Introducing Vidista Channel Search

Vidista now has a Channel Search bar at the bottom of the left panel, which lets you search Vidista channels by title, description, and even the videos in their playlists. For example, let's say you're looking for SNL Digital Shorts. Another user might have called her channel "Funny Skits," but if one of the videos in her playlist matches your search query, it will still show up in the results. Let's search for the keyword "snl":


There are two search buttons, one labeled "Search" and the other labeled with a "Pop Out" icon. When you press Enter or click "Search," your results will appear in the player window, and you never leave Vidista. If you're in the middle of playing a video, however, you might want to click the "Pop Out" button, which will open your results in a new window. Here we'll just click "Search":


You can start playing a channel immediately by clicking on its link, or you can click the "Add to Favorites" option to add it to your Favorite Channels list. This is helpful if you want to check out a bunch of channels without repeating your search.

As more channels appear on Vidista, you can expect this search feature to become increasingly useful. Try out Channel Search for yourself!

Google just made Vidista better, again

In this case, it was actually an improvement on YouTube's side that has made Vidista even easier to use. YouTube recently updated its embeddable Flash player so that at the end of each video, or any time you click on the "Menu" button in the lower right corner, you'll see thumbnail icons for a handful of related videos. If you click on one, the video begins playing immediately in the same player. But best of all for Vidista users, you can copy the video's URL or embed code and paste it into Vidista immediately to add the new video to your Library, without ever having to leave Vidista.

You can read more about the new player at Google Operating System:

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/06/youtube-launches-new-embedded-player.html

Vidista presented at Mass Technology Leadership Council (MTLC) Board Retreat

As part of Dan Bricklin's presentation about the "Facebook Generation" at the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council Board of Trustees Retreat, he invited me and my friend to show the board how we use the web. I chose to demonstrate how I've been using popular websites like Digg, Facebook, and YouTube, to create and publicize my own websites, including CoolMove.org, ClimateVideos.com (coming soon), and Vidista.com. If you're interested, you can download my PowerPoint presentation by clicking here.

Dan also showed off Vidista by going through the entire process of filming a short video clip live, posting it on YouTube, and then adding it to his Vidista channel (embedded below). The whole thing was a very cool experience, I met a number of very interesting people, and I got to see some exciting things that will be available soon.

Thanks again to Dan for inviting me to participate!

DanB's channel: