Smart Channels De-Coded: Organizing Your Streams

Is your tuner overwhelming? When you first log-in to Frequency each morning, do you have to scroll and scroll through channels, topics and connected social network icons in order to find what you want to watch? The engineers behind Frequency have the answer to your organizational troubles with a handy tool allowing you to fold feeds into one manageable stream.

For example, all your news stations can be bundled together so you can quickly see what the big boys at CNN, AP, and BBC are up to.  Or, maybe you’re following a bunch of indie feeds – from alternative music to independent film – and you’d like to thumb through all these channels at once to see what’s new.  You can. Simply create a new channel — a customized channel you can call anything you want that gathers all your related feeds into one bucket. So, every time you log-in to Frequency, you’ll find a tidy Tuner and what once were 10 channels have now become one super charged channel – fine-tuned to show only the sources you’re most interested in.

These personally curated channels holding a collection of feeds are called Smart Channels.  Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to make them (extra points for printing out this list and pasting it up on your cubicle wall):

1.    Spiff Up. Figure out ahead of time what channels you want to bundle together. Ask yourself: Which of my stations relate? What do I watch the most and how do I want to organize those videos? For ease of Smart Channel creation, I recommend dragging and dropping your related Tuner icons so they appear next to each another. (Just pick up the entity with your mouse and re-order it.  For example, all my connected social network accounts appear side-by-side, followed by my news channels – a pleasing experience, visually.)

2.    Build It. Click on a channel in the to-be-bundled section of your now structured Tuner. Load the feed. Click on the arrow in the feed’s header area (i.e. where it reads CNN). This expands a sub menu, where you can select the option to create a “New Smart Channel.” Name your Smart Channel in the provided title bar. (Get creative, get lengthy – these are your customized channels and no one else will ever see what you call them.)

3.    Fill It. Click on the next icon in your tuner and expand the feed’s sub menu. Your newly created Smart Channel appears by name as well as an option to create yet another Smart Channel. Since you’ve already lined up your icons and decided what you want to bundle, go ahead and fold this feed into your first Smart Channel by selecting “Add to Smart Channel.”

4.    Start Over. Changed your mind? You can easily wipe the slate clean by deleting your Smart Channel.  On your Tuner, click the minus (“-“) sign and it’s gone – the Smart Channel is gone but the channels you’re following are still there. For example, I’ve got four channels in my Morning News Smart Channel and I’ve deleted Morning News; however, those four channels now appear as individual icons in my tuner – back to how it was before I created the Smart Channel. You can also remove a feed from a Smart Channel without removing the actual Smart Channel.  When you are watching the Smart Channel, click on the arrow next to the name above the playlist, roll over any of the channel’s contents and you’ll see an X mark next to each feed. Click the X to dump that feed from your Smart Channel.

So now you created Smart Channels, but what if you want to watch just one feed within the bundle? Click on the arrow next to the Smart Channel name above the playlist and there you’ll see all the feeds it contains. Click any feed to watch videos only from that source.

You can add as many Smart Channels as you’d like to your Tuner, and each Smart Channel can consist of up to 12 entities. That means you can bundle together 2 through 12 different topics, channels as well as your social feeds and YouTube networks.  What you can’t bundle are Your Highlights (this is considered your homepage by us) and our Top 25 – a selectively picked list of videos showing the best and brightest of the Internet. Additionally, you can’t put your Favorites and Saved folders into a Smart Channel. Everything else, however – all the topics, channels, people, Facebook, Twitter, et al. are fair game for bundling.

Now that you’re a Smart Channel aficionado, you’re ready to turn your Tuner into a customized work horse of carefully collected feeds. What once was a jumble of independent stations is now one elegant, highly concentrated icon in your Tuner.

-Audrey
QA Tester

(Final Note: You can easily spot a Smart Channel by its unique Tuner icon – there will be four mini icons in one. So, if you’ve got four feeds together, four icons appear in each corner of the bigger icon, illustrating your personal collection.)

One Million Frequency Topics at Your Fingertips

9 a.m. Friday morning. You’re logged-in at work but already in weekend mode (think my body is in the office, but my mind is on the dance floor). You’re surfing through your Tuner and checking out your channels, your Facebook videos, your faithful favorites via your connected YouTube feed. Maybe you’ve spent a few minutes scanning the news or watching music videos, and, during your video escapades, you came across the coolest clip you’ve ever seen and you need more of its kind.

If you’re as obsessive as I am, when you find something you really like, you can’t stop watching it. You just can’t get enough of whatever interests you – you want more and more. Your blood is pumping; you’re ready to go.  The work day is just starting, but before you can do anything else, you must find another video. How, you ask; how can I watch more videos related to the video I love? The answer is easy: Topics. Frequency topics (which we estimate to be in the million count) are added not daily, not hourly, but by the minute to our video catalog. Our topics stream video pulled from a variety of different sources that pertain to a keyword.

With Frequency topics you can find videos related to something – however esoteric it might be — that you’re interested in. Let’s say, for example, you’re obsessed with whirling dervishes. You can’t stop watching those twirling skirts, the sacred-sounding Sufi music in the background. You cannot get enough whirling dervishes in your life and you want more. We know what you want; with Frequency, there’s a topic for Whirling Dervishes.

To make it as easy as possible for you to find more of what you want to watch, here are three ways to pull topics on Frequency:

1.    Click Search in the header and type in what you’re interested in (i.e. crop circles, snake handling, Zumba dancing, Houdini, vibrational sound healing, crocodiles, whirling dervishes). Once your search returns results, channels, topics and people will appear in the left column and videos will show in the center – all related to the term you specified.

