Video's new portal: Chime.tv Video

Video's new portal: Chime.tv Video Transcript

[ Music ] ^M00:00:06

>> I'm David Berlin with ZD Net, I'm coming to you from Mash Up Camp in Silicone Valley. And sitting with me is Taylor McKnight. He is one of the original Mash Up campers at the first Mash Up Camp, you won the best Mash Up contest for PodBop dot org, very cool site. Its p o d b o p dot org. And without going into too much detail about what that's about, you're back competing in the best Mash Up contest again. And the question is, is whatever you have as hot as PodBop dot org is?

>> I think so, yeah.

>> Okay. Alright, so why don't you tell me what it is you've got here.

>> Okay. So this is Chime TV. We combined ten of top video sites from around the web into one TV like in browser experience. There's nothing to install. It's all flash, all right in your browser. This is the homepage, you come to this. You got the video in the middle. You got 23 premium channels right here, so if you don't want to look for something, you can just click documentaries, music videos, science and nature if you're into that.

>> So let me stop you right there. You said how many video sources in total?

>> Ten.

>> Ten video sources. So those are for example?

>> Like UTube, Google Video, My Space video, Dio, Break dot com, Blip dot TV.

>> Okay, so a bunch of video sources. And I'm looking at the different what you call premium channels here. And they're organized more by subject matter than they are by one of those sources.

>> Correct.

>> So are you taking the content from those different sources and re aggregating it as lets say a documentary or, or?

>> Yeah, so, so our documentaries channel combines videos, we don't care what the source is. We just want you to have a good video experience.

>> Right.

>> So in documentaries you're going to find Google video, My Space video, all kinds of things in one place.

>> And in fact you don't even know until, do you ever know what the actual source is?

>> Yeah. So every video has an icon next to it and when you click on that, we credit every source we use.

>> I see.

>> So when you click on Google Video it actually takes you to the original source.

>> But actually until you click on it, so in other words it kind of like looking at your cable box.

>> Yeah.

>> You're looking at stuff like the directory, the TV guide, you really don't know the source or you're not focusing on what the source is. But once you pick it you tell us who it's coming from.

>> Right, exactly.

>> Okay. Very cool. So now I see a bunch of icons going across the top here. What have we got? Over on the left is the star.

>> See these are all kinds of options. You have the premium channels, you have favorite channels, so favorite ones you want to come back to, your friends and what not. My channels is the area where you organize your things.

>> Build your own channel?

>> Yep, build your own channel.

>> So you see a bunch of content you like and make it and you call it whatever you want to call it?

>> Yeah, so I, I really like cool short ads. So I have an ad channel where I you know add my own advertisements. I have a movie trailer channel. There's also the video in box, so you can send video mail to friends. And next time you log in it says hey, you have a video mail. So if I think you'd like a certain technology video, I can send it directly to you.

>> So there's a little bit of identity in here because you're talking about how you save stuff around your own personality.

>> Exactly.

>> So you have to log in to use this site?

>> No. I mean, all the, the extra features, you can log in. But you can view any channel, you can watch videos, you can do searches, all without any user account.

>> I got you. And, and I see a couple other icons here, vid, what is that for?

>> That's just the video information. So this is the title of the video, the description.

>> Grab some metadata there.

>> Exactly.

>> Okay.

>> This is how I send video mail. So if I want to send it to my co founder, Sherag I can send it right there.

>> Can you send it to somebody who's outside or who doesn't have an ID on?

>> Not currently.

>> Okay.

>> You have to be a user right now.

>> What about if I have a channel like you were talking about, my own personal channel. Can I put in an RSS feed on that channel?

>> Not currently.

>> Can you twitter me when you add something to your channel?

>> There's no really way to alert you for new videos yet.

>> Okay.

>> We're working on that stuff.

>> Okay, cool. Alright.

>> Work in progress. MI, what's that?

>> This is how I add a video to my channel. So if I like this video, I can add it directly to my movies trailer channel.

>> Right.

>> And then this is just my user account information.

>> And how many videos per channel?

>> 100.

>> 100 videos and who decides how they get in there?

>> A bunch of them are user created. So like for our technology channel, we have this guy Dave Kauffman who actually creates and finds cool technology related videos and adds them every day.

>> So he's sort of the administrator of that channel.

>> Exactly.

>> And he is deciding which hundred videos are going to surface on the channel. Do you pay him?

>> Nope.

>> Doing it out of the goodness of his heart?

>> Yeah.

>> Very cool.

>> Yeah, just passionate about technology.

>> And are other people stepping up to fill in and be the curator for other channels?

>> Yeah, I have other friends that do the music videos channel. All kinds of things.

>> And are you recruiting, looking for other people to get involved?

>> Definitely, definitely.

>> Okay.

>> Anybody that's passionate about a certain topic, documentaries or science or anything, we'd love to talk.

>> Awesome, well I, this is absolutely stunning. I'm going to have to sign up and use it myself. I've, I don't think I've every seen anything like this. And so you're drawing on a bunch of channels or sources of video and you have the special APIs that you pull on in terms of mashing stuff up?

>> I mean we use the UTube API and Dio API and the rest of them are media RSS feeds.

>> Okay. And do I need any plug ins to make this work?

>> Just flash.

>> Just flash. Oh the whole environment is built in flash.

>> Yep, so if UTube works for you, then you're set. That's why it's so slick. Okay and where can people go to see it?

>> Chime dot TV.

>> Well there you go, chime dot TV, very cool, very slick. I'm going to have to sign up myself. For ZD Net, at the Computer History Museum in Silicone Valley, I'm David Berlin.