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Zync: a new way to share videos

Today, we are happy to announce Zync, a video sharing plug-in for Yahoo! Messenger.

Like a lot of people, I tend to watch a lot of videos online. Most of what I watch, I share with my friends. No big surprise. Sometimes I’ll email a video to my parents and then call them later and ask them if they saw it. With my friends (more connected than my folks), I’ll fire off the link in Yahoo! Messenger. Then I wait. Occasionally I’ll type “did it load?” or “are you watching it yet?” More often, I’ll have to type “did you see the snowboard jump yet?” or “let me know when you see the puppet try to login”. It’s kinda difficult and not fun. If two people are standing by my laptop watching a video with me, we talk, pause, rewind, and chat about it, together.

So we built Zync: a plug-in for Yahoo! Messenger that allows videos from Yahoo!, YouTube, and Google to be shared in a synchronous manner. To the right is a screenshot of Zync in action. It allows people to watch videos together with their friends, in sync and in real time. Instead of just IMing URLs and waiting for friends to watch, Zync allows the users to converse about a video (pausing, jumping back, and watching together with a friend). Both people control the playback and both videos stay in sync.

Want to dive in and get started? You can check out this IM-it button:

You can check out more information about the plug-in and how to download it on the Zync website. If you are a little savvy and want to embed the IM-it button on your website or automatically embed the IM-it button with Greasemonkey, check out Zync on the Yahoo! Developer Network.