mixd.tv and social
Yesterday, GigaOM NewTeeVee contributor Janko Roetgers wrote an article about us: "Makers of Mixd.tv app believe social is overrated". As well as saying thank you to Janko, we'd like to give a little more background information about mixd.tv and social.
In a world that is being blown away by Social Networking, the sizes of these networks and the company valuations that go with it, it is easy to get carried away and to want a slice of the cake... Before we start, lets get one thing straight: Social Networks are a great thing and, no doubt, have changed the internet forever, they are here to stay and will generate huge value for all sorts of services. So, I hear you all asking, why do we feel that social is over-hyped in the world of video?
What do we mean by social?
The hot topic of the moment and the context of our discussion: Social Recommendations based on Facebook's social graph. This topic is so complex, that it's impossible to write about all the benefits and possible down sides in one small post, so lets look at this from the perspective of which actions/pieces of information build our social graph.
What do you "like"?
Facebook has done a great job of spreading the "like" (now increasingly the "verb") across the web and they have tried to build up our profiles by encouraging people to list their interests (favorite movies, music, books etc...) but just how many people would be happy with the resulting picture that is drawn? Does Facebook understand sarcasm? Does Facebook fill the gaps if you can't really be bothered to seriously build up your profile? ... and we've all seen the jokes about how a person is perceived on Facebook and who that person is in real life!
How many "Friends" do you have?
When looking at the numbers of friends people have on facebook, it becomes clear that the term "friend" no longer has the meaning that it used to... Would you describe your colleagues as "friends"? Would you describe the class mates who would annoy you when you were 13 as "friends"? Would you describe your parents or grandparents as "friends"? In short, NO... and although Social Networks are working on this, there is still a long way to go.
How inclined are we to share?
Increasingly, people are aware that the squeeky wheel gets the grease, yet we often forget that trends are mostly biased. For example, the chances that the top trending YouTube video is something truly interesting to the wide public are pretty slim... OK, so this doesn't take into account any personalisation and, clearly, User Generated content should not be treated the same way as TV content or Journalistic content. The point is that sharing is often about strong opinions - Amen! - and it's unclear whether an individual really wants to share his/her opinions or if they want to see the video clips about political parties, causes or lifestyle choices that others feel strongly enough about to share.
In summary, Facebook's social graph is going to be patchy at best, in terms of painting a picture of our web-selves - it should probably be likened to a, more or less, unfinished jigsaw... Also, while I (the user) may be interested in browsing over what is being shared in my network, just as we are often attracted to read those trashy magazines over the shoulders of passengers in commuter-trains, it does not mean that I see value in those things being shared. mixd.tv believes that being a service that automatically tells everyone what I'm doing, or that being a service that serves me the product based on what the squeeky wheels are saying, is a step too far, mixd.tv gives you the option to be social, but is not defined by social.
So will mixd.tv never have recommendations?
Never say never! Perhaps we will one day see our mixd.tv Facebook channel with recommendations based on our Facebook network, we might also see mixd.tv Movie recommendations based on Tweets and other real time information or News/Documentaries based on our LinkedIn network... but for the moment, mixd.tv has a lot of work to make consuming video from all over the web easier, helping people get the latest content that interests them - not their "friends", followers or others.
So lets close this post and make another thing clear: Yes - we did say that (in this context) social is overrated! And Yes - we stand by that!
Social will have its day in the world(s) of video, but much like the internet in the 90s, there are more pressing things to take care of first.
Thanks for reading and please feel free to share - or not ;)
In a world that is being blown away by Social Networking, the sizes of these networks and the company valuations that go with it, it is easy to get carried away and to want a slice of the cake... Before we start, lets get one thing straight: Social Networks are a great thing and, no doubt, have changed the internet forever, they are here to stay and will generate huge value for all sorts of services. So, I hear you all asking, why do we feel that social is over-hyped in the world of video?
What do we mean by social?
The hot topic of the moment and the context of our discussion: Social Recommendations based on Facebook's social graph. This topic is so complex, that it's impossible to write about all the benefits and possible down sides in one small post, so lets look at this from the perspective of which actions/pieces of information build our social graph.
What do you "like"?
Facebook has done a great job of spreading the "like" (now increasingly the "verb") across the web and they have tried to build up our profiles by encouraging people to list their interests (favorite movies, music, books etc...) but just how many people would be happy with the resulting picture that is drawn? Does Facebook understand sarcasm? Does Facebook fill the gaps if you can't really be bothered to seriously build up your profile? ... and we've all seen the jokes about how a person is perceived on Facebook and who that person is in real life!
How many "Friends" do you have?
How inclined are we to share?
In summary, Facebook's social graph is going to be patchy at best, in terms of painting a picture of our web-selves - it should probably be likened to a, more or less, unfinished jigsaw... Also, while I (the user) may be interested in browsing over what is being shared in my network, just as we are often attracted to read those trashy magazines over the shoulders of passengers in commuter-trains, it does not mean that I see value in those things being shared. mixd.tv believes that being a service that automatically tells everyone what I'm doing, or that being a service that serves me the product based on what the squeeky wheels are saying, is a step too far, mixd.tv gives you the option to be social, but is not defined by social.
So will mixd.tv never have recommendations?
Never say never! Perhaps we will one day see our mixd.tv Facebook channel with recommendations based on our Facebook network, we might also see mixd.tv Movie recommendations based on Tweets and other real time information or News/Documentaries based on our LinkedIn network... but for the moment, mixd.tv has a lot of work to make consuming video from all over the web easier, helping people get the latest content that interests them - not their "friends", followers or others.
So lets close this post and make another thing clear: Yes - we did say that (in this context) social is overrated! And Yes - we stand by that!
Social will have its day in the world(s) of video, but much like the internet in the 90s, there are more pressing things to take care of first.
Thanks for reading and please feel free to share - or not ;)
This is not a real offline solution - yet! - however, given that favorites are downloaded when possible and given our pre-buffering quicklist solution (video is buffered as soon as it is dropped into the quicklist), there is now a way for you all to catch up on those clips at a time that is more convenient for you. Also, to give an overview of the buffering status on each video, one of our engineers had the great idea of adding a progress bar at the bottom of video thumbnails, so now you can close your laptop once you know that your quicklist is buffered and watch video from anywhere, even without a connection.