Smart Clips and Charming Brits Power ChannelFlip

By 07/02/2008
Smart Clips and Charming Brits Power ChannelFlip
ChannelFlip launched last week as the self-proclaimed “first video magazine for men” in the UK (Inquisitr coverage via textually tv).

The site divides its three minute videos into tech, film, and games (it’s true, guys are that simple), and 200 installments are already in its archives. A trial run earlier this year attracted 150,000 viewers and 1 million views in a month, which likely prompted Intel to sponsor the launch.

So, this is no fly-by-night operation, not to mention the “six figure backing” that the company claims to have raised.

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That makes sense given the experiences of ChannelFlip’s two co-foundersWil Harris is a tech writer and entrepreneur who’s a regular on TWiT and has started successful websites like bit-tech.net, and Justin Gayner is an experienced journalist and television executive, having served as Commercial Director of QI Ltd, the producer of the BBC TV show QI. On top of it all, the pair are also capable hosts of ChannelFlip’s tech and film sections, respectively.

This is actually more of a relaunch for ChannelFlip; there’s coverage of a fall 2007 launch on Harris’s blog and Techcrunch UK. The relaunch also helps explain the large amount of content, which the team seems to be cycling back through as they ramp up their production of new videos. This especially makes sense for the mostly-evergreen tech and games archives, but film will need to keep updating or relying on trusty lists like Top 10 Film Fatties:

Things seem be off to a flying start for ChannelFlip, and for good reason.  The videos are slick, thoughtful, and full of those British accents that make everything sound better.

While we’d question the time ChannelFlip spends on quick preview videos of the actual videos being released on the site each day, the main show topics are well chosen and worthwhile. This is also evidenced by recent coverage on TUAW for a MacBook RAM-boosting tutorial and on BoingBoing and Gizmodo for this Dalek toy / surveillance robot hack video:

There’s no shortage of competition in ChannelFlip’s space, but they certainly have the team, skills and resources to carve out significant territory.  It also doesn’t hurt that they seem to be well connected and promoted in the blogosphere.  And then there are the accents.  Even if the UK is the prime market for the show, saying the same tech news as your competitors except with a British twang is a great way to attract a foreign audience. 

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