Smile is a messaging app that records your expression while you type

With the exception of WhatsApp, most messaging apps come loaded with emoticons that help liven up otherwise boring conversations. But sometimes, a video is worth a thousand stickers.

Launched last week, Smile is a chat app that records your expression as you input text. Once a message is sent out to the recipient, the short video clip is played on a loop. Alternatively, the camera can be reversed, so you can share your surroundings instead of your mug.

Smile is the latest app developed by Tempo Feng, a Taipei-based developer whose last venture was Cubie, a chat app that accumulated 10 million users worldwide. Feng and his co-founder Cjin Cheng left Cubie in 2014 to make way for a shift in strategic direction, and paired up with Shao-Kang Lee, formerly of POP App, to start a new project. After testing out prototypes for other social apps, the two settled on Smile. Borne out of Lee’s desire to coax his girlfriend out of camera-shyness, the two envision Smile as an app that will co-exist with messaging apps like Line, but not replace them.

“We’ll use Smile and also, for example, Facebook Messenger, because I’m on the computer a lot and it’s easier to type on Facebook Messenger,” says Feng. “But if I’m outside attending an event or in a special situation, I will use Smile.”

Feng says that while the app is available to download and has hit Product Hunt, he and Lee are still experimenting with its direction, and aren’t immediately focused on growth. Already, there are other apps that have made similar attempts at merging video with chat – beyond Snapchat, TechCrunch counted eight like-minded “reaction” apps in 2014. Feng and Lee are currently in California, where they’re reconnecting with their networks (both graduated from 500 Startups) and soliciting feedback.

When asked if he has a specific attraction to social apps or messaging apps, Feng says that his tastes come down partly to experience, and partly to strategy.

“For social apps, if you have something that’s really useful, you will acquire lots of users,” Feng says. “Among the top 20 apps in the App Store, about half of them are probably social apps. It’s hard to get enough users, but people will use them every day.”

Smile is available for download in the App Store and in Google Play

Editing by Steven Millward, top image by Hakan Dahlstrom