Given its start as a little open source project, Boxee has done very well for itself as a hub for streaming video. Now they want to give users a place to create and share their own video, like Instagram does for photos. But can Cloudee topple Viddy and SocialCam, the early entrants in the video sharing space?
For now, Cloudee will be an iPhone-only affair, and is currently invite-only beta status. Users can share video links that can be viewed in any browser, but for the most part, all activity takes place on the phone. Boxee, confident that this is the next big thing for the company, is offering unlimited storage to users, encouraging you share often.
Judging from the screenshots, the app UI and design has a clean, intuitive, straight-forward look to it, but is hardly boring. But even if everything if the service is rock-solid and enjoyable to use from a technical standpoint, will people embrace video sharing in the same way as they have photo sharing? As has been argued before, it’s much easier for an amateur photographer to accidentally happen upon a beautiful photo. Shooting attractive and engaging video is considerably harder. Can Cloudee avoid its service from turning into a cesspool of people posting their recordings of inside jokes and drunken antics? Possibly, but we’ll have to wait until the service actually gets to the masses and see what happens. [Cloudee, Boxee]
