Rippol is an video search engine for searching and rating various TV programs and movies online.
The Idea Behind Rippol
Rippol is a straight-forward search engine for finding television programs and movies online, with searches broken into various categories for searching. From my experimentation with it I found it to be a comprehensive engine yet still a work in progress that could use a little tweaking.
What Rippol is About
According to the site, Rippol works based on how users view and rate films, with content changing dynamically per user preferences. According to the site:
“Every video you watch, rate and review affects The Butterfly Effect Network which changes the order you and others see content in real-time. The Butterfly Effect Network cross references videos similar to what you like and have watched with the habits and opinions of your friends and demographics.”
It’s a clever idea, namely the idea of cultivating similar videos based on what others are doing, in addition to your own preferences. Makes me wonder, though, if your tastes are completely eclectic, are really going to find many similar cross references?
Getting Started with Rippol
Registration is required to get started, either via Facebook or Twitter account, or you can just create a Rippol account, which is what I did.
Following registration, I received an activation email, which I selected that led me back to Rippol to log in. I entered my user-id and pswd, and instantly received a popup box prompting me with “what do you like?” Once registered, you’re up and running!
First Search with Rippol
Well, I’m curious to find obscure 80’s programming like “Automan”, so I entered that as my search and hit “continue”.
The initial hits weren’t very close: I’d wager that with YouTube I’d have a couple screens of results, but here I got one, and it wasn’t even related to the “automan” television program.
Second Search with Rippol…
Not to be deterred in my quest for obscure 80’s television, I entered a new search of term “Manimal” which brought back two hits: one of clips from the show (a hit!) and the other for an unrelated musical band.
So my initial thoughts is either no one has really bothered incorporating nostalgic 80’s television, or Rippol is still building up it’s content, which is fine, as the site ran smoothly and quickly returned the results.
What Exactly is Buzzy?
The ‘Buzzy’ link, when selected, gives no real clue as to what it does, but presents a numebr of categories that can be selected, such as “Comedy”, “Music” and “Education”. I selected Education and received a bunch of seemingly random video clips on the screen.
Oddly, I don’t see the connection with a number of these videos to the category of “education”, but rather these just seemed like films that arbitrarily got tagged as “educational” (e.g. “Make $3275.70 before Christmas”?)
Full-length TV Episodes on Rippol
Selecting “TV Shows” from the header banner presents a large selection of categories on the screen, such as “Comedy”, “drama”, “action”, “crime”, “thrillers”, etc. I selected “History”, and was routed to a number of different programs.
I selected the “Biography” category, and within this were a number of full-length episodes. I selected a Biography episode featuring Drew Carey, and was routed to the full-length episode.
Controls and Features
In addition to standard video controls, the page offered a number of features such as the ability to offer reviews, see who else had watched the program, add as a favorite, and even mark the video as a like/dislike. Facebook and Tweet links are also offered for the videos watched.
Some of the video links direct to a Netflix login prompt (the Monty Pyton episodes did this for me) and, since I’m not a Netflix user, that was the end of the line.
You Call These Movies?
Next I checked out the ‘Movies’ page, and the films are far from impressive. “Steel Dawn” and “Attack of the Puppet People”? I haven’t seen titles like this since I was shelving films in the 2-for-a-$1 section at the video store.
I selected “The Giant Gila Monster” and watched a few minutes of this goofy gem, and like the TV Shows on Rippol, the movies offer the same controls and rating options.
Final thoughts
For a beta, Rippol is still pretty impressive. The navigation and controls can be a little wonky, and every now and then a button or link will appear half-visible on the screen, but otherwise I was able to easily navigate to several television shows and movies.
The ‘Social Stream’ on the left side-bar is a nice addition, reminiscent of what YouTube does in allowing you to see what other folks are viewing at the same time. I like the idea here on building content via ratings and other users, and think there could be a lot of potential to Rippol.
Rippol Online
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