SOMEWHAT FRANK

CozmoTV Launches Personalized Video Site With Recommendations

CozmoTV, a subsidiary of Cozmo Media which has offices in San Francisco and Boston, recently launched an online video site that focuses on providing users with personalized video recommendations. Users can create custom channels for different types of content. Users can also rate individual videos to on a scale of 1 to 5 stars. These active inputs appear to be used to sculpt personalized video recommendations. According to the CozmoTV web site the idea spawned from the idea that:

“We both loved our TiVo®Boxes and thought that a great service would be to provide simplified search through a Website that would talk directly to your TiVo. (Sorry, TiVo, but we felt that your online scheduler kind of sucked.)”

I first learned of CozmoTV at the TechCrunch 8 Meetup in NYC when I talked with CozmoTV co-founder Alex Rowland. Since CozmoTV had not yet launched I was not able to see a product demo but he did compare CozmoTV to Pandora and TiVo.  I now see the validity in those comparisons though I also think CozmoTV's active inputs personalization model mirrors that of StumbleUpon Video which also recently launched. CozmoTV pulls its videos from YouTube but in doing comparison searches it appears to be only a subset of YouTube videos but as the number of online videos increases I could see this product becoming helpful in sorting through and finding new videos.

CozmoTV created incentives to go check it out and start rating video by offering up 80 Nintendo Wii gaming systems as prizes to the first 80 users who have a user confidence rating of 80 or more. I took some time to see how difficult that might be and I have to admit it is not a walk in the park. I watched and rated hours worth of video and was only able to get my rating up to 10.1%. At this rate, I may be better off looking for a Wii elsewhere but, that aside, I enjoyed creating my own channels and viewing the personalized recommendations.

For other perspectives on CozmoTV's recent launch check out: Rev2.org and Zatz Not Funny!. Also stay tuned to CozmoTV updates via the CozmoTV blog and good luck trying to win a Wii!

TechCrunch In the City

TechCrunch 8, an event celebrating the web 2.0 movement, took its show on the road to New York City this past week (November 16, 2006) and I traveled to be in attendance. AOL supported the event by being one of the many sponsors. AOL also had space at the event to demonstrate AOL Video, SearchVideo and the recently updated dev.aol.com. A small group of AOLers snagged the daily corporate shuttle from Dulles to NY. It was my first trip on the corporate jet and was definitely a memorable one as we maneuvered in front of a nasty line of storms.

We were not the only guests flying in for the event. There were people in from all over the world. I met TECH cocktail co-founder and friend, Eric Olson at the event who flew in from Chicago (though weather delayed him for three hours). Jeff Pulver and Chris Brogan dropped in for awhile. I got a chance to meet Greg Galant the popular voice of the VentureVoice podcast. I even ran into old Tribune colleague Matt Terenzio who was nice enough to bring Mike Arrington a pretty sweet stogy. Digg CEO Jay Aldeson was also in the house but unfortunately, the crowd around him never died down enough to chat.

TechCrunch 8 was held at BED New York, a comfortable but swanky nightclub made famous by its mainstream placement in episodes of the popular sitcom, Sex in the City. BED is usually filled with a number of beds, hence its name, but many of the beds were removed to accommodate the large crowd and lend to comfy conversations about web 2.0. The guys from Fleck flew in from the Netherlands to launch at the event - of course, I signed their white suits. HitTail had decked the place out with balloons and other schwag and demonstrated their publisher metrics system. While Compete showcased its consumer facing metrics offerings and gave out interesting bobble head schwag including a Mike Arrington bobble head – a nice touch. Me.dium showed off an interesting browser sidebar product which I will talk about in more detail soon. Eurekster, a company I have written about previously, was previewing some new features and even had the Somewhat Frank logo in its slide deck. You can see Eurekster in action in the right rail. PartyStrands seemed to feel right at home at a party since its product offering is a SMS controlled collaborative social jukebox. They had had logos flying all over the venue. CozmoTV also explained its personalized TV product. There were a number of other companies as well which are mentioned in this TechCrunch article.

For more details on each of the companies that demonstrated  check out this TC8 wrap-up by Read/Write Web. Valleywag has posted photos and a wrap-up here. Check out public photos from TechCrunch 8.

Bottom-line: TechCrunch 8 united web companies from across the globe to a swanky NYC club to an entertaining evening of mingling and checking out the latest product offerings.

Tagged: techcrunch8, techcrunch 8