VodPod, video aggregator mini-review
Hey, I just found Vodpod on a link off YouVert. It’s in beta like everyone else, but it seems very cool. The idea is that you start a “pod” of videos, you can add to them and I think your friends can, too. It’s got all the community features you might hope for, comments, joining other people’s pods, rating (very holistic rating, too, I like it - giving you the option to just say you watched it is interesting). The hook for it, though, is that it aggregates video from several sites - YouTube, Myspace, iFilm, etc… and sucks it all in to its own player. I don’t know if there’s some copyright issues there, but right now it’s pretty sweet. Flash video is flash video! Its got a nice search that shows you results in all it’s sources so you can find videos to add to your pod. The thing that it seems to lack is if you happen to already know the video you want, there’s no way to simply paste in a url or something, that would be a nice convenience for them to add.
VodPod also gives you an embedable player that will show several videos from your pod (that you can have ordered randomly, by recency, ratings, etc..). It’d be nice if their widget had a more customizable look, allowing a change of colors or borders or what not, would make it a nicer widget for some sites.
The site’s interface is slick and AJAXy, although, I will admit that it took a little bit to figure out where everything was. A few times around the block and I think I’ve got the flow of the pages. Just to play around, I searched for three videos that I’ve been watching recently - I like to call this compilation, cat squirrel peter bjorn & john.
If you’re curious, give VodPod a quick glance.
