The Inquisitr » phreadz

Motionbox Acquires Video Chat Service Viddyou

Duncan Riley — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:54:12 +0000

Video chat service Viddyou has been acquired by video sharing service Motionbox for an undisclosed sum.

Viddyou launched in 2007 into the then new “video chat” space, eventually competing against sites including Phreadz and Seesmic. As the space faltered, the company reinvented itself as more of a YouTube style sharing site, and was one of the earlier sites to support HD video.

Video sharing site Montionbox is a competitor of sorts to Viddyou, pitching itself as a share your memories type service with related services including the ability for users to put their video on DVD. With its consumer slant, Motionbox hasn’t gained a lot of attention in the tech space, but is smartly backed to the tune of $17.2 million from Canaan Partners, Constellation Ventures and SAS Investors.

Viddyou CEO Aaron Wadler said in an email to Viddyou users that “it is with great pride that we are able to take our mission to the next level and announce that Viddyou has been acquired by Motionbox.com.”

Under the terms of the acquisition, Viddyou will cease to trade as a separate site, with Viddyou accounts to be migrated onto Motionbox’s platform. Viddyou Premium users will be given Motionbox Premium subscriptions.

One of the Best Video Sharing Sites out there…And you’ve still probably never heard of it.

zee — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:09:40 +0000

A guest post from Zee, the Creative Director at London based digital agency, WeDoCreative

I have been a member of a particular video sharing site for a while now & I have come to realize that generally this site is virtually unheard of amongst the people who would probably make the most use of it.

Duncan reviewed the site back in June & frankly I thought it was worth a revisit.

The site is viddyou.com and in my honest opinion, it’s the best video sharing site out there – here’s why:

1. The site itself is crisp, clean, visually pleasing & easy to navigate – despite the fact that Duncan believes the pink is too girly(!)

2. Wonderfully clean player – probably the slickest, in terms of design, I’ve seen in fact.

3. Faster upload than the majority of the video sharing sites out there.

4. The quality of the videos is second to none with a higher bitrate than majority of video sharing sites out there.

This is a standard quality video, not HD.

5. Smooth playback for both normal & HD videos (this was a recent update).

6. Strong & Innovative privacy settings, one example highlighted by the Viddyou team in the video below:

7. Ability to respond to other videos “on the fly” essentially allowing for video conversations.

8. One click video blogging from your webcam.

9. Watch videos virtually anywhere including mobiles and yes, the iPhone!

10. Premium Accounts (Yes! They have a business model!) and for only $35 dollars a year, this brings you:

• High Definition shareable video quality.
• Downloading of your videos
• 1 GB Video Uploads & 20 minutes on site video recording.

An example of HD Video below: (how can you not be impressed).

11. One video player for all your videos: To embed videos on your site you are able to actually just embed one video player which contains all of your videos.

12. Zero ads – on both premium & non-premium. Yup, zero.

There is absolutely no doubt they’re in a crowded marketplace & on face value it’s easy to categorize Viddyou with sites such as Phreadz & Seesmic because of their slant towards personal videos & conversation. I must admit, I have yet to get involved with the Viddyou community in that respect so it’s by no means a must that you use the site for “video conversations”. Personally, I have stuck to using Viddyou as most of us use sites such as Vimeo & Viddler – more for sharing my personal & home videos and that is who I envisage Viddyou’s competition to be. What I love is the fact that a “premium” option does exist, it gives me the confidence that these guys are serious about sticking around and not having to rely on a fickle advertising market to ensure they stick around. Check out Viddyou at Viddyou.com .

About the author: Zee is the Co-founder of London based marketing agency WeDoCreative. He is also a devoted European Tech Blogger, Design Connoisseur, Social Media Junkie & Web Application devotee. You can find him at zee.me, twitter & friendfeed.”

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12seconds releases an API, complete with launch partners

Duncan Riley — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:50:45 +0000

Microblogging meets video startup 12seconds has today released an official API, opening up the service to third party tools and sites.

For those not familiar with the service, 12seconds does exactly as the name suggests, you get 12seconds to say your peace, a sort of mix between Twitter and Seesmic.

As part of the release, 12seconds has tried “to anticipate how, when and why you might want to utilize 12seconds” although caution that they probably haven’t thought of everything. The commitment to progressing the API includes feedback and transparent communication in development, so third party providers can equally take part.

