Bring Your Twitter and Facebook Streams to Life
In its last iteration, Redux was already an extremely solid social entertainment engine. Using the site or the handy bookmarklet(), users could share photos, videos or links with their friends or in a specific interest channel. Other users could then comment on those items, give props and share those links via Twitter, Facebook or MySpace(
).
Now, Redux has added the ability to import your Twitter() and Facebook streams directly into Redux. What this means is that when your friends tweet or share a link via Facebook or Twitter, instead of just seeing the short-url, you’ll actually see the item being linked. If it’s a video, you can play the video immediately within Redux. If it’s an image (like a TwitPic(
)), you can view it immediately within Redux.
Redux only grabs tweets or status updates that are linking to other content, so you don’t get bogged down with other status updates. Your friends don’t have to be Redux members for their public streams to show-up and you can still give props or comment on the content. If you comment on a tweet, for instance, that comment with a link to the source is sent out over Twitter if you choose. As they like to say, “it’s the most efficient way to waste time on the web.”
Prepare to Lose All Productivity (in a good way)
Redux is totally addictive — and it’s designed to be. I find myself having to tear myself away, otherwise I’ll never get any work done. That’s not that different from a lot of other social services, except, in my experience, Redux kept me entertained and discovering cool stuff.
When I talked to Frank Nawabi and Daivd McIntosh — the co-founders of Redux — earlier this week, they told me that one of the reasons they created the service was because it was so difficult to find good videos and good content on services like Vimeo() or YouTube(
).
It makes a lot more sense to see what your friends or people who share your same interests are sharing or watching, rather than trying to sift through a pile of videos — no matter how “popular” they might be.
Frank and David told me that the average user spends over an hour on Redux at a time. I can believe it! Especially with something like the TV Mode, which just continuously shows you videos from your friends, the overall network or from a specific channel, becoming sucked into the service isn’t hard.
The Future
The site has grown pretty organically and the Redux team reaches out to the community to get feedback on what’s working, future features, etc.
David and Frank told me that they are looking at brinigng the TV Mode of Redux to something like Boxee() or set-top boxes in general — and I think that this could be brilliant.
I have Boxee running in my living room and being able to tune into to the best web content from either my friends or a certain channel would certainly be a great way to relax and waste even more time!
We’ve Got Invites
Stop listening to me wax poetic about Redux and try it for yourself. Mashable() readers can go here to sign-up for the beta.
Give Redux a try and tell us what you think! Do you like the idea of a visual social web?
No comments:
Post a Comment