Author: David J. Hill
John Hutchinson and Jerod Sikorskyj have had some Big Bang Theory-like conversations over the course of their friendship. Both share an interest in physics and have talked at length about things like time travel. The Buffalo pair’s craziest idea, however, just might revolutionize social media.
They are the co-founders of Vidbolt, a Buffalo-based startup that officially launched in February. Vidbolt does something the world hasn’t yet seen. It’s a social media platform that can best be summed up as Twitter for video. Vidbolt takes the best components of the social experiences of Twitter and Facebook and applies them to videos in a way that some of the world’s largest tech companies—Google, among others—have been trying to do but so far haven’t accomplished.
Unlike YouTube, where comments appear below the video and out of context, Vidbolt allows users to comment at specific moments in the video timeline, creating a virtual experience that mimics what it’s like to watch TV with friends and family in your own living room. “Our way is very natural,” explains Hutchinson. “It fits into the ways people are already talking about video. We’re just combining aspects of those things in one screen, with one platform.”
A color-coded heatmap shows users where the most interesting moments in the video occur, based on comments. The video timeline is red when lots of people comment, blue when few people comment and black when there are none. Eventually, users will be able to search for keywords within the comments.
Click here to experience Vidbolt as you watch the inspirational Buffalo video by John Paget who also provided some director’s commentary. Click on the heatmap (blue and red hashmarks on the video scrubber) to jump around to the most talked about moments.
“I think it’ll change how people watch videos by letting them find the moments they want,” Hutchinson says. “Our lives are like a stream of events and we care about certain moments—our first kiss, graduation. You want to be able to share those moments. With Vidbolt…you can talk about them, you can share them. And the fact that you can find them again because you’ve marked them is powerful.”
Sikorskyj, a Web developer at the University at Buffalo, came up with the name Vidbolt after searching a database of 50,000 words. “Bolt was on that list and I liked it because it’s a strong action. It’s fast and it’s something that sticks,” he says. The “Vid” part, of course, comes from video.
Hutchinson and Sikorskyj first met at Niagara University in 2007. At the time, Sikorskyj was a campus minister there, while Hutchinson, a Washington, D.C., area native, taught physics. Hutchinson has degrees in physics from Cornell University and UC Berkeley. A computer science major at Canisius College, Sikorskyj had an interest in the subject and took one of Hutchinson’s classes. From there, they struck up a friendship.
Fast forward to February 2012, when the pair began to meet at Sikorskyj’s home with a goal of developing an app. After several months of brainstorming sessions, they set an Oct. 31 deadline for crafting one solid idea. Hutchinson had his “ah-ha” moment the week of Halloween. “I had this idea, which was that I really liked watching YouTube videos. But I realized it was an isolating, lonely experience,” he says. “So I said, let’s make something where you can see the people talking about the video and connect with them in a normal way, as if you were right there in the room together.”
They soon realized they needed more help to develop Vidbolt. Developers Tim Stegner and Kevin Eye joined the team and were later followed by Mary Skalicky and Brendan Reen. All worked with Sikorskyj at UB.
In August 2013, they shared their concept at Z80 Incubator Labs in Buffalo. Vidbolt’s biggest boost came the following month in a phone conversation with Ken Norton, managing partner at Google Ventures. Unsure of how much information they could share, the group talked vaguely about Vidbolt.
“At the end of our phone conversation he said, ‘The best advice I can give you is, people overestimate the value of their idea and underestimate the execution,’” says Sikorskyj.
With that as their wake-up call, the Vidbolt team scurried to further develop the product, and Vidbolt’s business model. “We thought, ‘What’s something we have control over?’” Hutchinson says. “Well, time. The idea that we can have something you can sell or advertise at different moments in time within the video. You want to have that call to action at the moment the viewer is most engaged with the video. That’s when the business model started kicking in.”
The beta version of Vidbolt went live Feb. 18. Since then, they’ve enhanced the platform and spoken to investors. “We’ve had investor and acquisition interest from a publicly traded company,” says Hutchinson.
At its core, Vidbolt is about letting people share what matters most. “People want to remember moments that are important, and Vidbolt is all about moments,” says Sikorskyj.
Vidbolt – Facebook
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