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April 2, 2006

Motionbox - Best Online Video Sharing So Far

Michael Arrington

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There have been big changes in the online video space since I wrote a comparison post of the companies in the space (Flickrs of Video) last November.

Some things haven’t changed: Flickr still hasn’t released a video product, and YouTube (TechCrunch posts here) is still the reigning champ of online video with just massive traffic growth and mindshare.

But new tools are coming out to make sharing videos online even easier. Both Video Egg and Grouper (TechCrunch posts here and here) have downloadable clients that allow encoding to flash on the desktop (saving users from uploading very large files to the service) and some very basic editing features. Grouper also allows users to string together multiple video files (VideoEgg does not yet allow this). Also, while working from the desktop is easier than online, you must install the software. Grouper is not available on the Mac. VideoEgg has a Mac client that works with Safari, but I cannot get it to install on my new Intel based Mac.

New service Motionbox, which will launch in the next few weeks, goes way beyond all of this. CEO Chris O’Brien and investor Derek Idemoto came by to demo the service to me last week and, well, I’m impressed.

Motionbox doesn’t have a client uploader like Grouper and VideoEgg. You must upload the full video files to the service. And while those uploads are a pain, Motionbox has very good reasons for doing this.

To get what Motionbox is doing, take a YouTube and add a ton of really great editing, mashup and deep tagging features. Like YouTube, Motionbox transcodes files to flash to reduce file size and standardize viewing. But they also store the original files and allow you or those you authorize to download those files and/or purchase DVDs with the files.

Editing and Mashups

I also had a chance to test MotionBox’s video editiing tools. When editing a video, Motionbox breaks it down visually into frames (see screenshot above). Users can edit the file extensively, including linking several video files and removing any portion(s) of files. Mashups with other users’ public or shared videos can also be created using this editing feature. Frankly, this goes way beyond what anyone else is doing, including VideoEgg and Grouper’s current offerings. All of these changes can be pushed back to the original quality files for downloading or DVD burning.

Deep Tagging

Like YouTube and other services, Motionbox allows tagging of video files. But they also allow deep tagging of parts of video files. Open a file (see screenshot above) select a portion of the video, and tag it. Viewers later will be able to skip right to that clip of the video by clicking on the tag. Longer videos can now easily be broken down into linkable pieces. This is a huge leap forward over competiting services.

Chris gave few details on pricing and limitations on files sizes, other than to say that any limits will be time based v. file size based like YouTube (which has a 100 mb file size limitation), and many or all of the restrictions will be lifted for premium users (expect a $25/year premium subscription fee).

Sign up to be notified of the Motionbox launch here.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 2nd, 2006 at 1:18 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. Nick Douglas

    April 2nd, 2006 at 1:34 am

    Looks hot. Reasonable, Flickr-equivalent subscription rate too. Now if only I could get this shitty laptop to process video in under an hour…

  2. Clyde Smith

    April 2nd, 2006 at 3:54 am

    The editing features sound hot. I look forward to checking this out.

    By the way, youtube just initiated a 10 minute limit in addition to the file size:
    http://www.searchenginejournal.com/?p=3200

    Clyde

  3. Doug Fox

    April 2nd, 2006 at 3:54 am

    Do you know the specifics of how the mashup capabilities work in conjunction with the deep tagging?

    This video app could be an incredible tool for the dance community if I understand it correctly.

    If dancers can tag sections of a dance clip and then combine these sections with other tagged sections that share some feature in common - specific movements, styles or other elements - there would almost instantly be a new way to learn about dance, study technique, analyze movement and create digital dance works.

    I’m delighted by these possible developments. Earlier in March, fellow dance blogger Matt Gough wrote a theoretical post about how such a choreographic mashup would be constructed: http://binarybutoh.blogspot.co.....hy-ii.html

  4. ventureblogalist

    April 2nd, 2006 at 3:00 am

    The flash integration is great: Youtube , VideoEgg, and Vsocial do not allow import of swf. It took me about 10 tries to find a functional swf-to-avi/mpeg conversion program. http://www.eyespot.com has video mashup funcionality as well, but not deep tagging.

  5. AjaxHotlist

    April 2nd, 2006 at 3:43 am

    What they need to add is in addition to swf encoding is iPod encoding - THEN it would be game over! This should be easy since they store the original file.

  6. Tahir Fayyaz

    April 2nd, 2006 at 5:15 am

    This looks like its going to be great. As Doug mentioned the possibilities with the deep tagging is going to be very interesting. But will it be enough to overtake youtube? It seems as though there is nothing that is gonna be able to stop its growth.

