Vodio Brings Social Video To You [Review]

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Your network and their videos
Your network and their videos

As a great man once sang, there’s 57 channels and nothing on). But that was before iOS and apps came along. Now you don’t need channels. You need something like Vodio.

What’s Vodio? The simple answer is: Flipboard for video. Again. Wait, though, isn’t Flipboard the Flipboard for video? Flipboard can handle video content with the best of them, but Vodio is video and nothing else. It does a good job of showcasing stuff for you to watch. It might even find something you’re actually interested in. It’s been around for iPad for a while, but the iPhone version is relatively new.

The key feature isn’t the themed and curated “channels” of video content that you can browse using an animated grid. It’s the social connection.

Vodio works best if you plug it in to your social networks. Then it can see what your contacts/friends/followees etc are posting there, and import those videos as things to watch inside Vodio.

Rather him than me

Vodio is fast and easy to use. All the controls make sense from the start, so there’s very little learning to do. Moving from one clip to the next is simple, as is sharing a clip you’ve found with the usual list of people and networks you might want to share it with.

One thing that’s missing is search, which is a pity. It would be nice to be able to type in a search phrase and watch results inside Vodio, no matter which video site they’re hosted on. Editing your chosen channels is a little fiddly (you’ll find an editable list under “Your Vodio”, which you get to by hitting the plus button from the main grid page.

Share and share alike

If you want it to, Vodio will automatically post links to everything you watch on your Twitter feed or Facebook wall – thankfully this isn’t enabled by default, and the app makes a point of asking you in advance if you’d like to switch it on. You can say “No.”

Vodio is by no means the only app in this field, but it is a perfectly good one, and the social network integration is thoughtfully implemented.

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