Daniel Simu - #
Manipeo.com juggling video site
Hey guys,
I wanted to share a new project of mine with you, on which I've been working for the past 2 months. It's a juggling video database, Manipeo.com
If you don't know yet what to do over Christmas, now you can watch hours of juggling videos, there are already over 1000 videos on the platform!
I was fed up with irrelevant YouTube recommendations and don't like strolling Facebook to find new videos, I hope this website makes it easier to find good juggling. Also you can save stuff to 'watch later', make your own playlists, submit new videos (the database is far from complete, growing every day).
I'm sharing this with you guys at the Edge first, I hope to do a bigger launch somewhere in 2019 when the website is finished. From then on the front page should always be up to date with the latest and greatest juggling videos on the web. In the meanwhile, I am collecting feedback on the site while also building a bit of a larger video database, everything hand picked and categorised.
I'd love to hear what you think. It's the first time I'm building a website like this, all opinions and suggestions are welcome! Leave them here, or sign up on the website and leave them at the feedback forum. I want to know how I can make this site as useful to others as possible!
Thanks
Daniel
Fantastic work Daniel. You've managed to integrate the various video platforms seamlessly. That is no mean feat!
I've watched ~15 videos this morning which is more juggling than I've watched all year so that is some good curation too!
What are the nerdy technical details? Is that all done through Wordpress?
Also, when & why did Object Episodes disappear?
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
Yay! Watching videos, that's what it's all made for!
Yes, this is Wordpress. I wouldn't have thought that was possible until I looked closer at ClownTube.tv which is also Wordpress. Most of the video stuff is taken care of by a brilliant video theme https://themeforest.net/item/vidorev-video-wordpress-theme/21798615 and on top of that I run a bunch of plug-ins. This has me a bit scared, because many of these receive regular updates, so one day they might not work together as they do today any more...
On top of that I made loads of tiny modifications, mostly hacking stuff out or making things invisible because that is how far my PHP and CSS knowledge stretches...
The site is not quite as lightweight as the Edge and through all of my plugins and modifications everywhere it's becoming a bit of a mess, so I'm hoping that before something breaks at some point, I can get someone with more expertise than me to have a look and make some suggestions on cleaning it all up.
But first the priority was to get something off the ground as quick as possible so I could work on the more important stuff: Curating videos, and figuring out what would give the best user experience.
Object episodes disappeared in late September or early October. It had been down before so I didn't think much of it at first, but when I contacted Jay he said that it's not coming back, and he didn't take a copy of the database. It cost him too much too much to keep it online and it never was exactly the site he wanted...
Mike Moore - - Parent #
Looks excellent! I'm starting to think about what direction to move with my juggling for the next few months, and I'm leaning toward getting caught up on others' cutting edge stuff. I think this will be very helpful, thanks for doing it.
It also strikes me as something that will only become more helpful with time.
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
I better make sure to upload all the cutting edge stuff then!
Yes, I also think it will become more helpful with time. This is probably a loooong term project if I want it to work....
Okay, I'll be honest: I don't see how this adds to great videos being scattered all over the place on the internet ( on vimeo, facebook, youtube, instagram, which all aren't juggling sites .. and on dead archives, homepages, wherever ).
Is there no hashtags but for what there is given categories ("balls, props, performance, juggling video" etc.)? How, without hashtags and user channels is one supposed to refind a distinct video watched a while or longer ago that one's forgotten to bookmark?
It looks pretty much like a clone of JTV in other colors with less features - why split JTV into two slightly different versions under two different domains, then?
The site looks nice, well done, worked out well, also as far as it is similar to JTV (exept for hashtags and user channels and more categories).
But, hey, maybe I'm wrong, and evolution needs variety to find what survives best.
I just wish we'd have all (!?) juggling videos in one place and easy to refind a distinct video watched before or finding the tricks and pattern and jugglers that one is looking for. JTV could be that place if people would only use the hashtags intelligently tagging most relevant properties to every vid as there were: kind of prop, and prop number, and the juggler(s)' name(s), the kind of video (practise, showact onstage or in manege, outdoor\indoor), passing. JTV has got all features necessary for it to be a juggling video library. I think it could be helpful to have the possibility for any user to add relevant hashtags to any video (and not leave it to the uploading user only); hashtags could then accumulate to better transparency and better finding exactly what you're looking for just like finding books in a library.
[ #JugglingPlatform #VideoPlatform #JTV #Manipeo #JugglingDatabase #JugglingVideoDatabase #VideoDatabase ]
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
Heya, thanks for your input :)
Let me answer your two issues one by one:
Hashtags and findability: Having a large database of videos was an afterthought, something to kickstart the site with. Most importantly I wanted to help people to find what comes out NOW, and feature that on the front page in various ways. I personally don't enjoy scrolling facebook to find new videos, and youtube would never recommend me juggling videos (still not even after watching about 2000 of them in one month whilst creating this site)
That being said, it would be great to make videos easier to find, however I don't know how. A tag system is in place on Manipeo, intentionally mostly hidden out of sight. All tags that videos had on YouTube or Vimeo are copied to the Manipeo database, just like the video descriptions. If you search for a video using the Manipeo search function, it will look in descriptions, titles and tags. You can see the most popular tags on this page: http://manipeo.com/browse
However, to manually tag 1000+ videos is impossible for me. I originally intended to start putting useful tags on new uploads, but even those take too much effort. I am very tempted now to put any new video I find on the site straight away because it takes me only 5 seconds. Having to watch the whole video and then decide intelligently about what tags to put on would increase this effort in such a way that I would probably loose interest soon. Should someone else be willing to tag some videos in a way that makes sense I'd happily give them the tools to do so.
