I'm a veteran pro-vlogger that's a relatively early adopter of DTube and I'd like to offer some constructive feedback to hopefully make DTube a blazing success...
Yes, I'm aware that DTube is still in beta, it's pretty good for being in beta but here's my thoughts...
1) The Uploader is a mess! Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Some video files it seems to arbitrarily reject. It doesn't work at all on Google Chrome for me, it works better on Firefox and best on Opera. I'm pretty tech savvy and I still find the up loader quite frustrating to use!What's badly needed is a Youtube-to-DTube migrator - in fact the long term success of the site probably depends more on this than anything else. Youtube's uploader works flawlessly so I'd much rather upload to Youtube and then migrate to DTube. Vid.me grew rapidly because you could import a video with just a click of a button. Bitchute has this feature and it works pretty consistently so there must be a way to do it. I would pay for this feature!
2) DTube's UI for the viewers is quite good. The videos seem to load pretty quickly and consistently. I appreciate the time stamping feature. The watch later button is helpful. I especially appreciate the night mode feature! The search function seems to work pretty good. The commenting function seems to work well.
3) I appreciate being able to watch and upload videos of any length, the other free speech platforms put limits on the length so this is an important advantage of DTube.
4) What about notifications? I'd like to be notified when I get comments on my videos site.
5) There's a lot of room for improvement with the HTML video embedding feature; the thumbnail slide for the embedded video is pixelated and looks awful!
I have a popular blog and I would like to embed my DTube videos on my blog but they don't look good! I love Vimeo's embedding features - try to duplicate their feature set.I was an early user of Youtube and they had great HTML embed features early on, it's one of the most important functions of a video platform.
6) Playlists are a crucial part of a video platform. So users can organize the videos they want to watch and for search-ability. Youtube's playlist feature is great. Just copy their playlist function.
7) I appreciate being able to upload 720P but I spend a tremendous amount of time to produce high quality 1080P videos. Will the website ever support 1080P?
8) The trending tags in the lower left corner don't seem to change. It would be great if there was a dynamic trending feature like Gab has.
9) Joining DTube/Steemit is a hurdle! I've been evangelizing DTube/Steemit to my audience yet very few have joined it because you have to go through Steemit's user filtering process which takes like a week. DTube's user base would grow MUCH faster with instantaneous account creation using Facebook connect BUT require that users formally join Steemit to upload content.
10) On Steemit articles why don't DTube videos auto-embed the way Youtube or Vimeo video auto-embed? Inserting the Youtube slide image on Steemit and linking to DTube is a pretty awkward solution.
11) Ecommerce business model - this is a longer term thing - if you really want to make DTube profitable offer an eCommerce function. I remember several years ago Youtube was going to compete with Amazon by offering in-video shopping. Allowing users to set up items for sale and letting viewers make purchases while shopping would be especially awesome if it were a Steem based ecommerce marketplace.
12) Subscriber support model - Another business model that would work is a Patreon-style monthly support. Let viewers sign on to support creators. Charge a 10%-15% fee.
13) Content filtering settings beyond just the NSFW checkbox are a REALLY good idea! Since D.Tube is an alt-tech free-speech platform it's going to attract some more extremist content that a lot of people aren't going to want to see on the frontpage.
I'd like to be able to customize what I see on the site with content filtering settings. Maybe I'd like to be able to filter out all political or news content or I don't want to see any videos with Trump in the title, description or tags.Gab has really been smeared by the mainstream as a hateful "alt right" platform because often the most extreme content is most visible, the option of customized content filtering based upon user preferences would make D.Tube a lot more palatable to the mainstream! This is really good idea if you want to avoid severe demonization by the mainstream media and harassment from SJWs.
14) It looks like you've started working on an Android app. In my view this is less important. I'd encourage you guys to figure out the other things first like the uploader.
Finally...
DTube is missing a badly needed FAQ or instructional section. There's a number of things I'm curious about...
- Will my DTube account ever get an analytics section? Can I see where in the world my videos are being viewed? Watch time? Which of my videos are most popular? How are my viewers finding my videos?
- Will I ever be able to see the view counts on my videos? Or is that contrary to the Steemit ethos?
- If I understand Steem correctly once I publish something it's on the blockchain forever OR is there a way to unpublish or delete my content?
- Do I have to publish a video as soon as it's uploaded? Or is there a way to upload, make some edits and then publish?
- What exactly are the limits on content on DTube? I know it's a free speech platform BUT there must be some content that's not allowed like porn. What about uploading Hollywood movies or TV series? Or extreme political content or "hate speech"?
- What copyright restrictions are there? If I upload someone else's content what happens?
- What are the legal implications of using DTube? Am I committing a (benign and perhaps not even unethical) crime by unwittingly distributing copyrighted content on DTube?
- What about privacy? If I use an anonymous account user name on DTube how easy is it for someone to determine my real identity? Does DTube use any encryption technology?
- What might get me kicked off DTube or Steemit?
These questions maybe answered somewhere on Steemit but they should also be addressed in a conspicuous FAQ section on the D.Tube website itself.
I know it may sound like I'm asking for a lot here but there's tremendous potential for D.Tube to become a huge website and a bastion of free speech online! If you guys take this seriously and build it into the website that it could be you'll be richly rewarded. The site has massive potential and it's never been easier to raise venture or angel capital (especially in the crypto biz) so I would encourage you to raise the funds you need so that you can hire the talent needed so you can make this the amazing platform that it can be.
Keep up the good work!