Muzu TV Serves Up UK Pop-Rock Music Videos in High Definition
Muzu TV is a UK music site that plays host to a variety of music videos across a number of genres. Focusing mostly on artists from England and the United Kingdom, Muzu offers music videos in high definition video and audio. The site, which looks to be somewhat of a marketing platform for record labels, offers a large selection of newer music videos for users to listen to.
One of the downsides is that the videos are not embeddable, which may speak to legal issues around doing that. Another thing is the video has pre-roll advertisements before every video begins. Overall Muzu offers a good viewing experience with the ability to watch music videos in higher quality than could be expected from other music sites like MTV or YouTube (standard).
The Overall Ratings for Muzu TV:
Show Diversity: (4/5)
Based on the mixture of television shows available on the site.
Based on the mixture of television shows available on the site.
Loading Speed: (4/5)
The time taken to navigate the site and load videos.
Ease of Navigation: (3/5)
How easy is it to use and navigate.
Advertisements: (2/5) 
Based on the annoyance level of advertisements on this site, the amount of ads, and the volatility of ads appearing on the page.
The lower the rating, the less annoying the ads are.
Total Score: 15/20
Muzu TV doesn't do a lot - but it's in not trying to be the everything to everybody that it succeeds. Muzu.TV offers music videos, and only music videos! It doesn't offer interviews or behind-the-scenes shots, just music videos and it offers in high definition video for those want a higher clarity and quality picture. Asides from the pre-roll ads, Muzu is a good place for anyone looking to catch up on the top music currently in play on the international billboard charts (America and Europe mostly).
Labels: HD video, music videos, tv links, United Kingdom
MonkeySee - Viewers Do - Expert Guides
Monkeysee is another video site vying for a space in the video tutorial and guide industry. It's a mix between a youtube-style video sharing mixed with guides on a plethora of topics. All the videos are how-to, meaning that you're not going to find non-instructional videos on here. There's a good deal of instructional content here, and there really is a large variety to choose from.
The videos are categorized by industry or topic and are generally short, but unlike competitors there is no time limit which means that certain videos can be tediously long or repetitive. The production quality of the videos appearing on the featured list were exceptionaly good, rivalling that of something you'd expect from a major publisher on TV. This also hints that the videos appearing on the page may be heavily moderated to only the best submissions of content to be added. There are a few ads on the site, and they're slightly annoying - as at the time they were showing risque and unrelated material.
The main downside of MonkeySee is that the videos are quite slow to load. On 3 seperate occasions of attempting to load videos on the site from various connections and computers, the videos loaded at a snail's pace. This is one of the main limiting factors of what is otherwise a very good site.
The Overall Ratings for MonkeySee:
Show Diversity: (4/5)
Based on the mixture of television shows available on the site.
Loading Speed: (2/5)
The time taken to navigate the site and load videos.
Ease of Navigation: (4/5)
How easy is it to use and navigate.
Advertisements: (1/5)
Based on the annoyance level of advertisements on this site, the amount of ads, and the volatility of ads appearing on the page.
The lower the rating, the less annoying the ads are.
Total Score: 14/20
MonkeySee suffers from some slow loading videos, but it certainly has a lot of great stuff for thosewith a do-it-yourself attitude. There's a lot of friendly tips and video guides to help you along the way, if only you can get it to load fast enough for you to keep your interest. Overall it's a very good site, that would be worthy of being called great if not for the video loading issues.
The videos are categorized by industry or topic and are generally short, but unlike competitors there is no time limit which means that certain videos can be tediously long or repetitive. The production quality of the videos appearing on the featured list were exceptionaly good, rivalling that of something you'd expect from a major publisher on TV. This also hints that the videos appearing on the page may be heavily moderated to only the best submissions of content to be added. There are a few ads on the site, and they're slightly annoying - as at the time they were showing risque and unrelated material.
The main downside of MonkeySee is that the videos are quite slow to load. On 3 seperate occasions of attempting to load videos on the site from various connections and computers, the videos loaded at a snail's pace. This is one of the main limiting factors of what is otherwise a very good site.
