Veoh.com -- might give GooTube a run for its money...

[Darren Dirt]

Veoh.com seems pretty decent. Quick loading, nice and familiar interface (with some nice unique extra like how the main page has a nice diverse playlist already there -- e.g. Penn & Teller visiting the Houdini collection in the Library Of Congress (early-mid 80s I presume by Mr. Jilette's hair style )


also a couple other noteables so far...

Demetri Martin (he did "Trendspotting" on The Daily Show) lamenting the uniqueness of the word "sober" (as opposed to the synonym-friendly "drunk")

If HBO commission a cross between "Touched By An Angel" and "The Office"... "Good God" (and btw, the black guy aka "Death" definitely reminds me of Stanley from The Office, and Gabriel is pretty Dwight-like )

Cartoon entire-movie-in-30-seconds: Brokeback Mountain (happy to inform you, mericifully music-free!)

Funny series "Can We Do That?" (watch from the beginning)

Smooth-talking Miami Vice clones discuss preventing "bacne" while doing their job (guessing kinda inspired by Pulp Fiction as well)



and finally, some childish humour (pretty sure it's from Craig Ferguson's Late Late Show):
video montage of (slightly modified) Rumsfeld press conferences

[Darren Dirt]

There's few videos of "Rube Goldberg Machines" using the Halflife2 G-mod or something... but so few people remember the wonder of dominoes...

How to clear 4 pool tables without touching a single ball

[Lazybones]

Looks like a clone, that adds nothing new to the "Video dump site" theme.

[Mr. Analog]

I think I've hit all those videos with StumbleUpon at various other video hosting sites. Now, why do I mention that? I don't believe YouTube or any other video gallery site is unique or revolutionary but I do enjoy shared video like many others, so I think we'll see a lot of utilitarian services (sort of like all the picture share sites out there). I don't think any one service will stand above the rest as the best.

But hey, I'm crazy!

[Shayne]

GooTube?  the domain gootube.com brings up a parked domain, guess i must be missing something.

Following the acquisition, YouTube will operate independently to preserve its successful brand and passionate community.

Source: http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/google_youtube.html

YouTube is a brand that is known by nearly everyone including people who are not "in the know", why would my parents go to this totally unknown website where its most popular viewed video has 262,410 views compared to YouTube's at 35,486,856.

All these other clones just want to get in on the cash flow.

Ebay is the online auction site, like YouTube is on the online video site.

[Darren Dirt]

A lot of folks have christened it that (although I think Yougle might also have been suggested) but I agree, I doubt they will even change their name -- it was just an exchange of shares, it wasn't a complete Microsoft-like absorbing where the old valuable offering becomes bloated crap (i.e. Google Video will remain a separate entity, from what I can see).



Also, re. video dump sites: sure, popularity is key when it comes to choosing your "fave". But for some of us who are sick to the slow server responses on Youtube (sometimes) and Google Video's quick-removal of hardcore fan offerings (often) it's nice to know of a few other sites that have a nice collection of vids with an easy-to-browse interface.

Here's another pretty decent looking service: GUBA.com -- it *does* actually have a bit of unique features: Not only do they offer pay-for-view videos/tv shows, but on the free videos page they have some top-level categories (e.g. sports, how-to) and also at the beginning of the video you automatically see a grid of thumbnails. Pretty smart.

Competition is good, it gives the customers choice and it encourages creative thinking. Hope the Big Guys have checked out these others and consider including some of these features too... And the small guys should include things like the playlist "+ sign in the corner" feature of Youtube, etc.



BTW, one bonus of smaller sites like Veoh.com is that due to their lesser popularity (i.e. fainter blip on the radar screen of the Big Media Companies) they might have complete episodes of TV shows for more than a day or two... like Family Guy and South Park