Helping people find videos to watch online seems like a good idea — especially considering the success of music recommendation services like Last.fm — but nobody’s had a lot of success with it yet. Mesmo.tv, a startup we covered when it launched and received funding, has dropped its video recommendation service after finding more traction with a loosely related Facebook application.
Speaking to NewTeeVee at the Bebo platform announcement on Wednesday, where Mesmo.tv was a launch partner, Mesmo CEO Davin Miyoshi said the company closed up shop on its video recommendation site at the end of last week. Mesmo has some 2 million users for its Facebook app. And the web site? “Not even close,” said Miyoshi.
Along with dumping its web service in favor of a social network application, Mesmo is essentially discontinuing its original idea of video recommendations. Its successful Facebook app was until recently called “TV Show Trivia,” and that’s exactly what it’s about. The company had built a Mesmo.tv app based on its original premise but has rolled that into the pursuit of TV trivia as well. Miyoshi said he’d like to resume the recommendations project down the road, but he’s not sure when.
You can’t fault Mesmo for trying to grab ahold of a good opportunity when it comes by, but this move seems a little strange considering the company’s Facebook app sees just 2 percent of its user base log in every day (that’s Facebook’s measure of user engagement; by contrast, top apps have 20 to 50 percent daily participation). At the same time, social networking platforms offer unprecedented opportunities to engage users. So perhaps them being the company’s sole focus will be a good thing. Meanwhile, video recommendation services like ffwd (formerly Vadver) have one fewer competitor.
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