Hey guys, I've been reading HN for a long time (since before it was called HN). I rarely comment or submit to HN, but I am really proud to finally submit my site here.
1. where will you get the actual video content from?
2. I think that voice would be better for this type of stuff, atleast with friends. Typing is slow and not that interactive.
3. Have you thought about focusing on educational videos? Those strike me as the best candidate for group watching because discussing actually makes more sense than during, say, a movie.
4. So what's the deal with the name? :)
5. The design needs work. For example, I found the voting process to suble.
I too have thought about making video's more social but honestly I'm not sure what the value is in adding chat. But maybe the idea needs to be fleshed out more?
1. The videos are embedded from youtube. They are hand selected.
2. Voice is an interesting idea, will think about it :)
3. This is a very good idea, and definitely something that is being considered.
4. The name doesn't really have any meaning. It was just a good domain that was available.
5. Yes, the design needs a lot of work. I'm looking for a designer now. When there are more people voting then it's a bit clearer how it works, but yeah, it could be improved.
Very cool, I registered. How does this differ from jtv?
In addition, needs voting for room members for next video, or to change video. Is that implemented and I just missed it? Otherwise it's just... the Internet on rails.
Could be very cool, needs some/a lot of aesthetic polish and features that make it actually social besides a chatroom and a "tweet this" button (ESPN has "tweet this" buttons as well as chatrooms with real-time game updates. I don't think anyone would call that "social" though.)
I like the concept, needs to tie in more with other concepts of social applications. Also a javascript bookmarklet would be great. Say if I want to show a buddy this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L64c5vT3NBw, I click the bookmarklet on that page and it creates a Frozenhot URL that would take the user into a chatroom and spin up that video automatically. Something like that.
Seems like most of the comments are ambivalent about your idea, and maybe it's been done before, or could've been done 5 years ago, but this could be cool for a lot of people. I can see you getting traction here. (Especially once you overhaul the layout!)
Say if I want to show a buddy this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L64c5vT3NBw, I click the bookmarklet on that page and it creates a Frozenhot URL that would take the user into a chatroom and spin up that video automatically.
jtv is similar but is for live video only. also, i plan on adding a lot more interactive features to the site.
Right now all of the users in the room are able to vote for the next video. I hope this clarifies things. Several people have suggested adding a way for the room to collectively decide to "skip video" which is a good idea that I am considering.
Your idea for clicking a bookmarklet and spinning up a video room is good, but it might detract from the main focus of the site now (and there are actually sites that exist that already do this).
I had a similar idea to this with some minor differences around 2-3 years ago but never ended up implementing it.
Instead of doing this for streaming videos, maybe you could do stuff for TV programs (such a primetime TV or news) so that people could chat with other people in real time when watching TV.
Would appreciate any feedback you have!
Thanks