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Redux: An Awesome Way to Waste Time

Bobby Travis
Image representing Redux as depicted in CrunchBase 

Recently, I was lucky enough to get an invitation to the beta of real-time video-sharing service, Redux. So far, the experience has been awesome! Redux has provided me with an easy way to discover and share video from all over the web. By connecting me with multiple users and groups sharing all manner of interesting things (from funny, to serious, to music, to downright strange), I can watch video from YouTube, MetaCafe, Funny or Die, College Humor, Hulu (if I were in the US…), Viddler, blip.tv and more (see image for full list). Other services are supported as well, but you get linked out to another window with a handy Redux title overlay that you can use to continue to share and comment from.

Redux supported services

All of this is updated in my personal stream, in real time, where I can comment on the fly while watching the videos I choose; as well as thumb up content, share on Twitter and Facebook, and follow  users and groups that share videos that are more to my taste.

Perhaps my favourite feature, though, is TV Mode, which I will explain in a moment. First, I have something for you folks! Redux is still in closed beta, but the community is already thriving. I happen to have some 12 invitations left and I may be able to get more. I’ll let you know how you can get your hands on them after the jump.

Redux is growing and changing fast. The staff is clever and friendly and are highly focused on building Redux into the mother of all instant-entertainment machines. They listen to their community and build on good ideas quickly. In the month that I have been using the service, they have improved their sharing and commenting interface, made it easier to share new videos with the addition of a multi-browser bookmarklet, made it easier for users to deal with duplicate content, are adding more social options within the service, and have begun work on a new instant-action interface and the possibility of integrating your Facebook, Twitter and other social streams into Redux for a one-stop online experience. Oh, and they have added a Random feature to TV Mode, too.

Redux-TV-Mode

I like TV Mode. It‘s what made the service for me. I’m a busy fellow, and I don’t have a lot of time to watch the crap that is on at scheduled times on TV anymore. It’s often hard to find an hour to watch an entire show these days anyway, and Redux makes it easy for me to blow off a bit of steam, get some info, and maybe bust a gut or two with no fuss and no bother. I just flip into TV Mode, go Full Screen, and either pick a channel I am interested in and start watching, or I just hit that cool little Random button and click away till I find something that suits me — which doesn’t take long. It brings me back to the zen experience that channel flicking used to be, only now I get to stop and stroke my budding ADHD for a moment with something that might actually be good! Yay, I say!

Redux is moving fast toward their official launch, and should be a very entertaining force to be reckoned with online before long. I highly recommend you check them out! To that end…

The first 12 people to hit me up in the comments for invites, quoting a line from an Arnold Shwarzenegger movie shall receive one of my 12 invites to Redux. If it turns out there is a high demand for more, I’ll bug the marketing people over at Redux and we’ll see what happens. And yes, you can have more than one invite if you post more than one comment with a different Arnie quote each time.

See you on the ‘dux!

 

UPDATE: I have discovered that you can also use Redux for sharing regular web content now. This link is a good example of that, as well as a good showcase of the toolbar overlay. It is also a bit weird…