“One love, one heart, let’s get together and feel all right”
Bob Marley
When a Miami startup wanted to demonstrate the global power of its new consumer video social platform, Videoo.com turned to the passionate fans of the late Bob Marley. Through a partnership with the Marley family, Videoo.com launched its project during Bob Marley Week last month, inviting fans to submit their tributes to what CEO Barry Stamos called the first crowd-sourced video compilation.
More than 100 Bob Marley fans or groups of fans from more than 62 countries — including Australia, Argentina, the U.K., Thailand, Saudi Arabia and Ukraine — contributed video clips about how Bob Marley impacted their lives, said Heidi Finn Roberts, the company’s chief product officer. Also working on the product were Chief Content Officer Jorge Moreno, a Latin Grammy winner, and COO Joshua Stedman.
Contributions to http://videooapp.com/h/BobMarleyWeek came from fans, musicians, artists and celebrities. Videoo’s proprietary technology automatically compiled the clips into one single social video compilation for #BobMarleyWeek, Finn Roberts said.
“It's really beautiful how it came together,” said Stamos, who founded companies as well as held management positions for tech firms. “Bob Marley’s vision of one world, one love is a dream that inspired many, including us at Videoo, which is why our team is so excited this is the first-use case with our technology. It demonstrated how fast and easy the world can unite in mass collaboration to do something extraordinary.”
People from more than 177 countries watched these videos on Videoo.com. And on the Bob Marley official Facebook page, more than 29,000 have already liked and 3,900 people have shared a Videoo highlight compilation showcasing the #BobMarley Videoo. The highlight video has already attracted 16,000 views.
Videoo users can contribute up to 22-second clips through the app. In fact, any user can go to videoo.com and upload a video and hashtag it. “The whole idea is to make it radically inclusive whether or not you have a smartphone. Anyone with a web connection can upload,” Stamos said. However, the system limits the file sizes it can accept, and not everyone who has wanted to contribute to the Marley video has been able to. The team is working to fix that now.
Plans are to have robust private label versions of Videoo available for brands, but the app will always be for consumers and will always be free, said Stamos. The company hopes that families, friends, organizations and causes will use the app for commorations of family events, high school reunions, prayers for a loved one.
Fans can still add to the Bob Marley Videoo as well as another compilation, #BringBaeBack, calling for the release of Korean American Kenneth Bae held in North Korea. That Videoo was kicked off by Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of reddit, who spoke last month at a Refresh Miami event. The co-founders said Ohanian was one of their inspirations as reddit always was and is about innovating crowd sourcing, aggregation and crowd curation.
Contributions to the video came from fans, musicians, artists and celebrities. Videoo’s proprietary technology automatically compiled the clips into one single social video compilation for #BobMarleyWeek