The Overall Ratings for MonkeySee:
Show Diversity: (4/5)
Based on the mixture of television shows available on the site.
Loading Speed: (2/5)
The time taken to navigate the site and load videos.
Ease of Navigation: (4/5)
How easy is it to use and navigate.
Advertisements: (1/5)
Based on the annoyance level of advertisements on this site, the amount of ads, and the volatility of ads appearing on the page.
The lower the rating, the less annoying the ads are.
Total Score: 14/20
MonkeySee suffers from some slow loading videos, but it certainly has a lot of great stuff for thosewith a do-it-yourself attitude. There's a lot of friendly tips and video guides to help you along the way, if only you can get it to load fast enough for you to keep your interest. Overall it's a very good site, that would be worthy of being called great if not for the video loading issues.
http://www.monkeysee.com
Labels: diy videos, how to videos, music videos, tv links
OurStage - Platform for Live Performances
OurStage is only for music performers right now, which is severly limiting because I'm sure there are lots of great acts deserving of attention, and a mainstream platform like this could really takeoff for such performers that can't be so easily grouped in Ourstage's selection of performer categories centering around music. Not only is this a site for performers, but for users to pick up on new music - artists not signed to labels. The site also offer embedding of performances, an example here:
The Overall Ratings for OurStage:
Show Diversity: (3/5)
Based on the mixture of television shows available on the site.
Loading Speed: (5/5)
The time taken to navigate the site and load videos.
Ease of Navigation: (4/5)
How easy is it to use and navigate.
Advertisements: (2/5)
(Annoying flash ads at top)Based on the annoyance level of advertisements on this site, the amount of ads, and the volatility of ads appearing on the page.
The lower the rating, the less annoying the ads are.
Total Score: 15/20
OurStage is an interesting twist on the video startup industry, focusing mostly on the performance rather then the artist, as we have seen in sites like Myspace Bands. The site's ajaxy navigation plays well in that it makes it easier to use and watch videos without having to load up lots of pages over again, and the videos load fairly quickly. The video player closely resmbles the YouTube player, which has become a standard now, but the site suffers from some small problems - mostly that it's too limited to music performers, and leaves out other performing arts such as dance, and other varied art forms that could use mainstream attention. Overall the site is worth checking out, as there's quite a decent amount of unsigned and interesting music for all tastes.
http://www.ourstage.com
Labels: bands video, music artists, music videos, tv links
Cinema Meow - Videos of Funny Cats
Where to begin with Cinema Meow? Cinema Meow is a video portal that houses collections of funny cat videos, everything from ICanHazCheeseBurger type clips to cats doing stupid things. There does seem to be a growing trends for these videos, but so far there had yet to be one site collecting them. Cinema Meow fills these weird and somewhat unnecessary void.
The site is clean and colourful. Ads are limited, with most of the videos being hosted elsewhere. The overall collection is nothing great, considering YouTube houses most of the videos and they could easily be found there. Overall I'm not quite sure why you would want to visit this site, or whether there really is any interest - but Cinema Meow doesn't dissappoint for those interested in cats and cat paraphernalia.
The Overall Ratings for Cinema Meow:
Show Diversity: (2/5)
Based on the mixture of television shows available on the site.
Loading Speed: (2/5)
The time taken to navigate the site and load videos.
Ease of Navigation: (5/5)
How easy is it to use and navigate.
Advertisements: (1/5)
Based on the annoyance level of advertisements on this site, the amount of ads, and the volatility of ads appearing on the page.
The lower the rating, the less annoying the ads are.
Total Score: 12/20
Cinema Meow isn't all that interesting, but it does house funny cat videos for those interested in only that. It loses major points because they don't actually host the videos themselves, but instead just link and embed to videos hosted elsewhere - making it not really a destination for funny cat videos, but a portal showing videos from other sites. Overall I don't think its better then YouTube for these type of videos, of which there are millions, possibly hundreds added each day.
http://www.cinemameow.com
Labels: cat, cheezeburger, music videos, tv links
