Often described as “crowd sourced television”, online community site Redux is quickly becoming the most addictive entertainment experience on the web. With this morning’s announcement of Twitter and Facebook integration, it looks like the community’s content is about to increase tenfold. Like many other sites, users can import their Twitter and Facebook streams into their profile feeds; however, unlike other social feature integrations, there’s a catch. Rather than simply spitting out a stream of text with bit.ly links, the service converts URLS into video thumbnails and site previews. This conversion is sure to improve Twitter and Facebook-based discovery.
Before you naysay preview thumbnails, think about all of your friends who use phrases like “this is so awesome” and “LOL” before sharing a link. The problem with these vague descriptors is that they don’t tell you if you’ll enjoy what lies ahead. Those descriptors don’t even tell you if you’ve already seen this site or whether it’s appropriate to view at work. Redux takes the guesswork out of the stream and lets us know what we’re in for ahead of time. The company is currently completing a grid-based prototype design. While Redux currently offers a Digg-like list interface, previewing sites may become even easier. The new Redux design places emphasis on images to create an entertainment dashboard. (Similar to Boxee’s design but without the installation.)
Redux’s ease-of-use coupled with entertaining channels like StandUp Comedy, Trollz and Japan, make it a great community to unwind with after work. And if the entertainment aspects don’t convince you, you may be interested in it for security reasons. Earlier this month ReadWriteWeb covered the return of the Koobface worm to Twitter and Facebook. Despite the companies’ best efforts to filter out malicious URLs, users were fooled into downloading malware. Redux might just be the safety precaution you need.
Rather than forcing you to blindly click bit.ly links, Redux offers a safer and more efficient way to explore the stream. While the site is currently in private beta, the first 500 lucky ReadWriteWeb readers can register by clicking this link.
