Voddler Has 300K Users, Here’s How They Can Get 300M

Streaming movie service Voddler announced today that they’ve reached the 300,000 user milestone. As a recent invite recipient, I’ve had a chance to watch a few movies and play around with the service. Here’s the top three things Voddler should be using their venture money for:

1. The installation process and the application itself needs to be much, much lighter. In the same way that other streaming media service in Sweden strives to provide a better user experience than piracy, the journey from invite email to opening credits should be less clicks than fingers on one hand. The goal experience should have a “wow” factor, as in, “Wow, that was fast.” This also applies to the way the application takes over the desktop, single-function iPhone style. We all need to be able to minimize when the boss walks by.

2. On the topic of user experience, you need to be able to click through menus. Nobody should have to use Tab, ever.

One of these is an easy developmental fix, the other will take some more serious code work. The last thing Voddler has to work on is on the business side, and is the most difficult.

3. Voddler needs to offer more movies, duh. At the moment, Eddie Murphy’s 1986 classic The Golden Child is among the best available. Of course getting expensive licenses from movie studios whose mentality about online streaming is where record labels were in 2005, is easier said than done. But things may be changing for the better, Warner Bros. has recently tightened their grip on new releases while making more streaming content available for US based Netflix. This could be a great opportunity for Voddler (whose long term ambitions haven’t be made completely clear), as European Netflix clone Lovefilm is sorely lacking in streaming quality and quantity.

That’s all there is to it. Make a completely intuitive user interface, maybe throw in some social features for good measure. Then set up partnerships to make sure every classic cult film of the last 107 years in available for one-click streaming. If Voddler follows these recommendations there’s a good chance a huge IPO is in their future, and then they could replace Eddie as the Chosen One.

Looking for a job? Hiring? Check out the ArcticStartup Job Board

3 Comments

Add your comment
  1. Harri

    Is it just me or is the Voddler UI a direct ripoff of the Xbox Media Center (now Boxee) UI?

    Also, I tried watching Hard Boiled last night on Voddler. First I had to look through 3 minutes of boring ads (too many) and then the movie itself only had Swedish/Danish subtitles. Oh well, I guess this is a way for me to learn better Swedish.

    I really wish Voddler would implement their premium service as a subscription service a la Spotify and not have the user pay for the premium films on a film-by-film basis.

  2. User

    The Voddler seems to have some serious problems, while many users (most of the users?) are not able to log in with their latest release. There are over hundred bug reports about the problem on getsatisfaction.com (http://getsatisfaction.com/voddler/topics/client_login_error).

Add your comment

We all love to debate and discuss the issues and that's fine as long as we play nice. Please don't use your company name or sign comments, especially with your url, since that comes across as spam. Preferably use your real name or initials. Thanks. Avatars are enabled by Gravatar

Required

Required, will not be published

Notify me by email when new comments are added