Help launch my new site, Qt3!

Everything else
1

Hey all,

Qt3 has always been great about giving feedback on my sites in the past (GameTab, EvoTag, etc), so would like to keep the tradition going. :) Though this venture isn’t gaming related this time, it’ll have some familiar mechanics in there. I’ve been working on this during nights/wknds the past couple months and now want to start gearing up for launch! That’s where Qt3 comes in. I need to start growing it out (slowly) and work the kinks out.

The site is about creating a channel and broadcasting YouTube videos to everyone watching (similar to Turntable). You can set up a channel to play music, game trailers, 50’s commercials, comedy, cat videos… whatever you want. Or just join a channel and watch it or listen to it in the background.

If you’d like to try it out, simply go here:
http://lavafish.tv/

Would love to hear any thoughts, feedback, suggs, etc.

Thanks!
-Reed

Edit: Added guest access, so you can use the site w/o logging in. But you’ll need to login to create a channel or be an operator in a channel.

2

Sure, I’ll play!

  1. It isn’t readily apparent how you delete a channel you’ve created. “Oops, I didn’t mean to give it this name, I’d like to start over.” I didn’t see any way to do that.

  2. I like the preview option on a video, but I’d love a button from that preview popup to allow me to add it to the queue right then and there. Why that’s a nice feature: let’s say I’ve that someone has uploaded onto youtube multiple songs all from the same concert. There are, say, 12 videos of a band performing different songs, but the stage lighting and camera angles are pretty similar in all 12 videos…but I want one specific video of those 12. Make it easier for the user to know which is which by not forcing them to remember they clicked to preview the fourth one from the top. EDIT: it looks like there is and “Add To Queue” button there! But it doesn’t work?

I really like the site, Reed. Does it try to default to the highest able resolution for videos with multiple resolution on Youtube? It feels that way to me, and that’s pretty cool.

3

While I can’t really take a look at it right this moment, the description sounds a lot like Synchtube. Are you familiar with that site at all, and what would set this site apart?

I say this as I am not a fan of Synchtube’s implementation of this idea and would gladly welcome anyone who has a cleaner and more effective site for this exact purpose.

4

Thanks for taking a look! Much appreciated.

Channel management is pretty much next on the list. Currently you can’t edit or delete it.

Yep, not quite implemented yet.

Great to hear! And it should be defaulting to HD if it’s available for the video.

Wow, I’m surprised I haven’t seen this before. Looks like they’ve been around quite a while too, and seems pretty solid. Just curious- what didn’t you like about the implementation?

My approach is a lot more minimalistic, though. The video is very much the main focus. Also going for a gamey/app feel.

5

It’s very crude, almost like they hacked together the various components into the final product and got a little sloppy. I haven’t used Synchtube in quite a while, so they may have considerably improved since then, but in my experience the changing of playlists was always rather rough. It’s difficult to explain without experiencing it yourself, and the problem may only have arisen once the playlists got to a certain length since I was more accustomed to seeing lists that were several hours long.

I’ll definitely check your site out tonight and see what I think. Minimalism isn’t necessarily a bad thing at all, and if I get the chance to run a comparison to Synchtube then I’ll have something a little more constructive to offer.

6

All I saw was a giant Facebook login icon on an otherwise blank black page when I logged in with qt3/qt3.

7

Same here.

8

Yeah, you need to login with a fb account. That’s what I’m using for the login/registration system (for now at least).

The only thing that’s actually used is your first name. And you’ll have the ability to change that soon.

9

Eh. Count me out, then. I don’t like authenticating with Facebook - it leads to weird spamming/advertising on all sorts of sites

10

I seriously misread the thread title because I thought it was saying, Help launch my website (which is called) Qt3! and I was all, that isn’t very nice, Reed, so, yeah.

11

Same here, unfortunately. Let me know if you swap it out for a more standardized authentication system and I’ll take another look.

12

I set up some test accounts that you guys can use (added to the parent post).

Got tons of updates in. Can now have multiple operators in your channel, leveling, avatars, tools…

Now really getting to the point where I need to get some real world testing and feedback. Hope to see some of you in there!

13

Added guest access to the site, so you can see what it’s like w/o having to log in first. But won’t be able to create a channel or a playlist/etc.

14

You need a welcome screen or an obvious link to ‘what is this?’ page. I clicked on lavafish.tv and immediately saw a fullscreen video and didn’t understand what the heck the site was.

Your description in this thread: a turntable.fm for youtube, is good. I’m confused as to whether someone has to actively DJ a room or I’m just viewing a youtube playlist though, and there might as well be nobody around.

Make (some) chat lines visible on screen by default too, not in a popup. The conversation is a big part of this. It looks like you have a thumbs up, but is that integrated like turntable, so that everyone is trying to compete in a room?

How easy is it to switch around who the ‘DJ’ is? Can you do something like a youtube party: http://xkcd.com/920/

15

Survival is a feature.