With an alpha invite in my inbox, and since I haven’t seen enough videos in my lifetime, I tuned into Shelby.tv.
Shelby’s premise, from what I understand, is that you don’t know which videos to watch, but your social network— Twitter and Facebook pals—instead holds the key to your viewing preferences.
Shelby works by pulling in videos that have been posted by cohorts. Unfortunately, my Twitter network, which includes lots of telecom and tech companies, is not a media watching kind of group.
So Shelby could find just two links, and then played the videos over and over and over again.
Apparently someone in my social graph had tweeted a music video link to “I just had sex” by The Lonely Island.
Could it be Twilio—they seem awfully happy lately? Or perhaps this is a bit of clever marketing by BridesView?
Actually the culprit was @davidcohen, the founder of TechStars, and I assume the Shelby was feeling sorry about my plight and picked from their own social network.
Shelby itself is a recent graduate of TechStars, and their service is only a few months old. It feels like I’m watching Shelby take its first baby steps. But I wish this evolving startup would raise the serendipity factor by pulling in random videos for those of us with video-deficient friends.
Overall, I think their star is on the rise in the startup skies: their what-are-my-friends-watching-right-now model is perfect for the small screens of video rendering smartphones.
Oh, and the other video that Shelby discovered? Tim O’Reilly’s Book Xylophone, which you can experience below. Enjoy.
