April 2, 2009
Gawkk, the online video Twitter?
The The LA Times Blog reports on Gawkk, a new entry into the burgeoning online-video market, positioned as the "Twitter for videos".
The site's approach is simple. There are thousands of channels of video to browse, fed by a wide array of sites including vlogs, Hulu and CNN. All the videos that play on the site are accompanied by a comment box, where you can share your thoughts in 140 characters or less.
You can also click a "Like" button to note that you liked the video (there's no "dislike" button, however). The site broadcasts your comments and "Likes" to your followers on the site, adding them to the top of the "activity stream" that dominates their personalized Gawkk home page.
You can also broadcast links to videos you've found on other sites, and automatically send your comments to your Twitter followers as well. Just as anyone can become one of your followers on Gawkk, so, too, can you follow any other user, adding their comments, likes and discoveries to the activity stream on your home page. The point is to capitalize on people's urge to tell others what they've found, turning those comments into feeds rich in recommendations for what to watch.
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