We love it when people build cool stuff using Vodpod.
When we launched VodSpot last year, among the first folks to try it out was TechStars. They built a really nice video site using VodSpot, which was impressive given our early tools were a bit crude!
TechStars is a Boulder-based seed investment fund, that provides a lot more than early stage funding to entrepreneurs. They invite a select group of start-ups to Boulder each summer, provide them with early funding and great mentors. Check out their VodSpot at TechStars.tv or their website to learn more.
Now TechStars has gone further, and built a Boxee application. David Cohen, the man behind TechStars, describes it on their blog — here are a few key bits:
I thought I’d take a second and tell you how we built TechStars.tv, because I think the solutions we’re using rock.
The TechStars.tv web site is powered by VodSpot, which is one of the services available from Vodpod, a popular video bookmarking service. VodSpot gives you a flexible, branded, fully-skinned way to display any given collection of videos from around the web. It supports all the popular sites like YouTube, Vimeo, etc. Your VodSpot doesn’t host your videos, it just organizes videos that already exist elsewhere on the web. It’s simple, intuitive, and it works flawlessly. When you are looking at TechStars.tv, you’re looking at an example of VodSpot, plain and simple. We’ve just skinned it to look like the TechStars web site using CSS. Our collection of videos simply includes our original content such as our new weekly documentary series “The Founders” as well as other relevant content from our great mentors from around the web.
Once we had this working, it seemed like the natural thing to do was to enable the content within Boxee. I dropped a note to the guys at VodPod, and they quickly turned around and gave me a video RSS feed that was compatible with Boxee. I then tweeted to see if anybody in our community might want to hack together a Boxee app out of that feed. Michael Sitarzewski stepped up and spent one late night figuring it out. It’s pretty simple (basic instructions here) and Michael had the finished up completed in two or three days. Of course, he rocks, so it might take normal people longer. Michael runs a startup called Callisto.fm which is a new way to discover and listen to podcasts. If you dig the Boxee app he helped create, please give him some feedback on Callisto.fm – I’m sure he’d appreciate it.
So there you have it – TechStars.tv is now live on Boxee. Thanks to VodPod and Michael of Callisto.fm for their help in making it happen.
That’s cool! We’ve got Boxee running on a Mac Mini and 42″ flat panel here at Vodpod HQ — we’re looking forward to playing with the new TechStars app this afternoon.
As we blogged a few weeks ago, anyone can get their Vodpod collection working on Boxee. It’s cool to see people starting to build apps now — this is definitely something we’re paying close attention to, and we expect to have more on this later in the summer.
Filed under: Stuff We Love, Tips, Tricks, Hacks
