[crescendo]

The problem with analyzing companies like this is that they don't really admit of a traditional value-based assessment. What is the value proposition of a service like Vidly, really? It shortens the process of posting a video link to Twitter by a few steps. Yes, I'm understating what they do, but when you distill it down to its actual benefit to an end user, that's it.

    Option 1:
        1) Open youtube.com.
        2) Create a youtube account (First time only).
        3) Post video to Youtube.
        4) Open twitter.com, or a Twitter client.
        5) Post a tweet with the Youtube link.

    Option 2:
       1) Open vidly.com (or client?).
       2) Post video and tweet to Twitter.

You've reduced the steps it takes to post a video to Twitter from 5 to 2; big whoop, right? But looking at this alone misses the point. Here's where it gets interesting: given that they're both free, and that users actually know about Option 2, most of them will choose Option 2 without hesitation. Besides that, the relative complexity of using Youtube for this task might have been a barrier for many people who otherwise would've posted videos. When you combine this with good marketing, the vibrant user base of Twitter, and a large mass of people hungry to broadcast videos, big things can happen.

[dannyr]

crescendo,

Actually YouTube integrates with both Facebook and Twitter now. Go to My Account > Settings > Sharing and you can link your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Once you upload a video, it will automatically update your status for both services.

I use YouTube for my uploads mainly because it's one of the built-in upload options for Android. I believe this is true for the IPhone too.

[chrysb]

That still remains a barrier to entry to people who are not savvy. Video devices are becoming more and more pervasive, the number of people uploading video will grow, and it needs to be easier.

One of our primary goals is to remove friction. Reduce the number of steps it takes to distribute video to the audiences that matter to you. The ideal number of steps: 1. We're almost there.

Convenience is another goal. People are lazy, I am lazy, and I prefer something that is convenient and does all of the work for me.

Tell your parents to go to Accounts > Settings > etc, and watch their eyes glaze over.

[alain94040]

But do you really want to build a startup around a feature that a much larger competitor already almost has, and if that feature ever became important (as in people switching to your service instead of youtube), they couldn't make more visible and user-friendly?

Apparently, youtube can already tweet the videos automatically that you uploaded. What will be the shelf-life of that startup then?

Again, humbly sounds to me like a great example of a feature, not a product.

[dannyr]

chrysb,

Not sure if you are the one who downvoted me.

I'm not saying YouTube's integration is better. I was just addressing the steps specified by crescendo on Option 1.

Don't think it was a slight on Vidly.

[chrysb]

I can't downvote :)

[crescendo]

Thanks, dannyr. I wasn't aware they'd added that feature.

[danielrhodes]

Before we started Vidly, we did a test on YouTube out of interest and it took us well over 15 minutes to sign up and post a video to YouTube. It takes a very small fraction of that to post to Vidly.

[axod]

15 minutes? I don't think that's common.

[tlb]

Provide facts. You can do the experiment in a few minutes, unless you are proven wrong. Remember that you have to wait for it to finish compressing before you tweet it out, so you have to come back and check a few times.

[DanielBMarkham]

Just as an observation, I spent the last month on vacation, taking videos, posting them on YouTube and letting YouTube make the tweet when it was done. The tweet went out, my FaceBook friends were notified, life was good.

It only took as long as uploading the video. Maybe typing in a name. If you wanted to make it take longer, you could spend another 30 seconds geo-tagging it.

I did this about every day or two. Is that enough experience?

Biggest problem I had was intermittent and dropped internet connections. But the new Vimeo desktop tool is great at handling that.