Webware

Twitmatic is a new video aggregator from the creators of Ffwd. It taps into Twitter's public stream and pulls together a grouping of videos people have posted in their Tweets. It's powered by the same technology that runs Ffwd, which means you can skip to the next video when you get bored of the one you're watching.

Videos come from a number of different providers, and just like on the Ffwd app, they're sized to fit within a 640x440 player window, meaning the rest of the Twitmatic UI won't change when you switch videos. While the tool doesn't show you the person's entire tweet (where the video was aggregated from) it does show you who posted about it with a link to their Twitter feed.

Below each video is the option to promote the site, or the video itself. Clicking the video link sends over the name of the video, and a link to it--as presented in Ffwd.com--over to a new Twitter message. The app does not require you to enter your Twitter credentials, it merely requires you be signed in to make use of these two promotion tools.

Future versions of Twitmatic will include more ways to filter the videos that show up, either by keyword, Ffwd content channels, or by the people you follow on Twitter. The company will also be creating a player that can display videos based on words that are currently trending on Twitter, turning it into a real-time video meme tracker.

Twitmatic lets you watch videos people are Twittering about.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Video-sharing site Ffwd now has links into Twitter.

When you share a video on the site, or even just watch one, the service can optionally blast your activity to your Twitter followers. There's also a new bookmarklet that makes it easy to share any video link on Twitter without actually going to the Ffwd site itself.

I suppose if I find a video I really want to share, on either Ffwd or elsewhere on the Web, it's cool that I can now easily Twitter that out to my followers. And it is interesting to think about how Twitter could become, for some people, an activity stream of what their friends are watching online.

The bookmarklet will create Twitter posts when you want to share a video.

Call me crazy, but I'm not going to have the site send out a Twitter every time I watch a video. (It won't happen on my feed anyway, since I don't hang out on Ffwd.) Mercifully, it appears that Ffwd posts are not quite flooding Twitter yet.

The service reminds me a bit of Twitpic, a picture-posting site I have used. The big difference is that I mostly use Twitpic to post pictures I have taken myself, not those that I discover on the Web (it helps that Twitpic is integrated into Twitter clients Twhirl and Twitterific). If I wanted to send out quick self-shot videos to my followers, I'd look at Ustream, which has Twitter integration, or Seesmic, which has cool video conversation features.

Previously: The dish on the next StumbleUpon: Ffwd.

At Tuesday's Under the Radar conference in Mountain View, Calif., start-up junkie Patrick Koppula took to the stage to pitch his latest effort called Ffwd. I briefly mentioned it in a roundup of other companies, but it's worth digging a little deeper into what could become an incredibly addictive way to watch Web videos on your computer and at home on your big-screen television.

Ffwd is taking a page from recommendation/browsing service StumbleUpon by offering a way for people to click on a single button and instantly jump to new content. It's the kind of activity that encourages short-attention-span videos, or at least skipping videos without an immediate hook.

The UI is centered around an embedded video player and an oversized button that does the skipping. As I said Tuesday, this is where things get interesting. Ffwd lets users categorize any and every piece of content into three or more different channels. This categorization lets users skip to another set of similar content where that same video resides. Koppula told me this keeps people from reaching dead ends, and lets them discover new content without having to use any sort of search tool.

Users might not be ready to start hitting the forward button, but Ffwd is banking on people wanting to skip what they're watching to see what's next.

(Credit: Ffwd)

Another standout aspect of the service that it figures out what content you'll like based on what you've already listed as your interests. It will jack into your social-networking profile or content mentions on tracking services like FriendFeed and form a record of your tastes to make recommendations on channels or certain pieces of content.

The Wii interface lets you jump ahead to the next video with just a press of a button (click to enlarge).

(Credit: Ffwd)

The plans for a Nintendo Wii interface are also ambitious. While StumbleUpon has had its own Wii front end since early 2007, Ffwd will be more tied into the experience people are getting on their regular computers. Video favorites will transfer over, as will bookmarked channels. Like StumbleUpon, users navigate with just the directional pad, but won't have to type as much with what Koppula considers the Wii's weakpoint: its onscreen keyboard.

The communal chat rooms might be the strangest feature (and I'm not quite sure I get them). Koppula pitched it to me as an online version of Mystery Science Theater, the show that would feature comedians chatting over the dialogue tracks of feature-length films. Ffwd will feature something slightly similar with a select group of 12 users who can add videos and chat about them while everyone else watches it live. Lycos did something similar with its Cinema service that was quietly launched last month.

Ffwd is launching in private beta in the next few months with a content platform to follow. In the meantime there's a Facebook app that has nothing to do with the product but is a fun way to test how the app scans your tastes. We'll have a hands-on report and some reader invites when the service goes live later this summer.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--The second to the last group rounding up Tuesday's presentations at the Under the Radar conference comes from all walks of Web services. There's a tool to post your baby photos, one to have artists and creative types scramble to create something for you, an upcoming video channel surfing app, and one that organizes all your files online and off.

CrowdSpring, a start-up we listed as one to watch, is a marketplace for creative ideas. The site lets you put out a project and get it crowd-sourced. The winner gets cash and potentially a job depending on what idea hunters are looking for. The service keeps track of completed projects and ideas in progress, which you can see in this logo contest, which had nearly 200 submissions from independent designers who were called upon to help rebrand a site.

Ffwd (pronounced "fast forward") is the creation of former iLike and Garageband.com CEO Patrick Koppula. I got a demonstration of it earlier Tuesday and it's a really fun idea, blending a little bit of the fun of channel surfing Web videos in a similar fashion to what's been seen on StumbleUpon. Instead of random Web videos though, Ffwd is all about channels and exploring other sets of videos as they've been sorted into those channels.

The site got its name for the ridiculously oversized fast-forward button that skips to the next clip in whatever channel you're on. Users also have the option to jump to three other channels where the same video they're currently watching is housed.

The site is launching this summer with plans for an application programming interface that developers and content creators can plug into in 2009. There's also an upcoming Wii-optimized version of the site that will let you channel surf from your couch--that is, in case there's nothing good on TV.

Lil'Grams is a real-time publishing tool for parents for text and media of their children. Like Tumblr, it separates what type of post you're about to do by what type of media it is, and adds on an extra layer of protection by letting you pick the privacy options before it even goes live. Likewise your friends and family members can choose what type and how much of any updates they want to receive, keeping them from getting spammed by your 500th picture of your child smearing food on his or her face.

Lil'Grams works via e-mail, SMS, and Twitter. You just send an item to a special address and it will organize it and archive it for you. Webware's Rafe Needleman attempted doing something similar with Gmail starting last month, but if you don't feel like filling up your in-box, this is a more organized solution.

The service is launching in beta next week with plans to open up to everyone in late summer. Rafe will no doubt be doing the hands on and sending me and everyone he knows a million alerts of said food smearing.

Putplace is an online storage provider. The service links together all your files with digital signatures and then puts it on a huge file map. These signatures track where you've shared those files online so you can view the past history of any given file.

The service will also estimate how much online storage you should use based on what you've got laying around on hard drives and what services you're using. When it comes time to get some online storage, you can buy it from PutPlace based on how much you need.

PutPlace is launching at the end of the month. Until then, it's in private beta.

Coming up next is the last session of the day with a handful of start-ups that specialize in useful eye candy. Stay tuned, and catch up on all our coverage here.