In the meanwhile, Manipeo is designed to help you find new videos which you might find interesting, not to re-find old ones.
On top of that there are extra tools such as 'save to playlist, watch later' to help you 'bookmark'.
As for JTV: I agree, in an ideal world there might not be need for Manipeo, and instead JTV would embed juggling videos from other sources just like Manipeo does. However, instead of asking the JTV peeps to do even more work than they've done so far, I figured it would be better for me to do my own project independently. Should JTV want to collaborate in some way I'd be happy to, and I'd encourage them (or anyone really) to attempt the same thing I have, and do it better. Until Manipeo becomes redundant, I'll try to keep on serving the latest juggling videos on the front page, and help my audience to find the videos they like.
I'd love to know more about what you think about Manipeo, as I do enjoy making this website as useful for others as possible.
embed juggling videos from other sources
.. oh, that went past me (only saw the "instagram" in main menu drop down and thought that couldn't be it.
Okay, there i s hashtags then. Hm. Okay.Should someone else be willing to tag some videos in a way that makes sense I'd happily give them the tools to do so.
Yeah, that should be standard feature or option or possible for any (accredited \registered) user, also on JTV, I plead.
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
What do you mean you saw 'instagram'? There is currently no instagram content being embeded on the site, one of the reasons being that instagram makes it impossible to do this in a format which I find appealing.
When you submit a video to Manipeo, you have the option to add tags, so that is a standard feature. I will not allow anyone to randomly add/remove tags to other videos, developing a system that keeps track of who tags what is not worth the hassle and if someone is truly motivated to help categorize the video library they are welcome to contact me. I've received a number of requests for extra categories, but nobody themselves wants to put in the work to recategorize or tag etc, including myself.
What do you mean you saw 'instagram'?
errh .. complicated: I read what Orin said:You've managed to integrate the various video platforms seamlessly
and what you said: on the front page [..] with the latest and greatest juggling videos on the web.
,
but didn't find anything about this feature ( or better even, as I know now: this main intent of manipeo ), but for an entry "instagram" in the dropdown menu "resources", I think, on the manipeo main page ( which seems to meanwhile have disappered or it's somewhere else ). So, that made me assume, this, "instagram" was what was meant with "other sites embedded", ( even though that wouldn't have fully matched "various platforms integrated" ). It doesn't anywhere explicitly read: "Manipeo collects \gathers videos from various platforms." ( only somewhere, half-hidden, on the "about"-page: With this site, at least for my juggling stuff, I can collect all of my favorites and playlists in one place.
),
so I didn't understand that at first. Guess, it must be in the word "featured", which probably makes it selfexplaining. However, ..
so, yeah, this is then very different to JTV. Downright a meta platform.
There is currently no instagram content being embeded on the site, [..] that instagram makes it impossible to do this [..]
I watched some insta-vids finding their direct link ( °mp4 or °.mpeg or °swf, i think ), in the html-source-code ( it can then be viewed with a corresponding standard media player ). Maybe(?) that's a way to include them on manipeo.
Hold on, let's give this a go...
https://instagram.com/p/Bm0cjvcFJKp/
For those with embedded videos turned on that ↑ should be embedded (you will probably need to clear your cache for it to work if it doesn't already). The video will only play once, clicking to replay will take you to Instagram, but I think is pretty reasonable.
To do that I'm simply replacing:https://www.instagram.com/p/Bm0cjvcFJKp/
with:<div><iframe width="750" height="750" src="https://www.instagram.com/p/Bm0cjvcFJKp/embed/" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
[test] https://scontent-frx5-1.cdninstagram.com/vp/956db5ebb5ebd521111d35e3cfc3b934/5C6C358A/t50.2886-16/39364364_284155305715795_3923947808855425024_n.mp4?_nc_ht=scontent-frx5-1.cdninstagram.com
Got me a direct link to the video in firefox new tab. ( But it got me an "URL signature mismatch"-error using it without the bandworm after ".mp4". )
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
Because I know some of you love juggling.tv, here is a playlist with some of the best jTV exclusive (non historical) content I was able to find!
http://manipeo.com/playlist/jtv-gold
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
That was definitely not what I posted. Let's try again
http://manipeo.com/playlist/jtv-gold
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
Oriiiiiin, your auto 'jtv becomes a link' thingy broke my posts :'(
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
Thanks, now I'll just have to live with 'people thinking I'm crazy' for the rest of time ;).
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