João-Pierre S. Ruth
Reece Pacheco finally took the lid off the new version of his video discovery platform.
Back in 2012, New York’s Shelby.tv snuffed its old incarnation and then began to rebuild the technology. Now, with brand new code and a new direction, CEO and co-founder Pacheco will see if he’s got the right recipe.
So what is the new Shelby.tv all about? The company’s new app, which debuted last week, dives into the crowded video discovery market, offering personalized daily content that Pacheco thinks folks are eager for. “We want to give you what you want to watch, when you want to watch it,” he says.
There are already lots of outlets for finding online videos, yet Pacheco believes Shelby.tv can win over an audience by eliminating a lot of the legwork. Rather than build a platform that does something for everyone, he wanted a simpler app that quickly plays video. He also wanted users to find something new whenever they open up the app, instead of video channels that pump out repetitive content.
Speed is of the essence with the new Shelby.tv, Pacheco says. Videos should play back quickly on the app, he says, thanks to the work on the backend to pre-load the content. Slowly buffering video often turns off viewers, he says.
Shelby.tv’s video curation is another way it plans to cut down the hassle for users, as well as reduce the content glut that can flood in from social spheres. “We’re not trying to be an aggregator of videos your Facebook and Twitter friends are sharing,” Pacheco says.
The new version of Shelby.tv offers to do the heavy lifting in video discovery on behalf of users.
Instead, the app pulls up videos that were shared by people who are similar to friends in users’ social networks, he says. That little bit of separation from the users’ typical connections, Pacheco says, helps bring more variety to video discovery.
Access to video on more and more devices, Pacheco says, has whetted the public’s appetite for fast consumption of entertainment. “Finding content shouldn’t be that hard,” he says. “We want to be that home for you across these devices.”
Shelby.tv is available for iPhones with an iPad version forthcoming. Eventually, Pacheco wants to get the platform on televisions, though it can run via AirPlay on Apple TV. A mobile Web version is available for other devices.
Pacheco’s current plan is a tweaking of his strategy circa spring 2011. Back then, when Shelby.tv emerged from the first TechStars NYC class, the startup let people create video channels from content their friends shared on social networks.
“We built a ton of stuff,” Pacheco says. “We’ve had an engineering-driven team since day one.”
Now that team, he says, is busy enhancing the current platform and preparing future versions. “There’s no secret weapon that’s going to knock someone off their feet,” he says. “It’s going to be continued improvement on the product.”
Comments | Reprints | Share: 