Week of 11/19, Mini-Patch and Vimeo

Mini-Patch

• Improved vimeo and YouTube syncing speed
• YouTube playback is now seamless meaning you can watch an entire playlist without disruption in full screen. Good for users who just use synchtube for solo movies, or over skype, etc.
• Increased maximum size of playlist (but please don't make them too big)
• Slight interface adjustment, got rid of the hidden buttons
• Fixed a couple bugs in chat \o/
• Fixed avatars, you can now upload them
• Patched a few memory leaks in the server

Note on Vimeo

To watch vimeo videos, either use the "Change Video" link, or simply paste the URL in the chat window and it will automatically turn it into a thumbnail you can click on. Vimeo Search is not yet implemented.

Don't forget!

• You can share your playlists! Head to the "My Playlists" section. Check out my Pop Music playlist (http://synchtube.com/p/1874)
  
  
• You can emote in rooms using "/me"! Try it by typing "/me waves".

As always, please let me know if you experience disconnects and what you were doing. Just drop a comment here. Don't forget to support us if you enjoy the site by telling your friends!

Cheers,

~mrC

Vimeo Integration is Here

Vimeo integration is now here! Please test it out and comment if you find any problems.

Vimeo support allows you to paste Vimeo links in chat, add videos, and add to playlist. That's right! Your playlist can have BOTH YouTube and Vimeo videos!

Search for Vimeo has not yet been integrated.

Known Issue: Vimeo videos tend to be long, and unlike YouTube videos you cannot skip around to parts of the video that are not buffered. That being said, if you enter a room where the viewers are deep into a Vimeo video, it may take a while for your connection to buffer before you can start watching with them.

What player support would you like to see next? Drop a comment.

~mrC

Friday Updates

New mini-patch released today. Adds the following features:

• Auto-reconnect: Synchtube will now try to reconnect if you get disconnected
• Emote: As requested by our friends from France, particularly wota :D, type "/me {something}" to emote!, for example "/me waves"
• Minor bug fixes

Share Playlists

You can now share synchtube playlists!

Login > My Playlists > share!

This feature was added as people were creating cool playlists, but had no way to share them without creating a room first.

~mrC

What's new this week? 10/30

Hello everyone.

With this update we have introduced usernames. This is to prevent copycats, and to allow future features to be more personalized for you. Currently you can only upload an avatar and create a bio, but soon you will be able to do more with your username.

In addition the interface has had a major overhaul. We hope you enjoy the cleaner layout.

Several bugs have also been fixed.

We decided to remove TVs for now, as they are a bit underdeveloped. They will be back soon though!

Please let us know what you think of the new changes.

Cheers,

~mrC

Saturday Downtime

We will be experiencing some downtime Saturday around 11PM EST for 1-3 hours for an update.

~mrC

We are getting there...

Hi friends.

Good progress especially this past weekend. Refactoring is getting close to finishing, and we successfully implemented some nice server changes. We expect an ETA of the new features within 2 weeks.

What Will Change:

In a quick mention, we are going to introduce user accounts and usernames in this next push. This will help you share your playlists, and keep track of your friends better. We are also, unfortunately, removing TVs. It was a good experiment, but we feel it isn't quite ready yet for real usage.

The layout will also be improved. More details on this later.

More Langauges:
In addition, I am going to try to localize the website into French with the help of my friend Sora! Is anyone interested in helping localize in Japanese? Please let me know!

~mrC

Long time no see

Hi friends.

Long time no see. There have been some small changes over the weeks, most of which have been server fixes and speed optimizations thanks to Lucidrains -- there hasn't been much functionality changes. The daily workings of job and life have been keeping us busy this past month.

However, I wanted to say I am in the process of moving the front-end over to a different architecture so that new features can be rapidly deployed, and so that integration with other video services will take days instead of weeks. Synchtube started as a hobby project and I did not expect it to need to adapt to new features so quickly and now I am paying for lazy architecture I had initially planned.

I'm not going to bullshit with the cliche "expect new features soon!". Refactoring takes time. This refactoring period will be complete by the on or before the end of October. After this is complete new features will be able deployed RAPIDLY. Personally I can't wait till this period is over, but it will be worth it.

~mrchess

What's new this week? 9/07

Features:

- You can now overwrite existing playlists!

Under the hood:

- Various server speed upgrades to make chat even more speedy

Plans:

- We have started pre-production of embeddable synchtube widgets for your blog/website

- We are considering discontinuing TVs. If you are interested in keeping this service alive, this please reply in the comments.

