and screen short videos, may have found themselves revealing intimate life stories to Noa Tishby, a model, producer, actress, and in a recent development, a tech entrepreneur.

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“Minit is a platform for personal stories,” Tishby explained. “It is in a way like having your own reality show.” The Israeli starlet recently joined the Tel Aviv-based startup to head up business development.

Got a minute and a story to share? The recently launched app is available for free on the App Store. Sign up, and you’ll be led through a wizard to help you get started. The app is integrated with Facebook and Twitter to help users quickly discover which friends are registered. (Unless you happen to be Israeli, you’ll probably be the first in your extended network.)

Like Twitter, you can follow users whether you know them or not — unsurprisingly, Tishby has the most followers.

Once you fill out a profile, a video stream will appear with 60-second clips. Minit users are chatting about relationships, style, and a variety of light-hearted topics — if you’re incentivized to do so, you can issue a video comment in response. Videos can be intimately shared between friends, or publicly broadcast to the world.

The team describes Minit as “100% video. No filters. No text. No photos. No bull.” Tishby prefers the snappy term, “voicemail for video”, and told me that she routinely uses the app to send messages to friends while boarding international flights.

It sounds promising, but the user interface is still a bit raw. I’m told its doable (it takes a long thumbnail tap) but I couldn’t find an easy way to delete clips once they’re posted. I had a few technical issues with the sound quality, and the videos are slow to load. To be fair, the app is still in the nascent stages of development.

The company may have landed a supermodel, but it faces strong competition from headline-grabbing social video startups, like Airtime and Socialcam. However, with all the recent press about celebrity investors, this may be one of the few cases where one has come on board as a cofounder.

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When the three Israeli developers behind Minit approached her, Tishby told me she was intrigued by the nexus between entertainment and technology. “I have been approached by tech companies in the U.S. and Israel that wanted me to partner with them,” said Tishby, adding that she was “floored” by the concept for Minit.

The app is self-funded, but Tishby told me they are in the process of reaching out to potential investors to secure a first round.