• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, November 11, 2014

There is no shortage of video-snippet sharing services, and those that already exist are struggling to keep users engaged.

Undeterred, Mark Cuban, Bill Lohse, and several other investors are betting on Ocho -- a new video-based social network tailored specifically for iPhone users.

The investors just helped Ocho raise $1.65 million in seed funding, which will be used to build out the service, and secure partnerships.

As its name suggests, Ocho allows users to capture eight-second videos. Presented as a news feed, Ocho videos can be ported across devices including Apple TV. Regardless of whether users hold their phone vertically or horizontally, videos are always captured in fullscreen.

Users can also upload previously recorded content, and trim it to eight seconds, or summarize longer videos with a time-lapse feature. Audio quality is maintained through a proprietary compression algorithm that Ocho itself created.

As a social network, Ocho encourages users to share -- or “re-Ocho” -- videos they think friends and family would enjoy.

URLs are also fully supported in Ocho captions, so users can link out to third-party Web sites, or share Ochos via Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

Despite a ton of press and potential, video-sharing services like Vine appear to be struggling. Among other discouraging stats, a recent report from L2 found that 55% of Vine accounts had not posted through the first half of the year.

Social giants like Facebook are also throwing substantial resources behind their own short-video services. For example, Facebook’s Instagram unit recently rolled out a new Hyperlapse app featuring tracking, stabilization, and time-lapse capabilities.

Still, Jonathan Swerdlin, Ocho co-founder and CEO, insists that consumers are ready for another video-based social network. “Billions of networked smartphone cameras that now have the bandwidth to seamlessly share video is unprecedented and inspiring,” Swerdlin stated.

Fighting for its position at the top of the video-sharing food chain, Vine recently a added a programming element to the mix. Users of Vine’s iOS app can now follow channels from “Animals” to “Art” to “Comedy.” Meanwhile, with iOS 8 share extension support, users are also now able post videos directly from their Camera Rolls, and other third-party video apps.

As of late August, Vine said that more than 100 million people were watching video on its platform every month, while loops play more than a billion times every day.