The RealGuide and the Best of the Web

Adam Dubov, Sr Dir Media Properties

Over the past five years the RealGuide has been the place to promote the latest and greatest in the world of entertainment, celebrities and the best audio and video content to more than forty million RealPlayer users. The RealGuide is immediately visible as a tab within the RealPlayer.

With the release of the new RealPlayer we’ve launched a new section of the RealGuide to bring our users a daily compendium of the best and most compelling downloadable and recordable video from across the web. The RealGuide “Best of the Web’ video hub now brings you the best online video content to download or record with the new RealPlayer.

We recognize that the underlying format of web video is much less relevant to consumers these days than the content itself. With the explosion of web video content there is also a decided move to better quality, both in terms of subject matter and production value. We believe that the RealGuide “Best of the Web” video hub in the new RealPlayer can help you find the best of both.

You can spend (waste) many hours trawling through the seemingly limitless amounts of web video on the big aggregation and UGC sites and never be truly satisfied with what you’ll find. Automated popularity or mass ratings alone do not guarantee that a clip is worth your time to watch. A savvy editor’s pick, in conjunction with an active feedback loop from the audience, can craft an experience that weeds through the dross and presents the most entertaining daily gems from the truly staggering volume of web video that’s out there.

We also believe that over time consumers will continue to expect better and better web video content. Cell phone clips will always be compelling when they capture the truly unexpected or newsworthy events, but if you’re going to take the time to download or record content to view at a later time you’ll want to ensure that you’re experiencing the very best audio and video quality in your “must see, must have” clips. This will become increasingly important for offline video content burned to DVD and transferred to high resolution portable devices.

The RealGuide “Best of the Web” video page features a growing range of online video content: We’re interested in bringing our users the best funny stuff, crazy moments caught on tape, cute critters, unbelievable stunts and pranks, all manner of vehicular mayhem, bloopers and for lack of a better term, what we call WTF?! moments. If we find it entertaining, enlightening, amazing, unbelievable or absurd we believe that there’s a high probability that you will too. We’re also offering vintage and cult-classic full-length movies at two bandwidths – 300kbps for easy streaming and higher quality 700kbps to watch, enjoy and record using the new RealPlayer.

The RealGuide also provides content from trusted content partners who support RealPlayer 11, such as Metacafe, Stupid Videos, with new content partners joining us online every day.

Our goal is to create an entertaining, compelling web video “newspaper” tossed onto your virtual doorstep every morning filled with recordable video content best enjoyed with, and brought to you by, the new RealPlayer.

At RealNetworks we’re in the process of reinventing the Guide and we’re very interested in what you, the engaged, smart, discerning Internet consumer is interested in from the world of entertainment, information and most particularly, in the exploding world of web video. In the coming months we’ll be building in more interactivity, enhanced commenting, sharing, publishing and subscribing functionality around our “Best of the Web” video offering. We also welcome your feedback. We’re most interested in what web video sites you’re going to, what sites and video you like, what excites you and how we could improve the Guide. The one constant with the Internet, and with the exploding world of web video in particular, is that it’s always changing. We want to continue to bring you the “best of the best” so please, enjoy the show, keep checking back for what’s new and remember to hit the feedback link and let us know how we’re doing and what you’d like to see.