At first glance, Redux has a very appropriate name: It looks like it’s just another version of the aggregation and conversation service FriendFeed. But a new feature is fairly awesome. “TV” allows you to easily share video clips, just as you would share links on FriendFeed or Redux’s main Stream area.
Officially, Redux says it’s a “personalized entertainment guide to the web.” But really, that’s what most social sites are these days. We need new features to distinguish them. And solid usability. And that’s what Redux offers in this video area.
The main problem I have with online video is that there’s way too much of it. I visit YouTube, but I have no idea what to watch. If I try to browse random videos, most of it is crap, and really, it’s just a waste of my time to do that. Most of the videos I consume, friends send me, and that’s exactly the idea behind Redux’s video area. (Finding and consuming videos in a stream is also the idea behind Magma, which is still in private beta). But because it’s an actual video player, the sharing and watching of videos is seamless.
You go to the area and you are served up videos that your friends have liked (or, given “props” to, in their words). If you like the video too, you can mark it as such, and it will send it to your other friends. You can also comment on the video, right from the player.
I’m sitting here trying to write this post, but I find myself lost in video watching now, it’s quite addictive. Sure, FriendFeed and other services allow you to share videos and watch them from within the service, but the way Redux does it is much nicer, and makes it easier to lose yourself in the content.
The idea behind all of this is a larger one. “In 2-3 years when we turn on our TV we’ll have the same content discovery problem,” Redux co-founder David McIntosh tells us. The site has been around for about 5 months now in private testing. So far, there are over 5,000 users, but now it’s time to expand.
As such Redux is making 500 invites available to TechCrunch readers. Simply follow this link to sign up.
So what’s the business model behind all of this? Well, it’s two-fold. First, there will eventually be video advertisements placed in the video section. The other idea is based around micropayments. Say you like the show Mad Men, and only want to see content related to it, you could pay a small fee and get access to just that content. There is also the possibility of using micropayments to give users “super prop” privileges.
Right now the video clips only include YouTube, but we’re told additional services will be added in the future.
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