A few weeks ago Rocketboom founder Andrew Baron gave us a glimpse of his next project: a new video portal with an emphasis on analytics and social interaction, dubbed Mag.ma. But aside from some nifty screen shots, nobody has really gotten a chance to play around with the site until now.
Earlier this evening Baron included us in a small batch of new users invited to try out the site, and we’ve been testing it out for the last few hours. To be clear, this is by no means our final review of the site, as it is very much a work in progress and some of its most key features—which allow people to set up and follow real-time video feeds—haven’t been implemented yet. But even with some missing elements, at the very least, it’s clear that Magma is going to be a great place to kill some time.
In his original post on Magma, Baron outlined three main use cases for the site. The first, and the one most people will be using Magma for, is as a comprehensive guide for what’s currently hot in web video. Open Magma’s homepage and you’re shown a grid of 10 “Must-watch” videos – clips that Magma has deemed to be the hottest on the web, as determined by data from sites like Digg, Reddit, and Twitter. Below this grid, you’ll get an at-a-glance guide to the most popular videos across a dozen different web services, which include everything from YouTube to CollegeHumor. Finally, the very bottom of the site lists some of the clips being shared by other users.
It’s a lot of content to absorb, with over 100 video links on the homepage alone. Fortunately Magma does a good job at laying out the video links so that they don’t become overwhelming. Magma certainly isn’t the first site to try to aggregate what’s hot in web video – in fact, many of its sources like YouTube and Digg also try to do exactly that. But Magma has done a great job taking all of these sources and presenting them in an easily consumable format, which could make it one of the first sites I visit when I’m looking to kill some time.
That said, good design can be easily copied. Fortunately for the company Magma has some other core functionality in the works, but these other main features are still very much in the work-in-progress stage. Its stat tracking, which will allow you to watch in real-time as a clip’s hit count goes up and ‘buzz’ comes in from various social channels, is not yet active. And the social sharing features, which allow you to follow the videos shared by your friends, is still limited if only because there are currently so few people using the site.
Magma’s power comes from the fact that it is a series of real-time, constantly updating video feeds. Each “channel” (YouTube, Digg, Tweetmeme, CollegHumor) changes frequently, with the latest videos pushing the rest down the queue. You can follow any channel like an RSS feed. You can also follow any other member’s collection of video streams. Magma starts with a collection of the most popular video streams and then encourages users to create their own. The number of potential video streams that can be created is virtually limitless. That is why Magma is exciting. Its main design principle centers around discovering and consuming videos via real-time streams.
But these features will be ramping up over the next few weeks, and we’ll be following the site as it matures up to its public release. For the time being, Magma is looking promising – now it just needs to show that it’s more than just a nice looking content aggregator.
Is that Mag.ma link not suppose to work?
Ah ha, here’s the temporary dev site:
http://hotlikemagma.com
Yea, the Mag.ma URL doesn’t work. By the way, I’m looking forward to using this Web site. Hope, it’s not another YouTube’s imitator.
Sorry if this is too much of a simple answer.
http://mag.ma
Interesting site!! One thing determine whether a site is successful or not is whether it is interesting enough to keep readers coming back.
Try my blog The Stock Traders Blog too. I think it is also a interesting site to read on!
It will be interesting to see if this can be a lead generator or a new content avenue for “smaller” blogs – like mine about vintage guitars.
I think it will be hard for smaller players to come with a continuous real-time video stream, but maybe by aggregating there will be enough to generate healthy “channels” by genre.
Like a guitar channel wouldn’t be profitable on TV (probably because not as general as Food network), there is probably a case online. And a platform like Magma could be the one.
If all goes well, this will be one of the most important qualities. You really nailed it – where the discovery ultimately happens best by association to others with like interests.
Thanks Andrew! Just started following you on twitter btw.
It’d be nice to get an invite to mag.ma.
Seems like a good idea, and a great place to spend a good amount of time at!
The site is starting to take shape. I look froward to seeing it in its more complete form. Keep up the good work.
The www version doesn’t work … 1 bad point. Hopefully the only one
Hmm, looks like I’m missing something. Checking the site now.
A great place to kill some time ? Maybe…
That is quite an interesting choice of name: http://www.magma.de/ (NSFW)
Nice site but is this another clone of Nizmlab? http://nizmlab.com
How is it so different than sites like video qwert
http://www.videoqwert.com
Videoqwert appears to be focusing on ‘porn’.
looks like mag.ma is in beta testing mode.
anyone got an invite?
neat hacked domain though.
Mongulus did a very smart thing and chenged their name to LiveStream.com — I suggest Magmu do the same
I hope they’ll allow publishers to share ad revenue in the future with video
interesting place to be around. Like the domain name aswell.
I just visited http://www.magma.com/ and they are selling harware!? — what gives? — i see no videos.
At the NY Video Meetup in May these donuts showed their site to an audience of 500 and three major VCs who were judging products. I forget which VC partner it was that put it best, “we don’t need another video aggregation site.”
ouch
Yea, that got a chuckle when he went on to say that what he wanted was just one place to go where it would tell him what videos he wanted to watch.
“Magma’s power comes from the fact that it is a series of real-time, constantly updating video feeds..”
I’m just a little slow this morning: in the assessment above, are you saying the user gets to see the videos being added on a continuous basis as opposed to waiting until the site gets refreshed at x intervals? What exactly is the benefit when video viewing is a time-shifted experience to begin with?
Here is one of many, many examples:
Today I noticed, in the top videos to watch on Magma, found from a popular YouTube video feed, a really amazing and emotional video from a basketball game where a winning 3 pointer was made as the clock turned to zero.
