Watchmojo relaunches (3)
WatchMojo has relaunched with new features this week, and they are beginning to take the spot of number one video startup from Montreal for me. (Well there is also yulbuzz who is very innovative, but it seems those guys are on holidays.). If this is the first time you read about watchmojo, they produce videos, and then distribute them to as many portals and web destinations as possible.
The most noticeable improvement is the new customized video player. It’s much more slicker, and has a widescreen format of 480 pixels by 270 pixels, which practically doubles the size of the video shown. The player also has user sharing, program guides, and can now be toggled to full-screen. Check the following video, featuring watchmojo.com’s CEO, where he profiles myspace.com:
I find the video player to be on par with watchmojo’s production quality.
For the back end, watchmojo now uses Typo3 as the CMS, and bliptv for the video platform. According to Ashkan, Typo3 allows them to categorize and tag their content, which should make the user experience more friendly. Tools for social bookmarking have also been added to each video page. All of this is very impressive for a company that is just 18 months old. (did I mention they have produced more than 4000 videos?)
I am not sure now where they are going market-wise, and still feel overwhelmed by the quantity of links avalaible in each page. I think the next logical step for them is to hire a good Information Architect and designer, someone like Guillaume Thoreau, so that people would actually feel welcomed to the site.
Thank you very, very much for the kind words.
Indeed, this redesign and relaunch is the first step of many to improve the user experience. The tagging, embedding and “simplified” category/sub-category structure is one small step in what we will be doing in the next 1, 3 and 6 months.
We’ve been very busy (and judging by that video, too busy to shave, I guess ;) - but we will be rolling out many personalization tools in the weeks and months to come.
In fact, that video would score a 3 on 10 compared to some of the more recent videos we’ve produced, which are of a much higher production quality, but that is a testament to our team’s work and talent.
As well, thanks for suggesting to get in touch with Mr. Thoreau, I’ll look into it.
Thanks for the promo, Heri :) … and thanks for your much useful blog again.
guillaume: you are most welcome
ashkan: i liked that video! it’s informative and yet casual. i think you make a very good host. and i will be tracking watchmojo
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