We’re excited to announce these three things today:
1. An awesome & new Channel Player for the Showyou iPad app
Let it play, or swipe to the next video
With the new Showyou app, when you tap on a video from your iPad feed it not only plays that video, it also launches the channel it’s on with our new channel player.
You can sit back and watch, or swipe to go to the next video from the channel. A “next up” alert will pop-up about half-way through the video to tell you what’s next on the channel.
The new channel player is an outgrowth of the carousel player we introduced last December, and we think it’s the most beautiful, fluid way to watch video. Period.
2. Anyone can make a channel on Showyou
Adding the channel player to Showyou has big implications. Your Showyou video grid, or collection, is now your Showyou channel that can be played linearly, too. With the simple act of sharing a video, you’re programming a video channel for the 21st century television — the iPad.
Who can make these channels? Anyone. It’s free, it’s simple, and you can make your channel right from your iPad, your iPhone, Android device, or the web (though we don’t support the new Channel Player on the iPhone and Android devices yet — coming soon though!).
You decide what programming goes on your channel — it can be video you’ve made, or video you’ve found on YouTube, Vimeo, or other channels on Showyou that you want people to see.
And, we’ve also provided new tools to make your channel your own with our custom bumpers. Picking a bumper is like choosing a theme for your blog or Tumblr, but it moves and makes your channel more fun and fluid — just pick a background loop, choose a color and a font et voila. You’re in show business.
Put your personal stamp on your channel
3. Really in show business? Meet the Showyou Channel Platform.
For folks who make a living from all this — whether you’re a major media company, an independent film-maker, or a full-time curator of great video — the Showyou Channel Platform gives you tools to run your business.
We built this platform to put you in control of your channel. You decide where to host your video (if you’re a producer of video) — YouTube, Vimeo, your own servers, or the hosting service of your choice. You sell the advertising or sponsorships. You keep the revenues.
It’s like having your own app, but without the costs, and maintenance and distribution challenges.
If you choose to use the Showyou Channel Platform, you’ll get additional tools to help you make money (promoted videos and custom bumpers to start, we’ll be adding other capabilities over the coming weeks and months); analytics and insights; and the ability to set up your channel (or channels) to run automatically — all we need is a feed.
Promoted videos for your advertisers and sponsors
All this offered under an incredibly modestly priced platform with monthly fees tailored to your needs and aspirations and viewership.
Better news still — it’s all free for the next 90 days. We recognize we’re offering something new, it’s not (yet) perfect, and that people will want to try this out, kick the tires, experiment, see if it fits their needs.
And we’re cool with that. Let’s build this new video platform together.
