Next Video App Streams the Most Popular YouTube Links on Facebook

Next Video is an app that aggregates the most frequently shared comedic YouTube videos on Facebook into a content channel that offers a relaxing, laid back viewing experience. Independently developed on top of the Graph API by a 20 year-old Rutgers student, the simple interface lets users skip to another video, save favorites, and share interesting videos to their news feed. Next Video is an example of the compelling products that can be created using Facebook's publicly available user data. Developer Thomas O'Malley was unsatisfied with YouTube's native browsing interface. He saw Facebook as the determinant of whether a video went viral, and believed that "the first thing you do when you find something interesting is go to Facebook and share it with friends." So he developed Next Video in the span of three weeks to allow users to discover and comment on videos without leaving Facebook. Next Video searches the stream of public Facebook posts for links YouTube videos accompanied by keywords that indicate the video is humorous, such as "funny" and "hilarious". The videos that have been shared the most over the past few days are collected and streamed through the app sequentially, relieving the users of the burden of choice. The app uses Facebook's Comments social plugin to allow users to express their opinions as well and attract new users, since it defaults to publish a user's comments to their profile along with a link back to the app. Since Next Video constantly features new content, users will likely continue to tune in once they've installed it. Next Video's model could easily be applied to other styles of videos or types of media. Someone could create a version that displays "cute" or "weird" videos, or that aggregates links to songs on SoundCloud, photos on Flickr, or news articles on CNN. While we believe Facebook's recommended privacy settings -- sharing posts and photos with everyone -- are too cavalier, they facilitate apps like Next Video. If Facebook suggested that users restrict the visibility of their posts, there might not be enough data to accurately gauge the popularity of different types of content. In this way, Facebook's recommended settings risk the safety or reputation of some users in exchange for creating value from the public data for the entire world. O'Malley's goal isn't to immediately monetize the app with ads, but to build its user base and add features such as a feed of the original posts about the video currently being shown, and a way to see what friends have watched. The app is currently bootstrapped, but O'Malley says he'd consider taking a small amount funding in order to accelerate development. Next Video demonstrates how the Facebook Platform helps to offer a relatively open playing field, where one person with an idea can invent something great. While in the past kids might have played guitar in their bedroom dreaming of becoming the next Rolling Stones, now they can build apps and dream of becoming the next Zynga.

Social Pro Daily

Next Video App Streams the Most Popular YouTube Links on Facebook

Josh Constine

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Josh Constine