  7. Baris Karadogan

    April 2nd, 2006 at 6:11 am

    Looks interesting. But their success simply depends on how fast they can grow. I hear Youtube is at 20M downloads per day, up from 1M in the beginning of the year. If this is true, I doubt anybody can touch them.

    By the way, does anybody know how Youtube pulled it off?

  8. OnSight-Media

    April 2nd, 2006 at 7:05 am

    I am interested in the DVD aspect of the service “…they also store the original files and allow you or those you authorize to download those files and/or purchase DVDs with the files.”

    This would be a great way for content producers to make some money, rather than rely on ads, which has not matured with other services yet.

  9. Robert

    April 2nd, 2006 at 7:22 am

    If YouTube IS up 20M from 1M, it just means another company could grow as fast. YouTube is no where near a monopoly, and if something better comes along (which this new service sounds alot better), then it stands a pretty good chance.

    Any chance that we will see a Flickr/YouTube combination service for cell phones? http://www.ShoZu.com has a Java app that enables phone users to upload videos via WAP/GPRS/etc..

  10. Varun Mathur

    April 2nd, 2006 at 7:50 am

    “Deep tagging of specific parts of the video clip”. This is just amazing.

  11. Erik

    April 2nd, 2006 at 8:18 am

    Business model?

    Any of them?

  12. Braidwood

    April 2nd, 2006 at 8:39 am

    I don’t know what YouTube’s business model is, but I think it is potentially pretty creepy.

    Just the other day, I was alerted to their Terms of Use by Pick Me! http://laura.moncur.org/archiv.....e-youtube/

    Here is part of it:
    “[B]y submitting the User Submissions to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website and YouTube’s (and its successor’s) business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the YouTube Website (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels.”

    That’s why I am shopping around for a new service. MotionBox sounds great, but my big question is, who owns the videos I upload, them or me?

  13. Saul Weiner

    April 2nd, 2006 at 9:04 am

    I think these folks did something that makes good business sense - they provided a service that Michael Arrington begged all video sites to do. That way, they’ll get a great writeup and heavy traffic play. Now that’s good business.

  14. Josh

    April 2nd, 2006 at 9:40 am

    I love the deep tagging feature and Grouper is working on its own version. Grouper has built a mashup ecosystem with open APIs http://www.grouper.com/api/.

    Grouper’s current mashup offering includes:
    o Home grown P2P tech that enables downloads of the uncut original of any video on Grouper to the desktop, iPod or PSP
    o Desktop software that simplifies combining and editing multiple videos (including selecting in and out points), photos and a soundtrack
    o Upload tool to handle local transcoding (from almost any format), manage upload of large files and batch tag and describe

    We recently set up a forum for devs to discuss mashups here.
    http://forums.grouper.com/forumdisplay.php?f=39. We are having a contest to surface the best mashups on grouper. You can tell us about your mashup at api@grouper.com

  15. Klim

    April 2nd, 2006 at 10:01 am

    @Braidwood - What’s wrong with that? They are saying is that if they want to feature your clip anywhere, they can do so without paying royalties or anything. Quite fair enough (you’ll also get free publicity). They don’t mean that they get the copyright, as a bold sentence clarifies in #5B of their terms. They can’t sell your video or transfer ownership in anyway.

  16. Laura Moncur

    April 2nd, 2006 at 10:51 am

    Yes, they CAN sell your video. In fact, they just got a deal with a cable company to do just that.

    They don’t need to pay you for it either…

  17. Arjun

    April 2nd, 2006 at 11:05 am

    Sounds pretty cool…I really wish flickr would hurry up and support videos. If people are like me, they often take small video clips interleaved with their photo sets. I don’t want to use 2 different services - all my media should be kept together!

  18. Nick Douglas

    April 2nd, 2006 at 12:12 pm

    The killer app for YouTube seems to be embedding. Trying to monetize the embedded vids with in-clip ads would kill it.

    A subscription model like Flickr’s would be perfect — you pay to get higher file limits, no ads wherever you browse, and no ads for anyone who views your files.

    Then whoever bought YouTube could integrate the tech with their other content, so it’d indirectly make profit for the company. That looks like Yahoo’s plan with Flickr.

  19. anoncritic

    April 2nd, 2006 at 12:28 pm

    LOL i love it…where is the feature on Kazaa as a web 2.0 site?

