VodPod comes out of “private alpha” into beta mode today. It’s a social networking video sharing site and right about now you’re thinking, ‘Why do we need another YouTube?” Well, if YouTube becomes increasingly commercial, as it appears it will be, then user-generated video will need a new home.
VodPod is heavily designed around social networking. Have a thing for birds? Join the bird “pod” and you’ll have an instantaneous collection of birding videos. Like unicycling? Some kids from Australia have started a pod around that pastime too. Users can join multiple groups that cluster videos around various subjects that allows them to post and collect new videos that pertain to that topic. Although you don’t have to join a pod or even sign up with VodPod to search pod videos. Users can “lurk” within the pods anonymously without being socially networked.
Videos added to a pod don’t have to be original VodPod material. They can come from other sharing sites like YouTube using the embed code.
“Basically it allows you to build a video collection from videos you find on MySpace or YouTube or over 100 of these sites on the Internet, or you can put video of your own up on VodPod as the host, and then build a mixture of them.” said Mark Hall, one of the three founders of VodPod, in a phone briefing last Friday.
Hall and his partners are big fans of Last.fm and wanted to create a similar experience where users can build networks of friends with similar tastes and watch what they watch. Although, users can’t necessarily watch everything their friends watch because it is possible to mark certain videos as private, making it impossible for others to know that you have watched them.
VodPod development began over the summer in San Francisco where the company has been privately funded. Philip Rosedale, founder and CEO of Linden Labs and Second Life, and Toni Schneider, CEO of Automattic, which owns Wordpress, are both outside advisers to the company.
My website is wayyy better. Really, honestly, seriously
Yeah, what’s with the preponderance of bird videos on the site?!
If I owned a video content site start up, or one that’s already in place but seeking to differentiate, I’d be focusing on developing and establishing consistent professionally produced content (news shoes that appeal to niche audiences, etc.) in addition to user driven. I think we’re a long way from really knowing how video’s going to shake down with user driven vs. professional but i think direct to internet shows are very sexy right now, nobody’s doing it, the user base is open to it – it can be done very low budget, especially with a million very hungry producers trying to make their mark in the world. the concept would generate enough PR material to create a nice buzz in a video-hungry press that has little else to talk about (since everybody’s doing the same thing) to help market it for you. things can be bounced around the web very easily and are generally easily adopted especially if the user has a place to return to see what you’re offering. not only would it give a company a slightly different spin, you’d potentially be able to position yourself in a nice spot for a bigger network (aka, ABC, NBC, etc.) to snag you up as they move in and seek to attract audience. Advertisers wary of advertising on user driven material now have a safe place to play that’s still video – you could even produce the commercials for them for an additional fee, like some of the entertainment companies are exploring now.
just my .2
VodPod is quite cool. I love the way you are able to embed videos that you have on their service into your blog/site. It allows us to give our audience a taste of the videos we have on our site. Have a look at the video widget in action over at Hacked Gadgets (refresh the page and the videos will randomly be loaded in every time).
http://hackedgadgets.com
I think VodPod will provide a natural way for like minded people to community build.
Holy craptacular forcing stupid made-up terms on people, Batman.
I’d maybe go look, but apparently I’ve got to call each clip a ‘pod’ because it’s “fun” and “cool” and “bubble-era nonsense 2.0″ and “transparently pretentious and dumb”. So no clicky, because I can tell they don’t give a toss about people just from the screenshot.
Out here in the real world they’re called videos or clips or whatnot.
Conversely, ‘pods’ are what any half-clueful investor should be escaping in about now.
Wow Michael, you caught this one early … only 1,000 videos on their site so far!
The biggest problem with all these video sites is finding quality content to watch. I can sit down in front of comedy central and know I’ll be entertained. If I want to be entertained on YouTube, I end up spending an hour skimming videos and 10 minutes in fits of laughter (I write a silly humor blog, so my searches are typically pretty narrow on some topic-of-the-day).
YouTube seems to have the best potential, but their search function is lacking and it’s too easy to game it (e.g. many people setup a computer macro to click refresh all night just to land on the daily most popular pages … as of a few weeks ago YouTube didn’t filter these clicks out).
wow, this totally disrupts the social video networking new media space. I can imagine all kinds of people sharing and tagging pods on their blogs. I predict a buyout by yahoo next february, $50 – $100 million.
