JyoNah

TokBox Shuts Another Door

On Tuesday, June 29th, TokBox sent an email to its members, informing them that come mid-July, the video messaging service they currently offer will be removed. Video Recording services that will continue to be offered are Video Invitations to a scheduled video chat (a premium feature) as well as leaving a recorded Video Message in the instance that another TokBox member doesn’t answer a video call. (a’la Voice Mail on your telephone)

TokBox, for those who are unfamiliar, is a flash based video communication web application, focused primarily on their video conferencing features – a service that competes with SkypeSkype, currently the popular downloadable desktop program for web based voice and video calls. Where the two branch apart is where TokBox offers up to around 20 people in a video conference, skype defaults to voice-only if the call has more than two participants. TokBox also offers a variety of media sharing sharing features, requires no download or instillation, then offers a variety of other features to their premium members.

This isn’t the first time that TokBox has elected to close down a service in the interest of their more lucrative ventures. In the past, TokBox was a rather more involved video community, complete with user profiles, video forums, video mail, as well as their video conferences.

When this was the case, I frequented the site because of the Public Posts, and found that others that frequented it for the same reasons were often around for us to all “hang out” in a video conference. Once the Public Posts were removed, my activity on the site dwindled. I only visited the site with any serious purpose any longer to use their video messaging services.

What the Changes Mean

What is noteworthy about TokBox’s announcment, is that they will continue to over the ability to leave a video message when someone does not answer a TokBox call. This begs the question, will you be able to call offline friends? Everybody with whom I exchange video messages has an account on TokBox, and I only sent the same message to multiple people on a very infrequent basis.

Of course, the likelihood is that these after-call video messages will not have quite as long recording times. I quite expect they will be seconds, at most a minute long. However, we will not know until the changes are made.

The Freebie

On Thursday, July 1st, TokBox VP of Marketing Mikey O’Brian moderated a Video Conference to discuss the changes. Present were a handful of TokBox users (many pleading for their favorite TokBox feature) Micky herself, and TokBox Lauren. Also among the conference participants was David Geller, the  Team Leader for Eyejot, a web service offering Video Mail which has thus far, competed with TokBox.

During the conference, David slyly threw an offer into the text field to provide eyejot’s $100/year Pro+ serivce FREE to to people migrating to eyejot from Tokbox. I quickly inquired how one might be able to collect on this offer – at which time he and Micky agreed to meet about the potential of this arrangement at a later date, while Micky made jokes about doing business in front of the community.

While We Wait

Now what we get to do is wait, with baited breath, to see what happens. In the meantime, a TokBox recording widget is embedded below, so record a video message while you still can. If you don’t know what to say, just tell me – are you going to miss TokBox video messages?

Did you use TokBox video messaging? What are you going to do once its gone? What do you think of TokBox’s decision to remove their service?

UPDATE: Grooveshark is now also available as an iPhone app on jailbroken iPhones. (Not available in the App StoreApp Store)

GroovesharkGrooveshark is the most exciting web-app I’ve come across in a long time. I discovered it a long time back at the suggestion of a friend, who compared it to PandoraPandora. Pandora – which has been around for five years – asks you to tell it songs and musical artists you like, and then plays music it thinks you might like as well by comparing the information you gave it to The Music Genome Project.

Thinking ‘Out of The (Pandora’s) Box’

Grooveshark is essentially a web-based audio-focused media player, with a library of music that is comprised of .mp3′s uploaded by Grooveshark’s userbase. In effect, grooveshark has almost every song you can think of, whether popular, obscure, new, or old. Each song is offered for sale by linking to the song on Amazon MP3 and/or iTunes.

In Grooveshark, you can upload your library of music, and then build upon it, collecting music from Grooveshark’s database. This library is kept for you in your User Account, and you can access if from any internet capable computer (as well as a desktop, and Android App)  You can collect the best songs in a separate area of the website by adding the songs to your Favoritesfavorites, and create playlists.

Artists

Radio

Very Important Person

As a Grooveshark VIP, a user has access to the desktop application, and the mobile application. The desktop application lets you use grooveshark without needing to keep your browser open, and the mobile application can be installed on Andriod and Blackberry phones (some exceptions) and brings all the features of Grooveshark to your palm. Grooveshark also recently released an iPhone application, but this application is only available to those with a jail-broken iPhone.

Whenever Grooveshark is working on a feature VIP users get to use it first. My favorite VIP feature is a button that lets you pick a genre of music to listen to, and Grooveshark Radio will play music that falls into that genre.

Grooveshark’s Themes also open up to a VIP user. Where as unpaid users have a selection of three or four themes, VIP users have free reign over the entire selection.

When Grooveshark is used as a free service, the right hand side of your screen is taken up by rotating banner ads. As a VIP member, these ads are no more.

Need clarification? Have a Question? Log in with FacebookFacebook or Twitter and comment below. Tell me what YOU think of Grooveshark, or if you use something else, something better?

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