What's new this week? 8/23

New features:

Leader Powers
- Leaders can now ban users
- Leader can only do "destructive" actions

- Only the leader can now delete/clear the playlist

- Regular users can still add to unlocked playlists, but cannot delete

My Account section

- You can change your password here

Preferences

- synchtube now remembers your room layouts

Under the hood:

- Anti-spammer measures

- Server upgrades for faster chat!

~mrchess

4chan visits synchtube

/v/ has recently been visiting us and with that comes trolls. That being said, we whipped up some new features -- various underthehood anti-spam tools, and now a "Ban" option for leaders!

Enjoy!

~mrchess

Google Analytics Integration Tutorial

Google Analytics is a tracking tool by Google that lets you track visitors, pageviews, see how long people stay, and all kinds of cool information. Now you can use it with synchtube TV! Here is a short guide on how to set it up.

1. First go to Google Analytics and create an account

2. Login to your Analytics and add a "New Account"

3. A creation wizard will begin. Put the URL of your synchtube TV station here. Mine is http://synchtube.com/tv/mrchess

4. Click through the next two steps where they ask for Contact Information, then the User Agreement

5. The final step they will give you code to copy and paste on your website. We only want a part of this code -- the ID of the account you just created. This ID can be found here. It begins with a "UA-" and is followed by numbers.

In this example the ID is UA-17946357-1

6. If for some reason you cannot find it. You can also locate this ID on the Analytics Overview page

7. Take this ID and head back to your "My TV" page in synchtube. Type it in the Google Analytics widget and click "Save"

8. Your ID is now saved. Tracking data should start sending within 24 hours of setup. You check your data at the Google Analytics website

Enjoy!

~mrchess

Personal Room URLs are here

Hello!

As many requested, you can now created personalized room URLs. To get a personal room name, simply Login and click on the "My Room" link at the top.

Should be pretty straightforward from there.

All you get right now is a personal URL, and the option to password protect the room. More customization will be implemented over time in the future like choose-a-background, etc. all that fun stuff :D

Cheers,

mrchess

Huge synchtube Update Including synchtube TV

Wow, what a summer. We have both been packed and busy. My friend working hard as a third year medical student, and myself working full-time as a corporate software engineer. Yet finally, between the two of us, we have managed to finish of series of features some new, and some recommended by the community. :D

Probably the biggest news is the announcement of...

synchtube TV (beta)

Create your own TV station that streams YouTube videos in real-time. synchtube TV allows you to set up a playlist as if you were broadcasting it as a TV station to the world. People can join

your TV station, watch simultaniously, and chat!

Promote your blog/YouTube Channel/website

• Imagine creating a lounge area with streaming YouTube media be it music or videos where users of similiar interest can come and hang out. Wait, stop imagining! You can do it now with synchtube TV! We hope synchtube TV can be used to supplement your website of choice to further develop your online communities

Create a radio station

• Not into video? Why not create a radio station to broadcast your favorite music. Live personal playlists are so much nicer than anything Pandora can offer.

Not your average synchtube room

• synchtube TV requires NO LEADER. Like real television, content will continue to play regardless if people are viewing or not. Your content will also loop indefinitely -- once it hits the end of your program, it will go back to the beginning of the program.

In addition to synchtube TV, we have made several synchtube improvements.

synchtube improvements

Take Leader Back

• Forcibly take back leader status on rooms you created while logged in. To perform this action click on the username of the current leader and select "Take Leader"

User Menus

• Users now have menus when you click on their name that allow you to perform several actions on that user

YouTube Search

• View more results in YouTube search by clicking "More results"

Cleaner Interface

• Icons have been removed, and now to perform an action such as "Make Leader" or "Kick" simply click on the username and a menu will appear
• You can now pop the list of users in and out of the chat window

Lock Playlists

• Whether the room is public or private, leaders now have the option to lock or unlock the playlist by clicking on the lock icon on the playlist. Unlocked playlists are editable by everyone, while locked playlists are editable by only the leader

Playlist Management

• Playlist management should be easier now with the new "My Playlists" section

Whats next?

synchtube TV

• Customization! We will build controls so you can further customize your TV stations, track statistics
• Search -- if enough TV stations get created we will make them searchable
• We will continue to watch development of the experimental synchtube TV. We would love to hear feedback about the service and what you like/dislike about it so we can further improve it

User Interface Reduction

• We will be further reducing and condensing all the buttons in the user-interface to make synchtube easier on the eyes, feel less cluttered, and have more focus on watching videos and chatting while maintaining all the existing functionality

???

• We are always thinking of new directions to take synchtube and will keep you posted if we come up with anything If you want to see any new features, remember you can e-mail us at synchtube@gmail.com. We reply to everything and take all suggestions very seriously!

I hope you continue enjoy synchtube, and thanks for using the service.

Cheers.

~mrchess