Videophlow Makes YouTube a Group Experience

LOL

Love the idea….

But it is frustrating to read the hype, then get encouraged enough to visit the site to register…

then discover it is in private beta

頑張って下さい。

Groups of friends certainly can look at a photo or watch a video together - if they all happen to be online and interested in doing so at the same exact time. This concept rides on that premise, and since that kind of situation will be a relatively rare event in the scheme of things, I think this idea is just a novelty. OK, so they came up with the concept and built a platform to make it work. Now what? Show me how it can make money.

Hi Joe - Neil from Oortle here. You’re right that getting people together at the same time is an issue. To solve that problem we’ve integrated with the major IM networks (AIM, MSN, Yahoo and Google Talk). When you share a video you can give us your IM username, and we’ll let you know as soon as your friend clicks through to watch so you can join them instantly.

I also think you underestimate how much time people spend online. Is it really that rare that you’re on at the same time as your friends? Do you use IM?

Good feature, this will sure provide more friendlier user experience and add more then that a simple sharing to video sharing. I always prefer sharing ways where you can also tell your side of why you have sharing this and for what part.

Sounds like a good idea but being online at the same time and wanting also to watch a video may not happen that often.

You could easily extend this premise to other “shared” web browsing experiences.. shopping, booking a holiday.. where users can both contribute and have control over the same site at the same time.

My company has a library of video content that we would like to distribute on this platform. I have to admit I do not feel very confident about a significant amount of people that has an interest in a piece of content will all be online at the same time. Even if my “close friends” are online at the same time, the web has wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too much content to hold a group of users attention long enough for them dissect and chat in detail about a clip. Maybe if they came up with a way to pay users to chat about content then I would feel more confident about the community giving our content a fair look.

This may become popular with my vlogger friends who hang out in Stickam. They like to chat about YouTube videos but can’t show them in the room or even provide a clickable link. However, if Videophlow does not support web cams then it is unlikely to replace Stickam.

Cool!
Wanted to try it, but :(….
still a private beta. Waiting for the registaration approval.

The guys, SeeToo, seems to be working an kicking.
Downloaded and installed their plug-in, and succeeded to run instantly several files, including 700 MB dvd rip off.

So, what’s the difference between those two?

Hi Neil, I don’t think I underestimate the amount of time people online. It’s just that (hopefully), most of this time will be spent engaged in *productive* activities, not sharing videos.

If you subtract all your friends who are actually engaged in work, research, and meaningful or fruitful communications, as opposed to just amusing themselves or gaming, I think you’ll still find that it will be hard to corral all those like-minded people together.

What about your friends who are online — doing anything — who just don’t want to be bothered, or who don’t want whatever they’re doing interrupted by some “hilarious” video of a baby being flung off a merry-go-round?

In the work world, as opposed to the world of 14 year-old boys, a relevant business-related video may well be worth sharing, but not in real-time, interrupting your colleagues to get their immediate reactions. You would simply send a link to the video and let your colleagues watch it when they have a break.

The real question this raises — for America — is how many companies can be built upon frivolous, non-productive activities like real-time video sharing?

In the current Web 2.0 internet boom, how far will we move away from companies that facilitate productive work, so we can fund and build thousands and thousands of websites and widgets that enable various forms of “video sharing”, “video discovery”, gaming, and rather juvenile aspects of social networking, before all of this simply collapses of its own weight, because:

1) It is not facilitating productivity or creating real economic opportunities for people

2) It is in fact distracting would-be productive people from bettering themselves, or creating value in our overall economy, thus bearing us down with the weight of more and more non-productive people

I hate to be so serious and school-masterish, but I think this is just reality speaking. As China graduates thousands of times the numbers of engineers that the USA does, our kids are sitting around sharing goofy videos, and entire COMPANIES are being funded and built around such trivial concepts.

Is this what our economy should be about?

Ok, I get something like Ustream which is live, but this just seems boring to me?

IS JOE T. KIDDING?

He says: <>

Um… it’s called “television.” Last I looked, “American Idol” limped to a measly tens of millions audience participating in “real-time video sharing” of the show. All told, the television industry is a multi-hundred BILLION dollar business and includes programming ranging from the arguably frivolous (a la ) to the compellingly educational (a la John Adams).

Furthermore, the entertainment industry at large is responsible for groundbreaking technologies that seep into every aspect of human endeavor– from linear storytelling techniques to computer animation technologies. EVERY company is a media company. The entertainment biz just happens to be better at employing those storytelling, storyforming and storydwelling techniques than, say, farmers or mechanical engineers or financial analysts. Nonetheless, media literacy is changing… as is the definition of what classifies as the “entertainment industry.”

It’s not the technology or service to which you speak, or lament… its the application of that technology. And real-time video sharing via networked media like web and mobile wireless shows real promise.

Let the frivolity begin… people need diversion in times like these; and the more serious applications will emerge with time, as other entrepreneurs find opportunity to apply them to better the world.

Let the synchronized rave begin. Hey, that’s pretty good. SyncRave.

