Despite the meteoric rise in online video consumption, the medium still faces a few systematic challenges. First and foremost is the fact that video is difficult – or impossible – to skim, relative to images or text. This means that viewers need to commit the time required to watch a video before knowing whether it’s something they’ll enjoy. Several companies have turned to social signaling to solve this problem.

 

Y Combinator alumni ReelSurfer has taken a different approach, focusing on allowing users to clip and share the best bite-sized moments from longer scenes – typically between three to 30 seconds in length. As a result, many have taken to calling the platform the “tl;dr for video.” Today, the company rolled out an entirely redesigned Web interface focused on allowing users to both create clips, and to discover clips that others have created and shared.

 

At the heart of the redesign is a significantly beefed up search and discovery engine that helps users identify relevant clips before needing to create their own. Users can copy and paste the URL of a target video directly into the ReelSurfer interface, or use an accompanying bookmarklet browser plugin. With each submitted video, ReelSurfer surfaces existing and related clips, inviting the user to easily share those clips.

 

The new interface also allows users to create reels of multiple videos, either from within a single longer video or reflecting a theme across multiple videos. All ReelSurfer videos link back to the original content source allowing the viewer to watch full length video should they choose. Because ReelSurfer doesn’t host videos, but rather links through to source content, all videos on its platform retain their native advertising such as pre-rolls and mid-rolls.

 

Along with the redesign, ReelSurfer added support for additional video platforms, including Ooyala and Brightcove which power the video content of ESPN, The New York Times, TED, and countless other mass media publishers. (The platform previously supported only YouTube and Vimeo.) ReelSurfer is currently available for both content consumption and creation on the Web and for consumption only on mobile, although mobile clipping will be added in a future release according to the company.

 

 

ReelSurfer : http://www.reelsurfer.com/

 

Via Robin Good