Webware

Lycos today launched a social movie-watching site, Lycos Cinema. The idea is that you can invite your buddies to watch the movie you're watching (synchronized almost frame-for-frame), and then chat with them about the show in an embedded window.

I found it a surprisingly engaging experience. I fired up a movie and invited in some folks here, and the chat just picked up naturally. I could see this product being popular among kids. Watching a movie in your room would sure beat doing homework.

It's like your own mini text-based MST3K.

Users who aren't invited into a movie can "sneak in" to a show that someone else has launched, as long as they've marked it "public." The person who kicked off the movie can pause or unpause it, and everyone who's watching stays synced up. Users can also schedule online viewing "parties" that they invite their friends in to. Up to 10 people can watch a video at the same time. There's a mix of paid and free content.

Now, the problems. First: Poor content selection. As Josh said while we were viewing the 1960 version of Little Shop of Horrors, Lycos Cinema needs more contemporary content. Considering the demographic likely to use the product, Lycos' launch of a contest to find new independent films via Lycos Cinema seems like a mismatch of product and audience.

Also, Lycos Cinema is a "lean forward" experience. The chat text is tiny. You need to press your nose to the screen to read it. If you want to run a video on your media center PC or Mac and sit back from the screen, you won't be able to participate in the chat.

I do like the idea of simultaneous video viewing, and I would not be surprised to see this function become standard on online video sites, like Hulu, Joost, and Jaman. It's a good community feature, although it's not so important that it will blind users to poor content selection. I could also see such community-enabled video products integrated into social network sites like Facebook. That would be a powerful combination.

Mahalo launched a new Firefox extension last week at Gnomedex. It's called "Follow," and once installed, it does just that. It's a mix of a toolbar and sidebar that pulls up related search results from whatever page you're on. It's got a built-in Mahalo search box in an attempt to ween you off your Google and Yahoo search tendencies. It's also got a StumbleUpon-like function to recommend whatever page you're looking at to others with yes, no, and maybe buttons, along with a button to take you to a random Mahalo page. The tool is being pitched as a way to show how Mahalo provides more interesting results, but I can't quite get my head around it.

For one thing, the sidebar takes up a lot of space. It's also not necessarily a new idea. Blinkx's Pico, Alexas' Toolbar, and Lycos' SideSearch have all been here before, and with similar execution--except in the case of SideSearch, which was spyware. The StumbleUpon likeness of the toolbar confuses me even more. There's no clear listing of the top recommended sites, and the subsequent customized Mahalo landing pages offer little at this point besides links to outside pages. There's also no user incentive to keep providing your tastes, as the random page button doesn't seem to learn from your likes and dislikes. It feels very much like a first step, but with an unclear direction.

I'm also willing to wager that most people who are using Google and/or Yahoo to do basic searches are seeking out one specific page--and it's likely in the first few results. Once they've found what they're looking for, they're done. The whole idea of Mahalo Follow seems to want you to get used to the idea of searching the pages you're on continuously, in what seems like the hope of getting you to dig deeper--using Mahalo of course.

That said, exploratory Web surfing is fun, and the extension itself is snappy. It doesn't slow down your main browser frame's load time and doesn't pop up with any warnings or other nonsense when the sidebar has been dismissed. For those interested, Mahalo is giving away various prizes to people who can get their friends to install and use the toolbar through the end of next month.

See also Search Engine Land and Download Squad's take.

Previous Mahalo coverage:
Jason Calacanis' Mahalo: Screw the long tail

Once you've got Mahalo Follow installed, it will pull up a sidebar of Mahalo search results every time you do a Web search. There's also a StumbleUpon-like toolbar on top of every page to recommend pages to others.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Lycos Mix is a new video-playlist creation tool that lets you string together video clips from various hosting services. The videos sit beside a live chat window based off of Lycos' Cinema technology. Casual observers can come in, watch videos, and chat with you. It's almost like a bar except a little creepier.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

When you're done adding content, which is done by pasting URLs or using the Lycos Mix bookmarklet from the content's source page, you can watch, rearrange, or chat about the videos, all within the same screen. The adding process is a little arduous, as sites such as iFilm, Viddler, and Revver aren't (yet) compliant. Even worse, in both Internet Explorer and Firefox my botched video embed code couldn't be removed from the Lycos Mix submission box. I had to back out of the uploading form and go back in to clear it out. I seriously doubt the casual user is going to have patience for that.

Video-playlist creation has been done before and by many other companies. Most recently SplashCast and Feedbeat. The chat feature is neat, but 9 times out of 10, I'm watching a video because I've received a link to it via e-mail or from a friend's IM. Nearly all video services have comments now, which serve as a permanent forum for conversation. In that sense, I just don't see a need for live chat integration.

See also YouTube's TestTube.