Rediff launches iShare – sleek and sexy media portal.
I haven’t been a great fan of Rediff, until I saw iShare – Rediff’s media sharing portal.
Wondering why another media portal? Well, iShare is a way too cool product which can kick ass all of the mediocre products polluting the Indian Internet market.
What’s so great about iShare?
- Fast streaming media: Unlike products like bigadda/ibibo, Rediff is investing in the area where it matters – streaming media. How many times have you simply given up on a media portal, because of the video/audio download speed?
- UI/Media player : Uncluttered, so far. And honestly, a very refreshing experience too (the fact that the one can embed the code in blog/site will surely help them in growing the product virally.)
- Seed data: Rediff has atleast taken the pain of entering the seed data, but there are some goof ups too. for e.g. : Number of popular photos/top rated are 0 – which also means there are very less outside users (all the profiles so far looks “plugs”).
- Unlimited storage space: Apart from the unlimited storage space, max upload limit for video file is 50 MB, audio is 10 MB. What also amazed me is that they have an upload tool too!; and I am sure this will help in increasing the user adoption by big numbers.
Apart from the above improvements, Rediff has added the basic social networking features too- i.e. scrap book/file sharing etc.
Only time will tell how Rediff’s iShare fares in this crowded media market (Zapak launched zapak.tv couple of weeks back). Also, it would be fun to see how iShare fights the big force of piracy and porn!
Do give iShare a spin and tell us what do you think of it?
Here are a couple of features that I think can make iShare damn cool:
- Ability to create audio playlists (and share with friends or even as widgets in blogs/sites).
- How about a desi version of Last.fm?
- Ability to search across multiple media sites and get the media (little dicey)?
- Podcast player?
(With inputs from Pratyush).
About the author - Ashish Sinha is a Startup Mentor/Product Strategy Coach, and the founder/chief editor of pluGGd.in.
He has launched/managed couple of products (consumer as well as enterprise) in US and India, and now consults with startups/small businesses on their product/media strategy. He can be reached at: ashish (at) pluGGd.in [+91 98452 06443]
Agree with the seeding part. Typically I would release this to friends and family. The seeding would be way more richer that way with varied content from real users.
I am sure they do have friends and arent that overworked not to have families
.
I guess Indian companies are trying to get on to the web 2.0 bandwagon in a big way and will learn by mistakes in the process.
What I am kinda disappointed with is the “follow footsteps” attitude. Even if we do copy, there needs to be lots of thought going into the offering so that we have something clearly valuable and specific to India.
Needless to say: All opinions expressed here and elsewhere are my own and have no relationship to the company I work for (or some such legalese)
awesome review!
how abt a feature to download the media file?
also, as far as UI is concerned, I HOPE they dont integrate with their blogs/other sites…It’s really sexy as of now!
how much were u paid for to write this article?
@ ANony.
You are the most typical example of INDIAN cynical attitude, never mind u do exist so as many others!
Coming to ishare, its sleek, its fast and typical and they could beat many small players, JOB well done,
they have everything to match the Web 2.0 scenario, with Tagging, sharing, discussion and much more with unlimited storage,I would still prefer a better UI!
@Anonymous
I am sure that if this was a paid article, it would have been mentioned. Something called “disclosure”. Nothing wrong with someone writing about what they like without commercial interests in mind.
I am sure hemant and Mr. anon work for a competitive company!
iShare is fucking cool man..and as u said..itz too fast!!
hats off to rediff guys
@ anony
I always believe giving one’s name enhances credibility – so dont really take anonymous comments seriously.
For the record, most of us who write here have rejected offers from most of the companies written about here. I also know for a fact that Ashish (and most of us) earn way more at our present companies than what compensation for a small blog post would cover for.
I would have loved to debate this with you – firmly believe in Voltaire’s statement – “I may not agree with a word you say – but till death will defend your right to say it”. But I guess you dont know about Voltaire.
Henceforth before raising fingers at anyone, please do have the guts to defend yourself.
@anon:
Disclosure: THIS IS NOT AT ALL A PAID ARTICLE. I blast products that are just a copy/paste and I DO appreciate products that kick ass.
Rediff’s ishare is one of the products that is fresh and is way too cool (and different from the regular ones)… Play with the product and then only, share your comments.
ALso – I wrote about “plugs” within the site – since none of the profile had pics and they all looked like internal IDs. – Will Rediff pay me for this?
Or I am wondering whether you belong to a competitive product (and couldn’t digest iShare?)
@ kishore:
you can easily download the songs from ishare:
Get the song URL:
http://ishare.rediff.com/filemusic.php?id=4280
get the audio file:
i.e. http://ishare.rediff.com/audio_config.php?audioid=4280
You will see a xml page..from there get the datastore.rediff URL..something like this
http://datastore.rediff.com/briefcase/696C655A6E642D2E2E38/3vpdtygy4a4ovfzh.D329000.11-Audioslave_-_Bring_Em_Back_Alive.mp3.flv
Put that in a flv player and that wil download the song..:):):)
Anuj.
sorry hemant
my earlier post was meant only for mr. anon!!
I need some cigarette I guess
@ Anuj:
So where’d you read about downloading stuff from iShare?
iShare is a so-so product…it’ll succeed only because it’s from Rediff.
Hey Eklavya
BTW – What’er anuj mentioned is pretty much true for ANY flash based site. You can do the same for any flash video/audio file – this is no big deal.
FYI – There are Mozilla plugins to download the vdos/audios which are flash based – i.e. “.flv” files
Infact what’er is mentioned (by anuj) is probably the crapiest way to download the file. ALl you need is the vdo download mozilla plugin and you are done.!
iShare’s UI looks coool man..!! I am a little confused with their playlist thingy..
Looks like they will monetize this thru partnerships – infact Rediff has tied up with Zee for saregamapa show.
What will drive the viewership/usage will be sharing of all these episodes..
UGC may or may not happen in India – and if it happens, it will be all piracy + porn stuff..
partnership is the way to go..
I loved their UI
though the quality of music isn’t great
(
LMAO @ Sameer
Dude that’s some really funny shit you just said.
Anyways cheers!
[...] Rediff launches iShare – sleek and sexy media portal. [...]
wat abt dwnload….
truly its gonaa grt
[...] What’s different about it? Apart from a few nice features (create your own playlist, play in popup), what really caught my attention is the speed. It’s damn fast and competes with the likes of Rediff’s iShare. [...]
how can i download vedios from ishare.rediff.com
Hi Reji
Anuj has detailed out the steps needed to download the media files from ishare.
Reproducing his comments:
@ kishore:
you can easily download the songs from ishare:
Get the song URL:
http://ishare.rediff.com/filemusic.php?id=4280
get the audio file:
i.e. http://ishare.rediff.com/audio_config.php?audioid=4280
You will see a xml page..from there get the datastore.rediff URL..something like this
http://datastore.rediff.com/briefcase/696C655A6E642D2E2E38/3vpdtygy4a4ovfzh.D329000.11-Audioslave_-_Bring_Em_Back_Alive.mp3.flv
Put that in a flv player and that wil download the song..:):):)
Anuj.
–
My 2 cents on iShare –
1. The UI leaves a lot of room for improvement – colours especially – a white background or a lighter colour background makes it much easier to read the screen
2. Spelling mistake on their homepage
3. Nothing revolutionary in this pdt that is going to make me to jump onto this service? What gap in the market is this targeted towards?
4. Trying to do too many things at the same time? and not being able to do a single thing well enough to beat a competitor? Potential future scalability issues?
5. Another Youtube Flickr wannabe?
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