Wow. Didn’t see this one coming.
Apparently GodTube.com is back to it’s original URL (instead of kicking over to Tangle.com).
The look is simple and very stripped down and I personally had some trouble with the flash video player (I really do not like auto-play functionality either…).
A number of questions pop into my head though with this move…
Some of these are:
- Duplicating content? What about www.Tangle.com/video?
- What’s the strategy behind bringing back GodTube.com from the dead? Did the existing brand-equity loss from GodTube to Tangle be that bad? It would seem so (see graphs below)
- Long term plans? Splitting the business?
Check these graphs out about their declining traffic patterns:
Regardless of what they are planning on something definitely needs to be done about their sloping traffic… the graphs need to point the other way!
Hoping for the best GodTube/Tangle… prayer might be a good strategy too.
What do you guys think?
could it possible be that you can find everything they have on youtube?
I wonder if each of those spikes in the graph is from when you blog about it
“What’s the strategy behind bringing back GodTube.com from the dead?”
Maybe they thing it’s Jesus?
***groaning at my own bad reference***
thing = think
I also hate not having an ‘edit’ button.
“With Easter approaching, we thought it only proper that we’d have a little resurrection of our own…”
The autoplay is bad, but how about the google text ads right at eye level and above the fold. Even youtube doesn’t do that…Sounds more like they are trying to cash in on a ”good” url.
It would be nice if they included a way for you to actually search for videos. You can’t just wrap Jesus around poor interface and design and expect people to accept it.
I’ve never been able to take Godtube seriously. But then again, bad knockoffs make me sick.
For the record, I’m all about copying and building on the work of others. When you duplicate a product, make it suck a little bit more, and hope for market share is what makes me angry.
At the same time, I’ve done it, so who am I pointing fingers at?
have no idea what they’re doing… i just know tangle is ridiculous in so many ways. My daughter (she’s 10) wanted a tangle account, so i signed up first to check it out… in less than a week my tangle inbox was full of spam from girls wanting to “get to know me” and people in the africa wanting to transfer me money…
It seems to me they went too far in trying to create another Christian social media platform in Tangle. The user experience was rough and Christian’s don’t seem to want alternate social media as much as integration with existing platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. I hope that they are able to bounce back and that a more simple UI and singular focus on video content and sharing will help.
The auto-play gave me scary myspace flashbacks…
I REALLY dislike autoplay videos. Interrupts the other things I was trying to look for and wastes my limited bandwidth.
Because almost all tangle’s/godtube’s features are copies from other sites and they aren’t doing these things better than the other sites, i think there is a low limit to how much they can grow. Since they tend to feature material that is Christian and/or right wing political they are unlikely to get a big user group outside the right wing christian demographic and kids whose parents won’t let them on the real youtube or facebook. Everybody else is going to go elsewhere where there’s a bigger range of content and a better user experience.
Uggh.
It’s a branding nightmare. At least Tangle looked good. I really like a lot of their content, especially things like the Casting Crowns teaching series, but why piggyback off the fame of another brand’s name.
Switching back after switching seems like brand suicide and rather bad mojo for potential advertisers to boot.
As a parent, I really like the idea of having a “safe” version of YouTube. BUT when you’re trying to subvert the culture who really has time for safe?
I am also not a huge fan of reinventing wheels; although I wish Youtube would develop some parental controls that actually work.
I’d be much happier developing a better Youtube strategy for my organization than having to manage accounts in multiple places.
GOOO!
I remember checking out Tangle when everything switched. I even sent the peeps there an email offering some tips on how to make the site mo betta. I never received an answer.
For me, this is another case of someone attempting to re-invent the wheel.
As far as strategy of raising from the dead: maybe they’re gearing up for Easter!
I don’t visit the site. And I won’t. As a matter of fact- I avoid Tangle/GodTube all together. Sorry folks, another duplicate video sharing site just isn’t worth it.
I guess I just never liked the idea from the beginning. Wouldn’t it just be better to engage with the rest of the world in places like YouTube and Vimeo?
I was disappointed when they changed GodTube to Tango. I thought GodTube sounded better. I did not like the fact that they were trying to be more like the other social sites out there, but then that does seem to be the trend these days: blend in with the rest of the croud. It has gotten to the point that you can’t tell a Christian from anyone else. God called us out of the world. We are not of the world if we are in Him.
Anyway, I am glad GodTube is back. My guess is that Tangle will become the “social” side of the park while Godtube becomes the video sharing side. Just a guess.
I figured this would happen eventually. I run http://www.thejesustv.com and have been watching Godtube > Tangle > Godtube since it began.
Jereme
sweet. checking it out.