snotr - finally a decent video sharing site

After and contemporary to the YouTube effects hundreds of video sharing sites have come up, and more are coming up every day. None of them is half decent, the same content streaming over and over, bad titles, duplicated entries, phishing, spamming, I can't stand it.

So do we really need YAWSS (Yet Another Video Sharing Website)?

Snotr is different. The folks at mininova really know how the internet works and how it should work. Clean interface, right colour choice, non-intrusive ads, FAST, simple, easy to use, well categorised, unique entries, perfect Ajax implementation (avoiding unnecessary add-ons), video online after approval, link to wikipedia in the video description, standardised forms, clean iframe for embedding videos, no spam. It's quality over quantity. Perfect? Not really, but pretty close.

So what exactly is Snotr? To use their words:

Snotr is a source for short and funny or interesting videos. Everyone can submit a video, which will be reviewed by our team. If we accept your video, it will be listed on the front page and other pages. Users can rate videos and post comments to share their opinion with others. Please note that we try to keep this website family-safe, so adult submissions are not allowed.

Some of the unique features of Snotr (compared to the other “funny videos” sites out there) are:

• Clean interface, no adult content, SFW
• High-quality videos
• Real-time video resizing (just drag the video-size slider)
• The video cloud. An interesting way to browse the videos.
• The video wall. A quick way to find a specific video if you remember its thumbnail image.
• Quick submit link. Explained on the submit page. This link makes it easier to submit videos to Snotr.
• Animated thumbnails. When you move the mouse cursor over a thumbnail, an animated version of the thumbnail is shown.
• Better video encoding method. Already in use since a few weeks, and results in smaller file sizes.
• Audio volume leveled (no need to change the volume for every video)

So to be clear: Snotr is NOT a YouTube/Metacafe/Dailymotion/whatever killer, if you’re looking for a place to dump your videos, stick to those sites. But in case you have some spare time to spend (*cough* work *cough*), try Snotr.

The latter part is to me the most important. They don't pretend to enter the video sharing market, nor they claim to be the WEB2COMPANYNAME killer, they humbly present their idea and with style. I like that. ^_^

One last word: not everyone is eligible to create such a website. Aside form technical limitations, they can ride on the tail of one of the top 100 websites of the world and the biggest bittorrent search engine. Not too bad.