ffwd Launches Web Video Service Featuring "Personal Adaptive Channels"

At the DEMOfall08 conference in San Diego earlier this month, a start- up called ffwd beta-launched its broadband video service, which originally launched in private beta last November. The company bills the service as offering a "radically simple way to navigate the video Web, an expansive digital television experience, and a media service that reflects your lifestream." According to ffwd, the service provides end-users with "personalized adaptive channels" of videos from around the Web: each channel draws on "the editorial wisdom of the Internet audience," the viewer's "social graph" and behavioral targeting in order to populate its catalog of content. "ffwd was inspired to create a way to navigate the video Web as simple as channel surfing, yet more powerful than search," ffwd founder and CEO, Patrick Koppula, said in a prepared statement. "By building an index of videos based on channels rather than individual videos, and constantly updating it with new discoveries made by the entire Web video audience, ffwd will be the only channel you'll ever need."

ffwd currently presents end-users with a line-up of over 500 "standard" channels, based on topics or themes, favorite programs or a "personality type." Out of these standard channels end-users create a custom channel line-up that serves as the raw material for creating a "personalized adaptive channel." What an end-user watches and what he or she skips will influence what he or she watches next and the overall makeup of his or her channel, the company says. In addition, the end-user's social network profile or "lifestream" service can automatically program his or her personal ffwd channel, the company says, leveraging information already provided by that end-user's online persona. ffwd claims that future end-users will be able to "save time and take advantage of the wisdom of crowds" by simply subscribing to the channels of other end-users whose tastes they've found to be similar to theirs.

ffwd says that it plans to add a number of new features to its service in the coming months, including:

• an API that will untether end-users' ffwd channels from ffwd.com, allowing developers to create thin-client applications that allow "an even more ubiquitous, accurate, relevant and consistent Web video viewing experience over multiple platforms, including living room and mobile hardware."
• a "social experiment where viewers create community around a shared interest and interactively decide what video content to watch in real time."
• a subscription-based premium version of its service.

(Note: for an in-depth overview of ffwd and its offering, see [itvt]'s interview with the company's founder and CEO, Patrick Koppula, in Issue 7.94.)