@11

chardonnay-a the difference is that with oortle you can supposedly (I just saw that they are on private beta so I couldn’t try it) watch together videos that live on YouTube. With SeeToo you can watch videos that live on your computer (no need to upload)

Check out constantcomedy.com you can already watch the same thing at the same time there

I assume that the synchronized watching will be the next differentiating capability that all of the video sharing, social networks and messaging services will pursue.
Photophlow is just one of these enablers (why write about a service that is not yet available to the public?). Others, I know of, include Abazap and Clipsync.
However I’ve just tried Seetoo and I was up for a major surprise. It’s something completely different. It allowed me to select a 15 minutes video, 600MB in size, and instantly show it to a couple of friends. Amazing! No waiting, no upload and completely synchronized. Pure fun! BTW, I could (but didn’t…) leave my computer on-line and let my friends pick up the link hours afterwards and watch the interesting parts by themselves.

Sorry to say that Clipsync is MIA:-( However, a friend just emailed me of a similar service by Yahoo(!) named Zync(?). Deserves a peek.

BUT I’m still astonished with this Seetoo service. I’ve taken a DVD that I’ve captured with my camcorder and wasn’t able to share with anybody until now, and watched some of its scenes directly with a friend. I hope it won’t be saved anywhere on the web…;-).
It unleashes many hours of video I have taken. Now I’ll be more generous with taking long videos. I’ll try it now with my digicam and an SD card… new horizons;-)

Alex, I also have been using seetoo for a month now, it’s really a disruptive concept: it eliminates the need for upload and file transfer. I love it!

I’m guessing we’ll see more services like videopjlow and seetoo emerging within the near future, synchronization brings a new dimensions to online interactions.

For Neil: kudos on the new service! I look forward for the public version. Also I think that your point about IM is right on the money: where people are interacting in real time they will require new ways to interact.

This is a great idea, but these guys do it better:
view2gether.com
They have a more sources, not just videos form youtube, and it’s not in private beta. Also their design is a bit slicker.

I have a related question: Is there a service/application in the spirit of Ustream.tv, where you can stream and/or record a muliti-webcam interview? In other words, a simple video chat that can be streamed live with multiple video windows, so viewers can see the interviewer and interviewee simultaneously, as well as recording & storing everything for playback as a vlog.

@ 14 - cumulusguy –

Of course “it’s called television”. Television is full of drivel. But, last I checked, television became widely available in the US shortly after WORLD WAR II, and there aren’t 100,000 entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley hustling to invent the latest television station or TV widget to allow people to view even more drivel.

My comment is about ALLOCATION OF RESOURCES, not TV. The success of sites like YouTube and Facebook has spawned a plethora of wannabes all scrambling to sell new platforms to do this or that combination of things with video, SN, gaming, etc. — and all aimed at the LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR, i.e., American males age 10-15.

By “allocation of resources” I mean that the VC industry, angels, and other financiers have a huge heap of money to put into start-ups.

Now, clever and entrepreneurially-inclined start-up people in Silicon Valley can migrate in two different directions: they can either use their skills and talents to create companies that build real, long-term wealth in our economy, or they can use those talents to build yet another website that is a distraction, feeding even more drivel and nonsense to 14 year olds.

The former route would help the overall economy — help the USA be more productive. The latter route is just the quick, easy, me-too path to success.

But the “success” in that case is a Pyrrhic victory because we then become overloaded with a lot of nonsense business and nonsense technology that pulls money, time, resources, and creativity away from productive activities that will build the US economy, and steers it to nonsense aimed at providing diversions for the lowest common denominator.

So I am not excluding US television from that critique. It is certainly relevant, and certainly full of crap.

But this site doesn’t focus on pure television plays, or film, or businesses operating in non-internet related media. This is a site about technology-driven start-ups and ideas in the INTERNET SPACE. And the internet space is where lots of money, talent, time, and effort goes these days in creating the new companies that will shape the US economy months and years down the line.

Television is an established, entrenched media sector which doesn’t attract cutting-edge types who discuss their start-ups on these pages. Trends in teh television industry aren’t likely to shape tomorrow’s economy, but trends in the internet industry most certainly will.

Joe, I understand what you are saying, but wtf is your problem? You a philosophy major, and not a very good one at that?

The idea is not only sound, but groundbreaking. In fact, all web video sites will HAVE to incorporate this technology to stay competitive. To say anything else is bs.

I do not know how they will monetize it. And i don’t care.

All I want to do is watch some great online video with my circle of friends AT THE SAME TIME so for that 30 seconds we all see what everyone else sees and can talk and chat about it, real time, in sync, JUST LIKE TV.

Once the web can do this one seemingly simple thing, TV is walking dead. Long live the net. Keep up the good work troops, moving humanity along.

Brush them haters off your shoulder and make things happen.

Just wanted to mention what we have to do now:

“ok, everyone ready? right….one….two…three…play! Aw crap, i’m a few seconds ahead I think, i hear a delay through the phone. Ok, everyone reset to the beginning….ready? one….two….”

You wizards do what you need to do to save us from that crap. My folks will hype you to no end.

We’ll save you, Nat. Try going to http://www.view2gether.com

Synchronized video play from multiple sources; all participants can add to the group playlist, you can do an in-site search and preview without leaving the page and you can create public or private lounges, all for free and it’s now in pulic, not private beta.