GigaOM » Chill.com

Chill.com takes a page from Louis CK, starts selling DRM-free content

Janko Roettgers — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 11:00:57 +0000

Los Angeles-based Chill.com launched a DRM-free content marketplace for independent creators on Thursday, letting content owners sell streams and HD downloads of their movies, live comedy recordings and other types of videos directly to consumers.

The site’s approach mimcs an idea first pioneered by Louis CK a year ago, when the comedian sold a DRM-free download of one of his live sets for $5 online

The new offering, dubbed Chill Direct, is a self-serve marketplace, meaning that anyone can sign up within minutes. The site offers creators the option to determine their own price for their videos, and charge anywhere from $1.99 to $49.99. Seventy percent of that revenue is handed to the creator, and Chill retains 30 percent, which cover the fees for payment services as well as hosting.

Chill’s new self-serve marketplace.

Chill is launching its new offering with eight titles including the documentary film Thank you for judging by Ugly Betty’s Michael Urie as well as a previously-unreleased comedy special by Maria Bamford.

Louis CK was one of the first prominent entertainers to try his luck with digital direct-to-fan sales late last year, and fans rewarded him with $1 million in revenue in just 12 days. Since then, others have joined in as well: Comedian Aziz Ansari, known for his role in the NBC sitcom Parks & Recreation, started selling a standup special of his own in March. Ansari’s online efforts were powered by VHX.tv, which also has been moving from video curation to direct-to-fan distribution. VHX has since also powered digital sales of Indie Game: The Movie, and this week started distributing the grindhouse classic Miami Connection.

However, there are some differences between VHX’s and Chill’s approach: VHX has been a lot more selective about the creators it powers with, and is also putting an emphasis on selling goods on artist’s own sites. Chill, on the other hand, wants to use its own website as a central hub, and is giving everyone the ability to sign up from the very beginning. “I believe in the idea of self-service,” said Norgard.

This isn’t the first time Chill has tried something new: The company launched in August 2011 as a kind of Turntable.fm for video. It refocused on social experiences around live streams shortly after, and tried to provide group viewing for content from sites like Hulu.com by the end of 2011. In January, it finally moved to its social video curation model. Norgard told me that social video curation won’t go away any time soon, and that both offerings might be more closely integrated in the future.

Check out an interview I did with Norgard a few months ago:

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Chill moves from live chat to social video discovery

Janko Roettgers — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 21:30:40 +0000

Don’t call them a Turntable.fm clone anymore: Los Angeles-based video startup Chill.com relaunched today with a completely revamped website that focuses on social video aggregation and discovery instead of group video viewing. The new site, which went up around noon Wednesday, aggregates videos posted by Chill.com members as well as your Facebook and Twitter contacts and allows users to easily comment and chat about a video.

Chill founder Brian Norgard likened it to the way people interact with content on media-focused social networking sites like Path and Instagram, telling me during a phone call Wednesday: “There isn’t a great networking approach to video.”

The new Chill.com.

Chill has been going through several product iterations since its launch last August: The site started off as a Turntable.fm-like platform that allowed users to curate video playlists in real time, went on to focus on live streaming and eventually brought in content from Hulu.com to allow users to watch their favorite TV shows together in a group setting. Norgard admitted Wednesday that his team may have underestimated the challenges with this model: “To do that kind of scheduled programming around archived content – it’s just hard,” he told me, adding that synchronous interaction around video content may still be a few years away.

The new Chill.com takes some of the social aspects of its old model, but without the need to be watching the same content at the same time. Users are for example being notified if one of their friends watches a video they posted or reshared and have the option to chat with them about the clip – something Norgard called “hyper-addictive.”

Norgard told me that his team hasn’t made a decision yet on the future of its chat rooms, but admitted that the new site was “a major shift in focus.” Chill wants to now see how users react to the new service, and may work on mobile or connected TV apps to bring it to other platforms later.

Of course, Chill isn’t alone in the aggregation space. Apps like Fanhattan and Squrl have been trying to establish themselves as leaders in the social curation and discovery space, and YouTube has been moving towards a more social approach as well with its most recent relaunch that includes a Facebook-like news feed.

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Chill brings live chat to Hulu’s catchup TV

Janko Roettgers — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 15:00:18 +0000

Chill.com launched a major update to its site Tuesday that included new content from Hulu, bringing the latest episodes of popular shows like House, Castle and Dancing with the Stars to the social video chat site. Users can then watch these shows together in a synchronous fashion and chat in groups and also through one-to-one messaging.

Chill’s take on Hulu’s content comes with an interesting twist: Chill uses a so-called social appointment TV schedule to encourage as many people as possible to tune in at the same time. Episodes of individual shows are scheduled to repeat every three hours and can’t be viewed on Chill.com outside of that schedule. Shows are scheduled to be featured on Chill the day they debut on Hulu.

During a phone conversation Tuesday, Chill founder Brian Norgard told me the site will eventually add more ways to access archived content from Hulu as well, with the end goal being to have all of Hulu.com on the site — but for now, the focus is squarely on shows that are current and in season. “This is the true water cooler effect,” said Norgard.

The site also wants to make it easier for viewers to find new TV show episodes. Fans can subscribe to a particular show to get an email whenever a new episode pops up on Chill.

Chill has long been described as a sort of turntable.fm for video, and the site has certainly taken a few cues from Turntable’s crowdsourced real-time media curation approach. Chill users can still start their own rooms and watch YouTube clips and music videos together, and the site recently announced a partnership with Vevo. “We have had tremendous success with this product, but we didn’t want to be limited by it,” said Norgard.

A number of companies have experimented with real-time social interaction around video content before, including the kind of virtual viewing parties networks like Bravo have been doing as well as Google’s recent integration of YouTube into its Hangouts video chat. Norgard said Chill’s approach is a little different: It doesn’t just try to connect you with your social graph, but instead create social bonds with like-minded strangers.

He went on to say that Chill’s big bet was about a more interactive TV future, as opposed to one that brings online content to leanback platforms. “We are really building Chill for the lean-forward customer,” he told me.

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