Joost by far has the biggest variety of features that allow you to share content.
- Facebook Integration - share your videos via Facebook
- Stumble Upon Integration share your videos via Stumble Upon
- Delicious Bookmark Integration - Share your videos via Del.ici.ous
- Commenting - allows you to comment on videos
- Post To Group Video Sharing
- Shouts! (Hot/LOL/Puke/WOW/WTF) - Video ratings that get posted onto facebook
- Have You Met? - Friend Recommendations
- Thumb Up/Thumb Down rating system
- Channel Subscription
- Who's Watching Now - See what other people are viewing.
- Joost Feed - See what your friends are watching.
- Invite friends from Facebook
- Import Contacts from (AOL, Fastmail.fm, gMail, GMX, Hotmail, ICQ, Linked in, MacMail, MailDotCom, MyNet, Rediff.com. Web.de, 'Yahoo!'/'Yahoo!' Japan.
- Friends Lists.
I think Joost more or less have every area of the video sharing/social website integration covered. Although this website isnt that popular as Youtube or iPlayer/4oD in the UK.
Xbox Sky Player
The Xbox Sky Player is unique in the way that in this list because it is the only video on demand service that is on a a console
Using the existing Xbox avatars that users have already created on their console, this video of demand service allows you to enter a virtual lounge with those on your friends list. When in the lounge you can choose what you want to watch and it appears on a virtual screen whilst you sit on a virtual sofa. You can also talk to your friends via the headset that comes with the xbox. The features for this are
- Invite friends to 'Party'
- Voice Chat
- Avatars
- Emotion Wheel - This allows your avatar to express 'emotion' via simple animations such as shout/cheer/cry etc
- Virtual lounge - The virtual lounge features a few screens and enough room for all your friends to sit round and watch the same programme. The lounge also changes into a a stadium when you are watching sports such as football
- Friends List
Vimeo
Vimeo to me is like a classy version of Youtube. The content that exist on there is mainly created by the users unlike youtube which has 'rips' of TV shows/music videos. The features that Vimeo have implemented to share video are:
- Video Albums - these albums can be sent to your friends
- Groups
- Channels
- Likes - state whether you 'like' a video
- Video Subscriptions - subsribe to certain users videos
- Import Contacts (Yahoo!, Gmail)
- Friend Invites
Demand Five
Demand Five is Channel Fives equivalent to the BBC iPlayer. Although like Channel Five it has quite a heavy use of adverts.
- Share Links : This lets you share links to shows via email/Delicious/Reddit/Facebook/Stumble Upon/Diggit
Youtube
Youtube is by far the worlds most popular video on demand website. Nearly everything you could wish for video-wise is available on Youtube. Even copyrighted material features on there, be it illegally. Youtube features a fair amount of tools for sharing content.
- Video Subscriptions : Subscribe to other users video channels
- Add As Friend - allows you to add other users as your friend
- Send Messages/Inbox - A basic messaging service allowing users to communicate
- Commets - comment on videos, although this can be turned off by the user who submitted the video because more often than not the comments turn into a war between users
- Related Videos
- Video Responses - Allows you to post a video comment to another video.
- Share on : Facebook/Bebo/Myspace/Twitter/Orkurt/Live Spaces/Digg/Stumble Upon
- Autoshare on : Facebook/Twitter/ Google Reader - this automatically updates when you upload a video
- Address Book
- Favourites / Playlist
ITV Player / 4 on Demand
4 on Demand was one of the first video on demand service I ever heard about. Launched in 2006 it originally started as a Windows only download service. ITV is a more recent affair and is less well known than 40d and iPlayer. Strangely enough these 2 feature no social sharing abilities at all.
Justin TV
Justin TV is slightly different to other video on demand websites as it mainly features on streaming live programmes. These events are usually ones that have to be paid for and they are made available for free by users who stream them. It does feature a few social elements to it.
- Profile
- Import Contacts from : gMail/Yahoo/MSN/Hotmail/Live
- Friends 'Status'
- Comment System
- Live Chat : To me this is Justin TV's biggest downfall. Every streamed video has a chat that runs along side it and this chat usually gets 'spammed' by people with links etc which in turn slows down the video making it impossible to watch.
- Favorite Channels
- Message Inbox
- Bulletin Board
- Profile Picture Uploader
With all these websites boasting all these features they have pretty much covered every aspect of sharing video on the web. It is going to be hard to come up with an idea that hasnt been done without rehashing an feature used by one of these websites. I think for the D&AD it is most important to try and think of something a little bit different to make your ideas stand out from everyone else's.