  20. BK

    April 2nd, 2006 at 1:31 pm

    Sounds alot like beedeo’s “cut & tag” technology.

    http://www.beedeo.com

  21. Andrew Erlichson

    April 2nd, 2006 at 5:23 pm

    There is a direct user trade off between paying for service and giving up control of your media. At Phanfare we allow videos up to 5 min long (hard limit at 1GB) and convert to Flash 8 (better quality at any given bitrate). And we keep a DVD quality original version, and allow downloading of originals. No deep tagging, but for the target audience, those who want to share family-oriented video with family and friends, they really don’t need it. And as a subscription service, you don’t give us the right to a permanent royalty free license!

  22. tagami

    April 2nd, 2006 at 7:46 pm

    Check out http://www.eyespot.com as well. Think an AJAXian iMovie, with tagging and sharing capabilites.

  23. Richard Bendow

    April 2nd, 2006 at 9:01 pm

    Who here is using Veoh? I think they have most of the stuff that is needed, and seem to be developing at a great pace. I have published a few videos on it, and find it to be pretty cool.

  24. Mick Liubinskas

    April 2nd, 2006 at 9:50 pm

    If you get 20,000 users and sell, I’m not sure if you get 30 million dollars back, let alone 300 million which would give them the return they are after.

    We are so back to the days of “Well, we’re going to get 80% market share!!!” It’s as useless as saying “Let’s go into China, if only 1% of them bought our Chinese made sneakers, then we’ll be rich!!”

    From the Pot.

  25. Shakir Razak

    April 3rd, 2006 at 4:18 am

    I don’t understand why everyone gets so excited everytime these new rip-off (with just some extra bells and whistles/gimmicks) video-storage companies come along, whether VideoEgg, Vsocial, Groupr or now Mashbox.

    A small company has been operating in the professional sphere for years now, called Forbidden Technologies (www.forbidden.co.uk), which has also had a consumer version in beta for way too long.

    The challenge that all public video-sites face is about a sustainable long-term business-model, that doesn’t simply rely on being bought out by the portals. In terms of storage, bandwidth, support, how can any of them make money based on how many cents/pence an advertiser is willing to pay per individual viewer impression for an ad before the clip.

    You can have 20 million downloads, but how many are from unique users. How many pence is an advertiser going to pay for a 5 - 10 second ad-insert before/between the clip. How much will viewer-users tolerate of blip-ads which can’t convey the narrative of a 30-second spot, and yet at 30 seconds would be too long for a 20 sec (or more) content-clip?

    Yours kindly,

    Shakir Razak

  26. Mark Hindmarsh

    April 3rd, 2006 at 8:03 am

    Sounds like a great solution and looking forward to having a play. Nice to hear more players are joining this space and that new entrants are offering both editing and hosting solutions.

    Coull have also recently launched a tool we call CoullVlogger. It has been licensed to Lycos Europe and a number of other European community portals in a white-label mode. End-user videos are uploaded to Coull’s Content Aggregation Portals which can again easily be white-labelled.

    CoullVlogger is an ‘All-in-One’ Video capture, edit, encode and upload tool created for non-techical users (the masses). All media assets, video, audio, text, images are embedded within templates and are published as a single Video Output Stream with tagging, RSS feeds etc..

    A number of major brands are considering CoullVlogger as a means to embed their own branding around event driven User Generated Content, such as video upload competitions, marketing campaigns etc.. Download and have a play of this new tool yourself at http://www.bobthevlog.com.

  27. Mark Sigal

    April 3rd, 2006 at 9:12 am

    Many have asserted that 2006 is the year of internet video (myself included), and this is yet another indicator that we are off to a rolling start.

    One of the things that we smile about at vSocial (disclaimer: I am a co-founder) is that while we are now serving up ~1.7M videos a day to a unique daily audience of 325K, probably less than 5% of the online audience even knows that such services exist.

    In other words, this is a big and growing market that is only at the beginning of its innovation lifecycle. Yet, you already see credible approaches to solving the upload problem, the encoding/transcoding problem, the tagging problem, the mashing/editing problem, the distribution/syndication problem, the bookmark/manage problem and increasingly, the targeting and monetization problem. (We personally have launched one product in this area, AdPlayer, and are in trials in a second one.)

    As always, the challenge lies in solving enough of a 1.0 problem that captures/engages a meaningful audience in a friction-free manner, while laying the foundation for your 3.0 strategy.

