Show HN: Denso - An Instapaper for Video | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Denso - An Instapaper for Video

getdenso.com

30 pointsstuti9020 comments

So I came across this really cool new service that works like Instapaper for video, and thought I'd share it with HN. Just got my invite today and I've been LOVING it so far. It lets me discover videos, bookmark them and watch offline on my iPad or iPhone. (My hour long subway rides without internet aren't painful anymore. Phew)

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These services have some serious barriers to entry. I created one of these, http://wacchen.com, I think it was the first. When you search for instapaper for video, the first 2 results mention my app. I am not actively maintaining my thing anymore because I realized there was going to be a hiccup in any wide adoption; Youtube. Youtube does not, and probably will never allow people to download that content. 80% of what most people bookmark are youtube videos. Sure some sites out there can be scrapped, but at best your business will be in murky territory. I wrote about this on my blog as well. http://alexkessinger.net/2010/11/15/why-instapaper-for-video...

Someone is going to crack this nut, but they will need to figure out the youtube problem.

I think this a great idea, and I've recently noticed a number of people doing things in more or less the same direction. I've been collecting them:

* Deja http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/deja/id417625158?mt=8&uo=...

* Squrl http://www.squrl.com/

* Plizy http://plizy.com/

* Showyou http://showyou.com/

* Roadshow http://fetchsoftworks.com/roadshow/

I even wrote a really simple way to actually use a folder called "Watch Later" in Instapaper as a video queue (only works for paying Instapaper subscribers): http://watchlater.radbox.org/ Mine focuses on trying to automatically discover HTML5-capable viewers for use on iOS.

Every one is slightly different, and this one looks particularly nice. Thanks for making it -- I look forward to trying it.

I used to use boxqueue with Boxee before I got an Apple TV 2 (which I don't use that much, as it turns out). http://boxqueue.appspot.com/

It's a bookmarklet that lets you save videos to watch later on Boxee. Which I liked because I could save videos to watch later on the tv from the couch.

It'd be nice if there were some way to get similar functionality on the ATV.

Does this service, or any of the competitors, actually scrape the video (like pinboard.in does with bookmarks) so you can watch it later, even if the site is taken down?

That's something I would pay money for.

Hey yes we do (including the Big You! ;)

We think we have an interesting twist on the way you can get videos on to your iOS devices.

We're working really hard polishing up the experience for the user right now, so we'll be sending out invite codes really soon. Thanks everyone for signing up.

The nature of the youtube problem isn't technical. Any hacker can figure out how to download a youtube video. The problem is policy. You will get thwarted, shutdown or sued.

You can't build a business on top of subverting youtubes TOS. It won't work.

Roadshow (http://fetchsoftworks.com/roadshow/) lets you download videos to your device. I'm not sure if it's suitable for long-term storage like Pinboard is for web pages, but it might do what you want.

http://watchlaterapp.com can do it. You buy credits ($0.01/min) to download a cached copy (to an ipad, I think you can do web too), but as others have mentioned, not for YouTube.

None of them support youtube.

I' m curious about that too.

Seems like there is a lot of competition in the field

http://www.google.com/search?q=instapaper+for+video

Good luck

Saw you guys when I was in Singapore. I think this could be pretty cool, it's definitely very pretty already.

Thanks Sahil, was it at Echelon? I wasn't there during the conference (my teammates were) but glad you like it :)

Watchlr looks to do the same and more. Gregory Schnese gave a really good presentation at the most recent NYTM event this past Tuesday. You can sign up at http://watchlr.com.

seems to require facebook sign up though?

Yes, but it's the kind I can appreciate. Instead of a 'hey connect with facebook and then go through my signup process as well' he's using FBConnect as the authentication backend.

Great video, explains the concept clearly.

Best of luck

Doesn't YouTube have a Watch Later button?

Yes they do, but Denso allows you to bookmark across a lot more sources and they also allow you to get your bookmarked videos onto any iOS device using a custom podcast.

As does Vimeo.

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