This is great, definitely going to use this. Have you guys run into any copyright issues so far? Do you expect to? Or is it a non-issue since you're just sourcing other people's content?
@dannyfreed thanks Danny, we source all our content from 3rd parties and don't host any video on our servers. If a copyright holder issues a DMCA take down notice they do so to the site it's hosted on and it's no longer available to view in our app/platform. We typically have multiple video sources for the same play so if that happens (and it does with NFL clips, rarely if ever with NBA/NHL) we can swap it in our system for a new one - usually with an official clip from the league, team, or network page.
@alexmoazed right now we are focused on providing users with the experience of watching the best plays of the day and summarizing games they missed. Typically videos from TV broadcasts fulfill this use case where as videos from the stadium are geared more towards "what was it like to be at the game". That being said, anyone can submit a video to swish on Twitter using the hashtag #swishio and we plan to add functionality to see all the different videos of the same plays.
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@arilitan Really enjoy using your application! I was just curious how you matchup the highlights to the stats? Is this a manual process at this point or are you able to match these from meta data within the highlight content you source?
@jcauffield@arilitan Monetization for standalone mobile apps is incredibly broken. You either need to put intrusive ads on it, which will absolutely compromise a product like this. OR get to a large enough scale where you can pursue a more native ads based approach that doesn't compromise the experience. But getting to that scale would require outside investment, and we're on the fence about whether raising VC for a mobile ads based business is a good idea or not. So if Swish is an MVP proof of concept, then figuring out the right path forward into a stable revenue generating business is the challenge right now.
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@alwaysbcoding@arilitan Thanks for the insight. This can be a tricky decision and determining the correct business model can be a major factor in whether your business thrives or dies. I love what you guys have done so far and look forward to seeing where you go with it. I have a couple thoughts on where I would see a lot of value add in your product and would be happy to explore those with you. Feel free to DM me on twitter if you would like to talk more.
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As a European PHer working in sports, I find it continually frustrating that apps like this continually disregard soccer. The different rights packages etc might make it challenging, but US startups in the sports sector that just gloss over billions of users worldwide to focus on US-centric "top four" sports is becoming laughable. There are reasons, sure, (know your niche) and all that, but I'd be interested to hear why this doesn't feature the biggest sport in the world?
@nathenmcvittie The data model for soccer is significantly more complex than it is for the NBA, NHL, and NFL. The key thing that lets Swish work is that every video clip is tied to the statistical information that backs each individual play, which lets us link each video to the players and teams involved. In order to correctly model soccer you essentially need to model every team in the world, because you have tournaments like the FA Cup with hundreds of participants. You also have things like the Champions League where teams from different leagues will compete against eachother in games. You also have to take national teams into account. If I want a highlight feed of Michael Bradley's best plays from the past year I would have to join his highlights from the US national team with his highlights from Toronto F.C. etc...
That's not to say this is impossible to do or anything, if you wanted to tackle soccer, you could start by just modeling specific leagues like the EPL and MLS and ignoring champions league, and national teams and then slowly lacing those in later. However, Ari and I built Swish on our own, with no outside help or funding. So it's more a logistical thing of how much additional work it would be to add soccer than it is a statement about being biased towards US sports.
Note that I'm a huge soccer fan, and agree the app would work incredibly well for soccer.
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@AriLitan Looks great, love that you been able to hone into where the attention is. I feel this could be the next evolution of Sports Broadcasting. How long did it take you and your team to execute on this ?
@roulse thanks Roulse! Swish has evolved through many iterations over better part of the past year. We stared with a web based NBA.com highlight search engine which then morphed into our mobile app.
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This app looks really cool! Any plans to add college sports? I would love to see college football on here!
Cool idea. But are you aware of Swish AB, a Swedish mobile payment company? They have a trademark on their name, not sure if it is also an international one, though. Nonetheless, if you're planning to grow in Sweden, your brand recognition will practically be zero since everyone knows the payment company under that name.
This has the potential to be really addicting. I can't honestly watch the entirety of a game but I'll watch highlights all day. How do you guys get around licensing issues? You can't just show a clip from a game if a network owns the rights to the game.
@evankimbrell Hey Evan, great question! Right now we source our clips from 3rd parties that allow you to embed their content. When we embed videos in our app we fully comply by the terms of service of those platforms. Also many of the clips come directly from the leagues/networks/team accounts that do own the rights to those clips.
For example, if you use the app you'll notice that on top of each clip from twitter/reddit is the username, avatar, and comment from the tweet/reddit post. When you tap the username it takes you to their twitter/reddit profile, tap the twitter/reddit icon it takes you to the permalink of the tweet/reddit post, tap the Vine icon we deeplink you to the video on the Vine app etc.
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