For the last three months i’ve been working on a web application for VRT medialab channl.tv, together with Hendrik for design,usability and creative input, and under supervision of Werner.

Channl.tv was started by Werner as an initiative to gather videos from internet and to offer them to several devices. A step into a more modern way of watching television. It was meant as a proof of concept, with Apple TV the device of choice, because it’s more or less an open platform (well, it’s a mac os x and you can write software for it).

In the meantime the web application itself has grown somewhat. It allows to group those videos in channels, to subscribe to channels, to borrow videos from other channels, and to view them in a nice and ergonomic viewer. It is also a social network (oh no, not another one ? ‘fraid so) allowing you to check out what your friends are watching.

As an initiative of the VRT, it is also a platform to share and view VRT content, which is kept up to date. This makes it an unique platform to gather content and news around a particular theme.

The whole project is slowly gathering speed, growing out of its proof of concept phase into a full-blown application. We’re going to talk roadmap next week.

It’s exciting working on this project (in Ruby on Rails), I’m grateful to Werner for bringing me on board. I’m curious to see where we will take it.

We’re going to start inviting more generously in the next few weeks, so if you’re interested don’t hesitate to apply for beta, and most of all give us your opinion (there’s a forum on http://forum.channl.tv) – you could help determining what the next hot feature will be.