VentureBeat

updated

Izimi.com is another neat little web 2.0 publishing tool • and boasts of an easier way to share video with the world than YouTube.

It does this by letting you share any file on your computer • not just video, but spreadsheet, pdf, whatever — by creating a URL for that file, which you can then send to your friends.

In this way, it is similar to Avvenu (see our earlier coverage). But Izimi goes further. It also creates a public Web page for you, which lists all the content you have created. Let’s say you create URL for some videos to send to your sister. Izimi puts a link to the videos at your Web page too, so other friends can see what you’ve been sharing. That’s where the YouTube-like element comes in.

In other words, Izimi has two heads: One is a straight-forward file sharing application, and the second is a profile-based social network (see partial screen shot below). You can add friends to your profile, for example, and click through to see their content.

Right now, everything is for public viewing. It is all searchable at Izimi’s home page. You can’t share things privately. However, that doesn’t mean once you’ve published something, it is open for all to see forever. You can choose to “unpublish” something, and it goes away. Izimi says it is working on a feature to send things privately, to be released soon.

Izimi launches publicly tomorrow (Monday). We tried it out, and it worked smoothly enough. First you download the Izimi application. Then, when you right-click on a file on your computer desktop, you can select to publish it with Izimi. It then prompts you to tag the content, and then gives you a URL •- which you can send. You can manage your content within the application.

When other people click on the URL you send them, they are calling it up directly from your computer desktop. Like Avvenu, your computer has to be on for them to see it. That’s a significant drawback. However, the advantage is you don’t have to go through the hassle of uploading video to YouTube if you want to share it with the world — because the Izimi Web profile saves a step. Also, Izimi doesn’t degrade your videos, as YouTube does when it converts video into Flash format.

The company was founded in Oct 2005, with offices in Oxford, UK. It has $3 million in funding, mostly from individuals. Some came from a UK investment firm, Blue Star Capital.

The company aim to get users first, before focusing on making money. It will seek advertising revenue eventually, according to Marc Lyne, chief executive, and David Ingram, VP of Product, who spoke with VentureBeat. This is a big company, as start-ups go. It has a couple of dozen employees.

This is worth a look. This will be useful for many users. It’s free. The only downsides: It requires a download, and it requires your computer to be on for people to access the files.