So Verizon Wireless confirmed the speculation this morning of its deal to offer the equivalent of YouTube lite — select, approved content — through its VCast service. The deal is big news because the size of the companies involved, but this particular agreement is really just about trying to bring YouTube’s cool-factor branding to Verizon’s expensive and unhip VCast service.
There are actually a lot of user-generated mobile video services available both on and off carriers decks. They just don’t have YouTube’s big name yet. Here are a few we’ve checked out recently (if you have any more, add them to the list):
Off deck, meaning available over the mobile web, and not a featured service on the carrier menu:
Tinytube.net: Every time we write about about mobile video someone adds Tinytube.net in the comments — probably the people from the company. But it’s actually pretty compelling. The mobile web site aggregates what it says are 9 featured video clips from YouTube sorted by “score.” They have choices like “low, medium, high, and streaming” to play the video and chances to watch more from that user or “similar clips.” This services seems like it will be a lot more true to what YouTube users want on a mobile phone, than the Verizon, YouTube deal. Though, how they intend to make money? I’m not sure. We’ll find out more about these guys.
MyWaves: Check out our discussion of startup MyWave’s mobile video service here and the other startups that are vying for this space.
Mobango: The service has a mobile web locker where you can store mobile content including videos and then download onto your phone. It’s surprisingly easy to use and get any content from your PC to mobile. It’s basically the free ringtone model, just with new mobile content added (Mixxer is trying to do the same thing) and rightly so there’s been a lot of speculation about the copy right issues.
Treemo: This mobile content sharing service was also easy to use to download and share video content on my phone. Maybe the biggest drawback is the lack of interesting content on the site — they encourage “creative, inspired” content from a hard-to-pin down group of users. Where’s the bad singing videos and car crash content?
On Deck, meaning carriers feature and promote this content:
iFilm Viral Video Channel, available through MobiTV, including Sprint and Cingular’s video services: If you remember iFilm was bought by Viacom last year, and with the rumors about the Verizon/YouTube deal we recently decided to test out this service. The way it works is that iFilm selects content from its 20 most popular clips and submits it to MobiTV in weekly blocks. We’ve been watching gems like “Minivan gets struck by lightning,” “When Chimps Attack News Anchor,” and a variety of bad karaoke renditions.
The companies say the service has been available for around 6 months, and that “user-generated content” is part of the offering. When it comes to approving content MobiTV says both they and IFilm “filter and provide the best of the best.” I didn’t get a chance to interview any of the executives involved but I am curious to know how many people are actually watching this on cell phones and what are the actual guidelines for “approved” and “filtered” content.
you forgot about http://www.zedge.net, they’re 3 times bigger than mobango
Right, thanks. Anyone else have a favorite site they use for this?
http://www.mocospace.com – photo + video sharing, upload and download from both phone and Web, as well as convert popular PC video formats to mobile.
Sneak peek – http://www.cellyspace.com (private beta)
As far as video it has User/Adv Generated…
video mms – webcam mms – mms video broadcast – premium billed / standard rated – rtsp video streaming – desktop video crop – desktop video trim – Shortcode publishing – social network plugins – wap jumppage generators for mobile advertising w/ video
… most features are free to the creator.
I’ve seen http://www.mymobileclips.com/. Seems pretty good. There is a review of it here that does more justice then I could do in a comment post http://wapreview.com/blog/?p=215
I’ll be adding some of these to the video search on Wampad shortly.
This is anew exiting venture based in Europe
User Gen mobile video site, free, 6 languages
acessed through mobile device at http://www.moblr.com
you forgot itsmy.com. check out:
http://www.itsmy.com/itsmy/index.php?action=itsmytv
FYI: MyNuMo enables independent artists to publish mobile videos (as well as ringtones and wallpapers) on US Carriers. It’s a commerce model, where the artists share in the revenue generated by their creations.
And there’s one more… My company, Zannel (www.zannel.com).
We’re going into Alpha right now and a closed Beta in December.
At the core, we’re about sharing videos + photos + games. And we’re hoping our “secret sauce” differentiates us from YouTube and the others…
The Hoff
The problem I have with all these mobile-oriented services is what happens when the mobile phones actually have decent functionality and can just use the same YouTube that everyone else does? This smacks of betting against technology to me and that is always a losing bet.
I’m a big fan of Mobuzztv.com ’s daily video podcasts. Being Europe based their whole approach is as much oriented for mobile phone video usage as desktop.
If/when mobile phones become as capable as desktop clients they’re not going to be stuck in a limited feauture-set ghetto.
tinytube got a C&D from google, http://forum.tinytube.net/viewtopic.php?t=4
http://www.Gotobogo.com is in beta. We’re focused on smartphones. We figure, as Jesse explains in his comment above, smartphoens are the closest current application that replicates a PC experience. We’re also fed up with the carrier restrictions. They’re limitations will probably be the first real issues on net neutrality in the US if they continue to obstruct their customers’ access to web content.
OnTheGoStudio.com focuses on art education and entertainment video and audio for consumption on Web, iPods, PDA’s, Smartphones and basic mutli-media enabled phones. We are working toward accepting user generated content. In harmony, David
o yes and one more thing DIRTY BALLSACKS AND PPs I WANT TO FUCK A GOAT
This site is just a lite version of youtube and it uses youtube videos. It fully AJAX making loading times faster. If you cut out the uneccery thing in youtube you come up with “justedit.co.cc”