In a positive for 12seconds, the API launches with a number of release partners. The list includes AIR client TweetDeck, who will support playback from within their client. Micro review site Blippr has integrated 12seconds into their product to allow users to record a 12second video review in tandem with a 160 character text review. UK based Seesmic competitor Phreadz now supports importing any 12second video.

One thing I will say about 12seconds is that it has quickly defined itself in the sea of microblogging noise. 12seconds may not be enough for some people to express what they have to say, but the service captures the original spirit of Twitter in a video format.

12seconds

Related posts:
Tweetdeck and 12seconds team up once more
TweetDeck Releases New Version; Seesmic Releases New Product
12seconds gets an iPhone app, opens to public

Hictu now offering video blog comments

Duncan Riley — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:20:49 +0000

Video microblogging service Hictu has upgraded its offering, at the same time entering the emerging blog video commenting space. Hictu, for those not aware of the service, was the very first video microblogging service, although it tends to be overlooked for Seesmic these days.

The upgrade to Hictu delivers a diversity of microblogging tools that pushes it towards the Utterz space. Alongside video, user can post audio along with the services original text (it started as a Twitter competitor). Users can add video from YouTube or Google Video, and in a colorful touch, can now add their mood when posting an item.

The more interesting announcement is Hictu’s move into the blog commenting space. Hictu has launched a WordPress plugin that allows users to comment on WordPress powered comment threads. In a big move for a service that is still invite only, like Seesmic Hictu replies will be able to be made anonymously, alongside comments from registered users. Comments made by Hictu users on Hictu in relation to a post (say in response to a video comment left) are posted back to the originating blog, creating a richer comment stream.

Blog commenting has been a strong driver of new traffic and members for Seesmic, although Viddler, who offer a similar blog commenting service, doesn’t appear to have had a similar uptake. Hictu isn’t free to sign up, so although there will be some uptake here, I’d think without opening the doors the service will only have limited benefits in growing Hictu itself.

Yes, I do have invites, but no, you can’t have them now (mostly because it’s late here). Follow me on Plurk by clicking here if you haven’t already, and I’ll be offering invites on Plurk after 4pm PDT Tuesday (9am AEST Wednesday).

Related posts:
Lijit adds blog comments to search results
Seesmic Now Available On MovableType
Sorry Scoble, comments are alive, well and kicking

Quality testing video microblogging services over slow connections

Duncan Riley — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:47:12 +0000

One of my biggest gripes with Seesmic from very early on was its complete inability to capture video over slower connections. Until February I was stuck on a 2mb cable connection which only pumped through about 250-300k on uploads, which coupled with my then geographically isolated location (country Western Australia) made Seesmic unusable for me, unless I recorded the video locally and uploaded it, which sort of defeated the point of using Seesmic, which is quick, spontaneous video creation.

Things have improved, and today Seesmic can be used over slower connections. Not brilliantly, but it can be done.

Being winter school holidays here I was out with my son at the local “fun centre” and connected to the internet with a 3 network 3G mobile broadband card pumping nearly the same specs as my old broadband connection, 1.5-2mb down 350k up. Despite the noise I decided to initially record a video to Seesmic, and I made the note at the end “I wonder how this will turn out on the slower connection.” Three videos I cut today on Seesmic, Phreadz and Viddyou below.

The findings: Seesmic turned out heavily pixelated, Viddyou was choppy, and none were perfect. However if I had to pick one over a lower connection, based on quality, I’d say Phreadz. Of course, this is only once consideration when picking or regularly using any of these services, but it’s one part I’m happy to have tested.

Seesmic

Phreadz

Viddyou

Related posts:
Hands on with Viddyou
One of the Best Video Sharing Sites out there…And you’ve still probably never heard of it.
Hands on with Phreadz

Hands on with Viddyou

Duncan Riley — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 03:12:45 +0000

Viddyou is the third main player in the video microblogging space, alongside Seesmic and Phreadz. Given that I’ve covered the rest, I was told I should take a look at Viddyou, and the result is above.

The key points: clean interface, support for HD on a premium account, community video groupings, lots of pink. What I didn’t like: sometimes confusing interface, lots of pink.

On a more serious note, we are starting to see in personal video microblogging what we saw with live streaming in the first half of 2007: new players in a new space, lots of experimentation, differentiation, and better still an arms race of features that will ultimately deliver better services to end users.

Related posts:
Motionbox Acquires Video Chat Service Viddyou
Yahoo Live to close
Hands on with Phreadz