Spymac Launches Leapfrog
January 17, 2007 |
PRWEB January 15, 2007 – Today Spymac launched the much anticipated video-chat, movie-sharing site Leapfrog. Users can earn money by uploading content to the site. Leapfrog is available in over 15 languages and nationalized Leapfrog sites are now covering 95% of the global web community, according to the release. Internet users from Argentina to the Ukraine can now video chat with no other software but their browsers.
A portion of ad income from the site will be paid to users for uploading their favorite content. Spymac is preparing to payout over $100,000 in the first month alone. The provider is intent on encouraging people in developing nations to contribute their interesting and refreshing cultural tone to the web community. CEO Holger Ehlis said: "We want users to truly benefit from our service — those who upload something that people want to see or hear make real money."
Leapfrog may be one of the very best places for iPod and PSP videos, as Apple's latest models allow downloads of hundreds of thousands of movies, videos, and songs from Leaprfrog access. The site's movies are also compatible with the Sony Playstation Portable.
Through Leapfrog's embedding feature, users can stream data from other websites using Leapfrog as a central hub. With this new feature members can: add video clips to their sites or auctions, upload multimedia projects, add content to blogs, share movies, and enhance pages and profiles on other sites.
Spymac previously followed Google in allowing users free email space with 1 gigabyte of storage. The site was originally tailored for Mac users, but it would appear that they are making a move on Yahoo! and MSN in providing a huge amount of storage space for free. Yahoo and MSN charge customers for less space, and with this new sharing aspect Spymac could draw some of their faithful. Spymac has been around for a few years, and as I said, it is geared for iPod and Mac users. The old site was very useful, if Mac oriented, with loads of space, and utility for downloading pictures and music.
My intital attempts to check out Leaprfog proved fruitless, as the site evidently had more traffic than they anticipated and access was impossible. This morning the problem seems to have been resolved.
My first impression is that this looks like a YouTube emulation at first glance. Secondly, the language selection mentioned is functional, but some of the languages do not show up on IE 6.0 properly. There are currently 13 (rather than 15) viewable, while several others function but appear as broken script when activated. This feature is kind of fun (maybe it is just me) changing the language quickly to see that pictures in Portuguese is really imagens. As for the money, so far today the site has paid out a little over $600 to it's members, and about $5000 this month.
The videos are about what you would expect, with lots of personal cam views from a host of bored people. The video chat aspect is functional, and has obviously been utilized by scores of people already. A user has the option to view video, send video via email, or embed video in a site or blog. I was reluctant to place "my funcam" here for obvious reasons, but essentially the site appears to have everything except the big impact implied.
If I don't sound overly enthusiastic about the new site, it is because I am not finding anything all that new here. I expect that the site will take on a little different look once users utilize the video features more. Sites like this really seem to develop as more content is added, and it is a little unfair to judge it too harshly at its inception. This will be a popular place, and the added features will attract users I am sure. It is not time for YouTube to roll over just yet though!
The one thing I really liked about the site is the way the advertisements are understated. This may be a function of fewer advertisements to be displayed, but one small frame inside the video previews is nice! I don't know what I was expecting, but what I found was a pretty nice place to share pictures, video, and some time with new people or friends. I applaud the developers for at least providing what they advertised, if not the community to end all on-line communities.