    Cheers,

    Mark
    —–
    vSocial: The Video Clip Sharing Community: http://www.vsocial.com
    Tell stories, start conversations, extend the web — with video

  28. Andrew

    April 11th, 2006 at 5:15 am

    http://www.eyespot.com/tour/

  29. Bayard Saunders

    April 12th, 2006 at 12:39 pm

    I decided to test all the major competitors on the same page - see what they look like right up against each other… http://www.myspace.com/vmixtest

    So the results are pretty clear, from a viewers perspective, at least in my opinion, but I say judge for youself! Put you videos on http://www.vmix.com

    Also, to save time and more postings on this topic, here’s my list of current competitors in (or near) the video sharing space:

    http://www.myspace.com
    http://www.youtube.com
    http://www.revver.com
    http://www.clipshack.com
    videos.google.com
    http://www.grouper.com
    http://www.bolt.com
    http://www.dropshots.com
    http://www.veoh.com
    http://www.vimeo.com
    http://www.vsocial.com
    http://www.sharkle.com
    http://www.streamload.com
    vi.jebba.com
    http://www.evideoshare.com
    http://www.my5minutes.com
    http://www.zippyvideos.com
    http://www.vidilife.com
    http://www.youare.tv
    http://www.eatmail.tv
    http://www.guba.com
    http://www.buzznet.com
    http://www.eyespot.com
    http://www.videoegg.com
    http://www.jumpcut.com
    http://www.Ourmedia.org
    http://www.Break.com
    http://www.Tagworld.com
    http://www.Metacafe.com
    http://www.ebaumsworld.com
    http://www.gorillamask.net
    http://www.dailysixer.com
    http://www.Dailymotion.com
    http://www.podzinger.com
    http://www.fireant.tv
    http://www.gkko.com
    http://www.wetjello.com
    http://www.blinkx.tv
    http://www.firefoxflicks.com
    http://www.phanfare.com
    http://www.beedeo.com
    http://www.motionbox.com
    characters.usanetwork.com
    http://www.eonline.com/On/TheSoup/Cybersmack
    http://www.ifilm.com
    http://www.blip.tv
    http://www.three.co.uk
    del.icio.us
    http://www.archive.org
    http://www.putfile.com
    http://www.4shared.com
    http://www.zshare.com
    http://www.badongo.com
    http://www.memocast.com
    video.yahoo.com
    video.msn.com
    http://www.joga.com
    chevyapprentice.com
    http://www.dabble.com
    http://www.videobomb.com
    http://www.flikr.com
    http://www.snapfish.com
    createyourown.kodak.com
    http://www.pictureal.com

  30. sam champion

    July 1st, 2006 at 6:31 am

    I don’t see the genius in this product. Seems to be very a lot of work for not much return. I prefer the veotag service as being easier to use and delivering a much better offering.

  31. Love Videos?

    July 25th, 2006 at 11:28 am

    the best way to compare is to have them all!
    enjoy the free videos toolbar from http://www.ilovevideoz.com

  32. Justin

    July 31st, 2006 at 8:30 pm

    I came across a really cool video sharing site the other day when I was looking to add to my myspace. Its called vmix.com http://www.vmix.com. You can upload your videos like those other sites, and make a cool slide show with a bunch of skins. you can add to myspace or your blog. It seems pretty easy to get what you want and the interface is very clean. I didn’t see it on that list above but its a good one.

  33. Dan

    November 26th, 2006 at 7:23 pm

    With all of the video sharing sites today, it is great to have one search engine to find the videos we’re loking for. GooTube.net (Http://www.gootube.net) is the search engine of videos. By using a customized Google Search Engine(Google co-op), GooTube searches the web t exclusively for online videos.

  34. ovguide

    December 2nd, 2006 at 11:28 pm

    OVGuide provides a unified searchable interface into dozens of online video sites. There really can’t be a “best” video site, since it depends on a person’s tastes and other factors. OVGuide’s approach is to give people a broad choice of online providers and the tools to navigate and search them. The site emphasizes browsing more than searching, since for most people, they just want to see the best video highlights on various sites and are not really looking for anything specific.

  35. Mark

    December 7th, 2006 at 9:27 am

    Guys,

    Try http://www.connectfilms.com

    cool new video site

  36. Martin Tibbitts

    February 4th, 2007 at 12:17 pm

    I would add http://www.EZshow.com to the list.

    Martin Tibbitts

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    February 9th, 2007 at 8:51 am

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    February 22nd, 2007 at 9:52 am

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