Meet Moju, an Instagram for GIFs With a Holographic Twist

Moju example drawing

Have you ever wanted to share a moment of your life with friends and family, but felt a picture just didn’t capture the moment right? The new photo sharing app Moju wants to help you with that.

The best way to describe Mojus, or the photos shared over the app, is to say that they’re like GIFs with a holographic twist. Remember those hologram cards you used to play with as a kid? Well, viewing a Moju is like viewing a hologram within your iPhone. Not quite photo and not quite video, Mojus live as a new media type entirely.

Moju example mother and son

Or at least that’s how Mok Oh, founder of Moju Labs, views his new service. A former art student, MIT graduate and PayPal scientist, Oh believes Mojus have found a happy medium between the stiffness of many photos and the complexity of creating videos. “I think what we have is a new content type that is much more expressive than photos and much simpler than videos,” Oh told TechCrunch.

How Do Mojus Work?

screenshot of recording on MojuMoju allows you to save up to 24 shots with no audio that will later be compiled into one single image. You can aim the camera in any direction, shift focus, switch between the front- and rear-facing cameras or create a time lapse effect by shooting frames farther apart. For effects, Moju offers a ghost feature that will allow you to show or hide transitions along with 12 photo filters to choose from. After you record a Moju you can write a caption and share it publicly or privately.

Once a Moju is shared, it will appear as a still image until the viewer moves their iPhone from left to right. This movement of the iPhone’s motion sensor will trigger Moju to display new frames. In this way viewing Mojus is like viewing digital holograms. In the future up and down motions will map to a “surprise” effect, according to Oh.

It’s this twisting effect that makes Oh believe Mojus will gain traction in the photo sharing scene. “The twisting motion in consuming the content has a visceral effect on the viewer,” Oh told The Next Web. “I can control this. I can look at the frames I want. I can go fast or slow. So that control is simple but powerful.”

Besides allowing users to share to Moju’s network, the app also allows you to like and comment on your friends’ Mojus and share your Mojus on Facebook and Twitter.

Moju Labs has raised $1 million from Eugene Jhong of Google, Eduardo Saverin and his brother Alex Saverin, according to TechCrunch.

Learn more about Moju in the demo video below:

Mojus are currently available for iPhones running iOS 7. Download Moju for iPhone here:

Lauren Mobertz

By Lauren Mobertz

Lauren is the former managing editor for DashBurst. One part geek, one part urban nomad, she is constantly scouting for the latest tech and world news. In the evenings you'll find Lauren running in strange places or attempting to dance salsa.