Strum app turns a status update into music video

• Latest app from developer Smule lets you set a visual status update to music

What if you could turn a tweet or other status update into a video song?

That's what the folks at Smule, which makes popular music-oriented apps, have done this week with Strum. The free app for Apple iOS devices lets you shoot a 15-second status update and use their tools to vocalize your musings with a backing track, and add Instagram-like photo filters to pretty up the image.

The app "turns your life into a music video," says Prerna Gupta, the general manager of Smule, which is best known for its Magic Piano app, with over 20 million installs.

Smule has virtual instrument apps for flute, trombone and violin as well. It also used auto-tune technology on the Songify app, which was developed by Gupta's then-Atlanta-based Khush before it was acquired by Smule in 2011.

Gupta and the Khush staff moved to California. Strum is the first collaboration between the two teams, she says.

Smule has reaped nearly 80 million downloads since first formed by Stanford University professor Ge Wang in 2007 as a side project, and now has 60 staffers.

Strum is the company's first video app, and has 22 visual filters to enhance the image.

While the app is free, the company plans to make money by selling add-on filters.

Status updates have a limit of 15 seconds, and can be produced within the app.