What is Wurl?
Wurl is a new Internet platform for “video following”. With Wurl, your fans can follow your videos on Facebook and on their smartphones. Each time you release a video on the web, your network of video followers receives it in the Wurl app running on their smartphone, Facebook or the web.
How do Wurl and Facebook work together?
Wurl provides a desktop-accessible Facebook app. The Wurl Facebook app includes “Video Feed” - a constantly updating list of the videos that Wurl users and their friends watch and the Video Pages that they follow. Wurl’s Facebook app also includes Video Pages where fans can browse and follow any online video series. Video Pages provide a bridge between any online video series and social sharing on Facebook. Take a look at this sample video page: wrl.it/y/mashable.
Wurl’s Facebook app and mobile apps (Android & iOS) have integrated Facebook’s Open Graph. As Wurl users watch videos and follow Video Pages, Wurl generates Open Graph actions that appear as stories on Facebook’s Timeline and News Feed. As these stories travel through the social graph, friends become Followers, expanding a publisher’s network of loyal viewers.
What can I include in my Video Page?
Many web applications are available for end users to “curate” their own collections of individual videos. Wurl is different. We designed Wurl to let publishers curate their videos. Wurl connects consumers with the publishers they trust to receive a constant stream of videos that the publisher releases.
Any publisher can create a Wurl Video Page. Video Pages can be created using various syndication feed types: from a Vimeo or YouTube Channel or Playlist, from an MRSS feed, from a Brightcove or Ooyala playlist, or from an iTunes video podcast. Video Pages can be created from just about any online video collection.
Publishers can add their own video series to the Wurl index using the Wurl Add Feed Wizard. Once a video series is added to the Wurl index, our crawlers will automatically create a Video Page and keep it updated as new videos are released. We don’t copy any videos. All video playback is from the publisher’s own host or CDN. There’s no effort required for publishers to keep their Video Page up to date. Followers of your Video Page will be updated automatically with each new video you release.
What’s a “Follow” button?
“Follow” buttons provide a way for you to let website visitors become video followers. Place your Wurl Follow button on any web page so that your fans can click to follow. – Visit our Button Generator to get a Wurl Follow button for your video series.
What’s a “wrl.it link”?
Wurl provides unique wrl.it links (short URLs) to video publishers – one for each Wurl Video Page. Wrl.it links enable one-click following of any Video Page. A wrl.it link looks like this: http://wrl.it/y/MyShow.
Publishers typically place their wrl.it link in email and text messages, in social network posts – even offline. When a viewer loads your wrl.it link in a browser, your Video Page is displayed.
What are Video-Followers?
Video-Followers are your fans. They are the most loyal viewers of your videos. Video-Followers want to receive every new video you publish.
With Wurl, video-followers have quick, effortless access to your videos from Facebook or their smartphones using the Wurl app. When a fan follows your videos, every new video you publish is automatically accessible from their Wurl app.
What are the benefits of having Video-Followers?
Video Followers will watch more of your videos. Lots more. Here’s why:
- Effortless Viewing – Searching for videos is difficult and time-consuming, but Video-Following makes it easy. Your followers get super-simple access to your videos with just a few clicks.
- Open Graph – Wurl is the only open, hosting-independent platform for video publishers to have their videos promoted through the Facebook Open Graph. The Open Graph may be the most important tool ever created for online video promotion.
- Create your own network – Every new video-follower increases your network of loyal viewers. As your video-followers invite their friends, your network grows even more.
How can I attract Video Followers?
To get started, Wurl enable your videos here. We’ll automatically email you a custom wrl.it link that you can circulate online – in social network posts, emails, text messages, etc.
Get a custom Wurl “Follow” button and and put it on your website, Facebook page, YouTube channel – anywhere your viewers might see it.
How can I use social networks to attract more followers?
A friend’s endorsement may be the best way to attract new viewers to a video series. Facebook’s Open Graph has created a remarkable way for Wrl.it links to spread from friend to friend. Here’s an example of how it works:
- Karl clicks a wrl.it link in his Facebook News Feed to start following the video feed from the new movie “The Avengers”.
- Karl’s new “video follow” is automatically posted to his Facebook Timeline and friends’ News Feeds.
- Alex is Karl’s friend on Facebook and, based on Karl’s endorsement, Alex clicks the post he sees in his News Feed and becomes a follower of “The Avengers”.
- Alex’s new “video-follow” is posted to the Facebook News Feed of his friends.
- ..and so on
Video-following is a powerful tool for publishers. Each new follower becomes part of the publisher’s network of loyal viewers. Followers typically watch many times more videos than casual viewers.
How do I start using Wurl?
It’s easy for video publishers to use Wurl. Just tell Wurl where your video is hosted using our Add Feed Wizard.