Brightcove despite all its buzz is having problems getting investors … this one will be dead in a few weeks, Mike, you might as well put it in your deadpool right now.
Original content and UGC:
http://www.gofish.com
‘Nuff said.
Wow, that’s alot of bird videos
They have a great site. Change is good. I viewed the CNN Zune clip and it was funny.
It is amazing how everyone is tech savvy to some extent today. In the old days people were of afraid of braking gadgets but today they are fascinated with the possibilities opened to them. If Zune can compete with iPod, then VodPod should also try to compete with YouTune.
Hey, let me clarify some things from the post by Natali and respond to a few of the comments.
Natali, appreciate the focus in your post on the social aspects of the service.
Labeling VodPod “video sharing” might have caused the wrong perception among some of your readers. We’re not one of those, really. We let people aggregate videos from dozens of video sharing sites (soon it will be hundreds, and thousands, of these soon as media co’s launch their own video sharing sites).
If people are aggregating, collecting, and organizing videos on vodpod, from all these many video sharing sites, seems to me that makes us a different beast. Maybe we need a new name for this kind of thing. A people-powered aggregator?
Boolah & Mike Y– Lot’s of birding videos on the site because one of best and biggest pods built during our testing the past few weeks was by an avid birder and filmmaker. He’s made a great birding Pod, and a lot of birders came in to check it out over the past couple of weeks. It’s a great example of what these Pods can be.
As more people try out the service, I’m sure you’ll see a much wider variety of video programming. In fact, it’s changed quite a bit just the past 6 hours. But the real point isn’t what is on our home page, it’s whats on your Pod.
Patricia — We agree, one of the things were trying to do is to help filmmakers build out their own communities with their Pods.
Alan– Thanks for the reminder, the blog widgets are pretty cool, letting you easily aggregate videos on your blog from lots of different video sharing sites. Bloggers, check it out.
John — We call videos “videos.” Not pods. A Pod is what we call your collection of videos.
Anita — We agree with your point. Pods (collections, not videos!) are all about helping groups of friends, or communities of people with similar interests, find the good stuff from across hundreds of video sharing sites and tens, maybe hundres, of millions of clips on the Internet.
>Some kids from Australia have started a pod around that pastime too.
Pardon me Bob, but could you provide us with the emails of those kids? I’d love to get in touch with them. Or else give them Pirate O’hara’s email. Till Later.
This REALLY comes in handy – had been collecting so-o many Videos about Google & Yahoo - this is a convenient way to organize and share with others
http://google.vodpod.com/
VodPod reminds me a lot of Webshots with their layout and subject options. Maybe Webshots should have teemed up with these guys instead of adding video on their own (i still can’t seem to turn up any in searches).
As for the social networking angle, I prefer sites that combine networking within my own contacts ( friends of friends of friends) in addition to videos that i’m simply “a fan” of. That’s what keeps me coming back to MySpace, Webshots, http://www.pickle.com, and others.
if i create a photo album, i want the opportunity to title, tag and share my collection of photos.
if i create a collection of videos, i want the ability to title, tag and share my collection of videos.
vodpod let me do just that. voila!
http://reflections.vodpod.com/
how much more useful and dare i say “fun” do i need?
Very interesting message. Thank you!
just an ingenuous question here:
how can a site come out of “alpha” version with 472 members and 1379 videos?
Unless numbers are fake, how the hell is possible to have all those users? Admitting the vodpod staf is something like 20 persons, they should have convinced more than 20 friends to test the site, submitting more than 3 vids each…
Or is there any company specialized in betatesting services AFYK?
Comments apreciated ;P
cheers
Hey newcomer,
The numbers are real. When we opened vodpod to the public on monday, we were at ~250 users. These 250 users were the result of a few months of private alpha testing. Once you became a member, you could invite your friends, and so on and so forth.
Most sites don’t actually publish their metrics, but we like the transparency, and think that it’s a cool way for the community to see how we’re growing.
Thanks for the feedback.
spencer
Great site.
Im looking forward to setting up some videos very shortly. One to help sell some property I own in the Dominican Republic. Very cool to have it in your own name or user name. Thanks.
jwampler
I really can’t see another video site being able to establish itself in the market. This concept hardly has enough of a differentiator with with to stand out. Sites like revver.com or infectiousvideos.com which have revenue share actually seem like a better model to me.
i don t linke it