Down the hall, you can hear the little voice. It sounds like the voice from the movie The Fly. “Help me” it says…
Why? Well, because ShowYou has started to show up on iPads throughout the office and it is the worse offender of time suck ever. Once you launch the app, there is always ‘just one more’ video you need to watch. It goes way beyond looking around the YouTube or Vimeo sites. It may even be harder to close the ShowYou app than it was to turn off the TV when MTV first started to air… back when it too was all about videos.
The ShowYou app is Free and it’s Universal. There is an option to sign up for an account so you too can post videos, like and comment. Upon launching, there is a variety of video screen capture images on the screen, each with a bit of information on the subject matter. Sweeping up/down takes you through time so you can see what was posted days ago compared to minutes. Sweeping across the screen shows you where multiple videos became available around the same time. As you sweep and tap-to-view, it becomes apparent why some call this the Flipboard for video, the app is very visual with just enough info to help you decide if you want to view or continue on.
If you want to look at videos grouped by subject or content, ShowYou is happy to do that. There is a row of subject groups across the top of the screen for very general groupings. You can also sweep the far left side of the screen to the right or use the icon in the upper left corner to uncover a long list of video groups. The list includes things like: Art & Design, Comedy, Film, Knowledge, Music, Nature & Science, News, Sports, Tech and Viral. In each of those is sub groups like News has CBC News, Charlie Rose, Huffington Post and PBS Newshour amongst many more.
There is also a search in the upper right corner. The results can be sorted y Most Relevant, Most Popular and Most Recent.
Choosing a topic, then specific sub area changes the left bar to a list of folks following that channel… or ‘play list’. Hide the bar by sweeping the videos window over it, or choose an individual to see what they have posted. If your logged into your ShowYou account, to be sure you don’t miss anything, you can add videos to Watch Later then view via the option at the bottom of the screen.
Tapping a video opens a pop up window of the video, a list of who has posted the video and comments. The videos have the option to play full screen and stream to your AppleTV2. ShowYou also has additional info on videos when the content is provided. Watch a video, close the window, sweep your finger, tap another video, watch it… there is no exit!