I then immediately calmed down once I noticed the video was uploaded to YouTube 3 days ago.
So 3 days later, the play made it into the “YouTube Most popular Videos” and I discovered it late.
As we adjust our Magma algorhythm learning from this experience, we can now look for these kinds of sports videos to filter up to the top way before they get so many views or comments on YouTube. But we are also checking to see who is twittering about it, who’s digging, linking and chattering about it and the more of that going on, the more of a chance we can get this good video to you when it’s way more fresh and relevant. This video should of popped up to one of the most relevant sports videos on Magma within 30 minutes or less of it being uploaded. Over time, we will get that down.
But the quickest way of all to find this video when its the freshest and most relevant is to do what you can do already right now on Magma (the tech is in place, it is just up to you): Just follow the person or channel on Magma that keeps up with the latest sports videos. If you follow them, the fanatic who posts all the amazing basketball plays when they happen, you will be able to see when they add a new video, maybe not in “real-time” but within a matter of milliseconds.
That is, just follow your friends and get real time updates of what videos your friends are watching. Like you get real time updates of what your friends are doing on Twitter.
“I then immediately calmed down once I noticed the video was uploaded to YouTube 3 days ago. ”
“Like you get real time updates of what your friends are doing on Twitter.”
So like use twitter and youtube then instead of putting another layer between them, LOL
If Youtube is the elephant in the room, surely the top 10 must watch videos are going to be on youtube in the most popular and most viewed tabs? I know its more of an aggregation thing, but surely all the good stuff ends on youtube in the end.
Actually, not at all. The top videos include videos based on their activity in niche environments around the web. For instance, what are people on Twitter watching right now? Or iTunes or Hulu? Or Facebook? What are people on Magma watching right this second?
Hmm, I’m not sure that there are that many niche environments to support video. Having done a fair bit of scraping and aggregation I tended to find that the signal got lost in the noise. Human aggregation to find those great african drum tracks etc. was the best policy, but what is the incentive for those people to produce those lists on a consistent and regular basis to keep the followers happy. Are there enough mavens or whatever the term is to provide a full rounded service. If I arrive and I am looking for video niches in the long tail how can there be enough feeds to keep the momentum going?
Yes. See this screen shot (and click to zoom):
http://www.rock.../magma_home.jpg
Is the liquid hot mag-ma in a hollowed out volcano like I asked for?
[/evil]
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
nice site, really, but another business model relying on other companies policy of scrapping data. Meh. They could be shut down tomorrow.
You mean like Summize which was bought for Millions of dollars by Twitter?
Most of Magma is built on using RSS feeds and APIs.
exactly my point, Using APIs from other services.
Quotes from the the blog
“For the last couple of weeks with our new Magma site, we have been hitting Digg, Reddit, YouTube, Twitter, and a lot of other sites, with over 30,000 requests per day, each. For every video we track, we go out and see what’s going on on each of these sites and then continue to check back time and time again.
At 30,000 requests per website, per day, so far no one has mentioned anything.
We’d ready now to ratchet this up to 100k requests per day and foresee the desire for a million requests per day on the near horizon.
Does anyone know what is considered typical usage? If no one cares that we are making 30k requests per day, will they care if we make 100k? Are we flattering ourselves in thinking a million requests per day is significant? Will anyone care? What are good practice API benchmarks on usage levels for companies that do provide APIs?”
That was the last big question we needed to get over to commit once and forall. Figured that out and we’re off!
I really hope for a fantastic experience. Easy searching and flexibility.
Waiting for its updates. Maybe everybody should give a try.
there is already far too much of this on the web.
Tomorrow I will be e-filing a patent for something new on the web.
I won’t reveal it to the public until it’s been published for opposition in about 8 months.
That’s the only real way to build value anymore. Anything like this or collecting how to videos or what have you will be wiped out.
95% of content aggregation will happen off web pages VERY SOON.
The web is fast becoming too dynamic to aggregate anything that is publicly available and make money on it.
I am betting on NT – new technology, and technology that has IP restrictions on it.
There is just no way you can aggregate and make serious money. Aggregation has shifted to the user level, and the trend will continue.
Rocketboom was so hard up before Amanda left that they were auctioning ads off on ebay.
Baron was hard up on cash and put his Twitter account on sale on ebay too.
http://www.tech...r-sale-on-ebay/
Yeah, I have a very good memory. I had reported it to ebay because it violated the TOS.
“effective March 31 all goods that can be digitally downloaded or transferred electronically must be listed using the Classified Ads format.”
Baron had not posted a classified ad, but had posted it as an auction.
I cant exactly say your call into Ebay destroyed me, but I do recall the lions and aliens. It hurt, but I deserved it and was impressed with your creative thinking.
I also leaned a valuable lesson along the way: “effective March 31 all goods that can be digitally downloaded or transferred electronically must be listed using the Classified Ads format.”
Now you know and knowing is half the battle.
That reminds me, I can’t wait for the new GI Joe movie. that looks fvcking sweet as all hell.
You’re service is doomed in my opinion, but so are all the online video aggregation.
The only reason Rocketboom made it is because geek virgin fanboys were drooling over Amanda. She never said anything interesting or reported original news.
She was like Layla Kayleigh on the feed on AOTS sans the British accent.
All the losers were thinking, damn, she like geek crap, I may have a shot with her. And that’s the
only ….
reason …
they …
watched …
OK, I’m done here.
“You’re” in the last comment should be “your”. I’m in the middle of watching the blockbuster star wars fan boy movie titled fan boys and I don’t have time to check typos.
That is a great idea
Sounds a lot like http://viralvid...nrulymedia.com/
viralheat just owned u
whose going to pay for a service when they can get it for free?