Last May, we got our first taste of Mag.ma, the new video portal to come from Rocketboom founder Andrew Baron. We’ve been tracking the site since then, and it appeared at our Real-Time Crunchup last month, but it’s remained in private beta. Today, Mag.ma finally opens up to the public.
As we’ve noted before, most people will use Mag.ma as a great place to kill time. The site presents users with around one hundred video thumbnails on a single page, with hot videos from Twitter, YouTube, Digg, a variety of other services and the web at large. But despite a wide selection of content, the site manages not to overwhelm users. Mag.ma also has a heavy emphasis on stat tracking (you can watch a ticker count up as more people watch a certain video). There’s also a strong discovery component that lets you see videos other members on the site are recommending.
Congratulations to Andrew Baron and his team for the public launch of Mag.ma!
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So, am I the only one disturbed by the title of this post, or what?
This is what you call pretty cool. Funnily enough this is the first time I have heard of the site but at first glance it looks like it will be sapping up a lot of my time.
I’m a little confused. If this is supposed to showcase “hot” videos why is the #1 video Regina Spektor’s “Fidelty” which came out almost two years ago?
Unless it’s being featured in an iPod commercial I’ve yet to see, I’m not sure how HOT this is…
That’s an excellent question, and something I think other users may be asking themselves — our “hot” videos aren’t necessarily “new” videos, but ones that are bubbling up on major blogs & social media sites during the last day or so. It’s also designed to update fairly often throughout the day and be “slow news day”-resistant.
That particular video was found sifting up on Twitter as well as being added by users on Magma itself, which is factored in to a lesser extent. You can see the list of where we’ve found each video so far underneath the embed on each page.
Love the diversity on here- Yeah, TED!
IMO the easiest way to figure out Mag.ma’s advantage is to simply hover above the Explore link, top left side, that’s an impressive list of video sources!
I’ve enjoyed using this service in the beta, can’t wait to see the additional layer of stats they plan to roll out.
Congrats on the public launch.
I’ve been on Magma for some time now and have to say it’s just fantastic. I’m really enjoying the dashboard feature – the news feed of all my friends videos, it’s a great touchstone. Congrats Magma team!
Thanks for writing Jason! And thanks to all for the nice words, very, VERY excited!
well, i like the drag to share photo.
Yeeha~! This looks interesting!! ^_^
wow, that was interesting
I watch online video every day I will bookmark this.
Randy