Vidista to Launch October 1, 2007

After several additional months of tweaking and preparation, Vidista is finally ready for an official public launch! Pre-registered users can still access the site, but new users will have to wait until October 1, 2007 to sign up.

In the meantime, you can watch this preview to see how Vidista works.

Those of you who tried out the site while it was in development will also find several new features that should significantly improve your experience.

Invite Friends
The best thing about online videos is how easy they are to share with your friends. Now you can quickly and easily invite your friends to join Vidista and share videos with you!


You'll find a new "Invite Friends" link up at the top that will bring you to a page with several invitation options:


The buttons on the left allow you to instantly send invites to your Facebook and YouTube friends. You can also copy and paste your invite link into e-mails, IMs, or your website. When your friends click on the link, they will automatically be added to your friends.

Shared Channels
Now that you've invited all of your friends to join Vidista, you're going to want them to share their favorite online videos with you. Of course, you'll be able to see all of their channels in your "Favorites" panel, but you now have the option of letting your friends edit your channels as well.


By selecting this option, you give your friends permission to add, delete, and rearrange the videos in this channel's playlist. For instance, you could create an empty dropbox channel where friends can add videos they think you'll enjoy. Or, you could create a channel that ranks the best music videos online, and let your friends fight over which ones they think deserve to be on the list. There are a lot of possibilities!

Group Accounts
If you know a specific group of people who you think would enjoy sharing videos with each other, consider creating a group account for them. You can sign up for a new Vidista account, and then invite your group to become friends with the new account. Just remember to choose the "Allow friends to edit this playlist" option on all of your channels, and your group will be able to collaboratively organize and share videos. This idea works great when you want to share videos with classmates, co-workers, friends, or family members!

I'm very excited to add these new collaborative features, and I can't wait to see what people do with them in the weeks to come!