Lycos Mix fails to stir
Lycos' new service, Mix, lets you make your own video playlists. Is it simply a way to stir things up or mix them to a delicious blend of video content?
Lycos Mix is a new video-playlist creation tool that lets you string together video clips from various hosting services. The videos sit beside a live chat window based off of Lycos' Cinema technology. Casual observers can come in, watch videos, and chat with you. It's almost like a bar except a little creepier.
When you're done adding content, which is done by pasting URLs or using the Lycos Mix bookmarklet from the content's source page, you can watch, rearrange, or chat about the videos, all within the same screen. The adding process is a little arduous, as sites such as iFilm, Viddler, and Revver aren't (yet) compliant. Even worse, in both Internet Explorer and Firefox my botched video embed code couldn't be removed from the Lycos Mix submission box. I had to back out of the uploading form and go back in to clear it out. I seriously doubt the casual user is going to have patience for that.
Video-playlist creation has been done before and by many other companies. Most recently SplashCast and Feedbeat. The chat feature is neat, but 9 times out of 10, I'm watching a video because I've received a link to it via e-mail or from a friend's IM. Nearly all video services have comments now, which serve as a permanent forum for conversation. In that sense, I just don't see a need for live chat integration.
See also YouTube's TestTube.