Media on the Web is going from a solo affair to a shared experience. We are seeing this in everything from CNN live news videos enabled with Facebook chat to Meebo Rooms and Tiny Chat. Today, a new startup from Los Angeles called Qlipso is launching its own virtual rooms where friends can share videos and play Flash games with each other.
The service is in private beta and requires a Windows-only download for the avatars (there’s also a Web app without the avatars). You can get one of 1,000 invites here. Click on “Get Started” and ignore the beta key request. Send an email to the contact listed (betsy) and put “TechCrunch Invite” in the subject line.
You sign in with Facebook Connect and can invite up to eight friends to share any Flash-based media. Once inside the virtual room, you can interact via text chat, video chat, voice-chat, or videogame-quality avatars. The integration with Facebook Connect makes it easy to invite friends via a message in your news feed. It also supports MySpace, AIM, and MSN Messenger.
The Qlipso download adds a plug-in to your browser which identifies Flash media whenever you are surfing the Web and places a share button next to it. When you click teh share button, it launches the app and lets you see which of your contacts are online so you can invite them in.
Qlipso is aiming the service at media sites which might want to incorporate the experience to make the consumption of their videos and games more social and interactive. When a group of people are watching a video, Qlipso can recommend other videos in the left-hand column to keep the group of friends in the room longer. The service brings in elements of virtual worlds with the avatars which can move realistically and perform tricks like flips and throwing tomatoes at the screen.
The startup is a sponsor of our Realtime Crunchup this Friday and will be demoing the service at the event.
Here’s a video:
what if I don’t have friends who want to join this thing? can i talk to strangers?
what if I don’t want to talk to strangers?
I have tried it . . . you can try to interact with “strangers” (go to the featured option on the people tab on the left)
If you just want to watch videos according to your desire, just enter the application or the web version (YES, there’s a web version. click on the share now link from the web page header)
“When you click teh share button”
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Hey, betsy what?
Only thing I see on that page is a beta key email I can fire an email off to. And I did.
Congrats to the Qlipso team on the launch. There is strong potential with this one, even though I am generally negative on plays that try to combine real-time social with video on-demand. It’s really hard to get friends to drop everything at this moment, jump into a chat room, and join a video half-way through (or getting everyone to click start at the same time).
However, Qlipso is positioning itself as a chat room first, and a media sharing experience second. That’s why this could work. If people are already chatting and a video is THEN brought into the conversation by one of the chatters, it can be a great experience.
Plus, teens love pimping their avatars!
sent my request in, looks interesting
Awesome…!
this is not news and the fact that they require and install and are windows only means this will fail.
this has been done already by other social media spaces already.
Hey Steve, you don’t have to install a client. You can “qlip” media right in the browser on mac or windows. The downloadable version is optional. From a tech standpoint, I’m not sure other folks have figured this out well. Qlipso has a generalized approach to synchronization which means you can share any type of flash media, not just videos, from just about any site, not just YouTube. Anyway, let’s get you a beta key to test drive Qlipso.
imo, this is not the proper model for integration of these various technologies.
“It’s really hard to get friends to drop everything at this moment, jump into a chat room, and join a video half-way through”
how often do you care that you and your friend are at the exact same second in a video, anyway?
Sports!
“at the same time” … ? Sorry, don’t think there will be a spacific need for this. There were these german guys (weblin or so) who tried the same thing 3 years ago, quite well executed but it didn’t work at all. The idea is still nice but it still solves no problem.
Hey Andi, Weblin offered shared browsing with whoever happens to be on the same website. Qkipso synchronizes the streaming media that folks are watching. Two big changes on the web make Qlipso more timely: 1) mainstream users are connected socially and present online, and 2) content is shifting from snacks to long-form, premium content, like TV shows, concerts and sports, which really lend themselves to getting together with friends.
Tried it…..Pretty much tried everything out there still gonna stick to what i know i think.
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