

Justin.tv guys launching new mobile video app Socialcam - justin
http://socialcam.com

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markessien
These guys are very impressive, and that they are so innovative around video
is really nice.

The Justin.tv guys really took off after they closed down Kiko. I think that
this goes to show that the wrong market and the wrong concept can hold back
people, but once they are in big growth markets, creative people really get to
shine like these guys have been doing for the past years.

Just the sign-up referral thing is pretty innovative. I referred one person
and I'm #26 on the list, so at least 25 people have referred at least one
other person? That's not bad.

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ABrandt
_Just the sign-up referral thing is pretty innovative. I referred one person
and I'm #26 on the list, so at least 25 people have referred at least one
other person? That's not bad._

To be fair, the waiting list with referral incentives was discussed a couple
weeks back. It appears that a startup called Forkly started it, and then the
infamous hipster popularized it.

Ref: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2096406>

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alexophile
I'm curious as to why this necessitates a new app. Justin.tv is a pretty
strong brand, why not wrap this functionality into the existing app?

Not that I would do it differently, there's dozens of reasons, but it's a blog
post I would want to read.

~~~
justin
New year, new brand.

In all seriousness, I promise we will explain this later.

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anthony_franco
Justin.tv has been revolutionary in terms of online video. It'll be pretty
cool to see what they have in store for next.

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kmfrk
I'm no expert on video-streaming, but what sets them apart from ustream.tv and
livestream.com? Were they the first people out there?

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electra526
as I understand it, jtv has a more active and dedicated community and more
user generated content than the other sites. ustream and livestream seem to
have more corporate partnerships, more big events streamed live, but jtv has a
more loyal fanbase and following of users.

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jsilver608
I love Justin.tv. I just discovered their live streaming section, which has
everything from office episodes to television stations I don't get in my area
(I've been practicing my Mandarin Chinese by watching a station in Toronto)

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gregorym
This is probably the samething as instagram but for videos...

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goldmab
The word "Socialcam" looks a lot like "Socialism."

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strayer
I read "social scam" in the HN entry. I only realised it was "social cam" when
I actually clicked on the link (after I read a few of the top-ranked
comments).

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thibaut_barrere
I read social scam as well!

There's room for a parody I guess.

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clintboxe
They should stick to products like this. I'm wondering what will happen to
justin.tv after the upcoming UFC court case ? Or will the case go the way of
Viacom vs. YouTube ?

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JMiao
i used to go to justin.tv and view the highlights of justin's day. pretty
cool, but how would this work with my friends? fun to see things come full
circle.

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wayne111
Awesome!! cant wait!

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electra526
can't wait for this app =)

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elvirs
nice to see people getting over overhyped web2.0 'companies'

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ericmsimons
Is that sarcasm? I think Justin.tv's guys have made some realy progress as far
as online video goes. They're pioneers. I'm sure they have some great stuff
planned for mobile!

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elvirs
yeah they have developed pioneering technology but they failed to build a
profitable company, which is what matters if you take funding and present
yourself a company.

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pg
As someone who funded them, I disagree with you. What investors are looking
for is scale combined with profitability. Often the best way to achieve that
is to optimize for scale first, as Google did.

It's easy to "build a profitable company." Just start an unambitious service
business with low costs. But it is much harder to start from that and add
scale than to start from scale and add profitability.

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staunch
It's also pretty easy to create a large scale business by taking shortcuts
like streaming copyrighted content. Look at Grooveshark, Stage6, or any of the
hundreds of popular torrent sites.

For someone who's used to creating normal web products it's _shocking_ to see
how fast a site can grow with copyrighted content.

It's not "make something people want" it's "give people what you already know
they want but can't get for free".

