Yes – it’s yet another online video hub! WeShow, a new online video start-up, launched last month, heavily promoting itself as “human-powered”.
The company has received funding in the region of $5 – $7 million dollars and has an employee count reaching 70 people (source: newteevee).
“Human-powered” means that 40 of the 70 employees are involved in sorting through the sea of online videos and pick out and organize what they consider to be the best. Videos from YouTube, MySpace, Metacafe and others make up the selection. The idea is very similar to what is done over at our sister site Web TV Hub.
So this results in WeShow having the best videos across the internet (a fairly subjective claim I guess) arranged in over 200 channels and updated daily.
The site also has regional categorizations – so if you choose the British site and search for football you won’t get inundated with American gridiron, and vice-versa.
Not Just a Video Collection
WeShow is really trying to be a one-stop-shop for online video. Not only does it categorize videos from across the web, it also has its own dedicated Web TV portal, WeShowTV.
WeShowTV produces its own content. Basically, its shows are hosted wrap-ups of the latest popular online clips in categories such as comedy, celebrities and sexy. They are well-produced news-style videos that offer a quick glimpse at some of the best online clips going around.
In addition to this, WeShow also boast the WeShow Awards, “the worlds biggest online video contest”. All the videos on the site are available to have votes cast for them by the sites users. From what I can gather, there is no actual prize for winning – just bragging rights.
The Future
WeShow hopes to attract viewers who find searching for videos in large online repositories slow and frustrating. The company cites research suggesting that 96% of Americans cannot find the video they are looking for on the first attempt, so potentially there’s a massive audience.
In a way, sites like WeShow both compete against and compliment the YouTube’s and MySpace’s of the internet. Fundamentally it’s a good site, but whether there is room in the online video market for boutique sites like WeShow remains to be seen – hopefully WeShow can be the catalyst to prove there is.