2.    Go to the Guide and check out our Trending and Featured Topics’ sections. From Wall Street and Barack Obama to Johnny Depp and The Avengers – you’ll get a list of popular topics, meaning hot terms or people in the news — things and events happening right now at this very hour. Under each Featured Topic in our Guide, you’ll see a video count relaying how many videos have been added within the last 24 hours. (While you were sleeping, we were busy gathering the latest videos from around the world related to a topic.)

3.    Get Specific with a video – go deeper into what you love by clicking on the tags that show under the video in play mode. For example, I really liked this video and now I want to watch more videos like this. Under the video, just above the description, there are tags – these are terms that pull a related topic. When I click these links, a stream returns with topics associated with that tag. I can then follow that topic, and, when videos come in from any source — meaning any channel, any person or any feed related to that topic, I’ll have new videos to enjoy.

-Audrey
QA Team

The Frequency App Reviewed by Cooliphoneipadapps.com

Many of us are visual people. We understand information more readily from watching and hearing in vivid color and sound, rather than reading in black and white. News can be compacted into a short video thus giving you the gist of a story quickly and clearly without eye strain or boredom. Realizing the many benefits of up-to-the minute, attactive videos, Frequency has created an iPad app delivering a plethora of video news mirroring its web site at frequency.com.

Quite simply, Frequency is a video service which you customize completely to suit your tastes with interesting clips in all areas of life such as entertainment, news, sports, technology and loads more. Additionally, these videos are dished out to you in real time portraying current news. You can even see just how fresh is your news source as the time of delivery is noted on each video thumbnail. After you have enjoyed your sharp and smoothly played video, you may share it with family and friends via Facebook or Twitter, or even mail the link itself. Tap the heart if you loved the clip, or tap the folder if you’d prefer to take a more in-depth look at it later.

Below is a snapshot of the many features of this engrossing video aggregator of news and entertainment iPad app:

• Watch 1,000 channels of online video, or follow your favorite blog as its own video stream
• Stay up to the minute on topics that are trending right now
• Get every video your friends post on Facebook and Twitter
• Quickly access anything you are following in your personalized Tuner
• View a stream of video from all your channels in Your Highlights
• Go full screen or use AirPlay to watch on your TV

Launch Frequency to find a large list of Channels, headed by Frequency Top 25 stories on the left. Swipe down through the channels to find the sources you love and choose to Follow (tap to add to preferred viewing list) on your personalized Tuner on the top of the screen. Alternately, to remove a channel from your Follow list, tap the Unfollow button next to that channel’s icon. But, hold on here, these are not the only news channels!

You will see an arrow next to Channels which when tapped will provide you with a Categories list to further help you find exactly the news you seek. In addition to this long list which includes animation, automotive, business, comedy, cyber culture, movies, travel, etc, you will see Featured, Trending and Social videos. The Categories and Channels offerings are quite generous and you are probably going to find there is far more content here than you have time to watch! At any time, you may change your view mode to list or grid. Each video will have a short description underneath reflecting its content.

The Settings icon will allow you to connect with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, in addition to signing in to your Frequency.com account if you already have one. You do not need to open an account in order to begin enjoying this app. However, if you also watch Frequency videos on your computer, then you will notice that this app syncs perfectly with the content there. In Settings, you may also set your Video Quality to either Auto, Low or High.

Some of the outstanding features that have me happily sold on Frequency as my video news collector of choice are: (1) all videos shared by my friends on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube are able to be seen here, (2) re-aligning channels in my customized Tuner is easy by dragging an icon to a new position, (3) using the Smart Channel feature (a collection of my favorite sources) is a cool time saver, (4) adding RSS feeds or video from any website is a super personal touch, and (5) excellent video playback is pure pleasure. As soon as I wrap up this post, I will resume watching the humorous video in top screenshot from “The Onion”, one of my favorite channels. Enough said!

COOL CONCLUSION: An enormous collection of captivating, newsworthy and current videos along with a great deal of customization make Frequency the ideal video aggregator for your favorite news sources.

—Date/Version: Updated 4/25/12 - Version 1.2.1
—iOS/Age Rating:  This app requires iOS 4.3 or later. Rated 12+.
—Device: iPad
—Developer: Frequency Networks
—Facebook: Frequency
—Twitter: @OnFrequency

Visit the iTunes App Store for more details, and to download:
FREQUENCY

Scanning the Stream: ‘Popular’ vs. ‘New’ Feeds

When you log-in to Frequency, you can quickly scan your videos, your friends’ videos as well as videos from the channels and topics you’re following. Your homepage is a collection of all your feeds, which we’ve bundled together in one location as Your Highlights. We’ve set Your Highlights to show the most popular videos in all your streams, and we’ve designed it in such a way that you can easily peruse through to see what’s happening. 

But what if you don’t want to see the most popular videos; maybe you’d like to see the newest videos? Well, you can. Simply click on the arrow in the top bar of Your Highlights, and you’ll expand a sub-menu with two options: “Popular” and “New.” Select “New” and your stream will be re-sorted, showing the most recent video first.  When new videos are posted, a message will prompt in your feed letting you know videos have just been added.

So, if you’re following constantly updating news channels and trending topics and want to see videos within the minute on your Frequency homepage, remember to change the default setting of your stream and you’ll never miss an incoming video.

-Audrey
QA Team

Finding Friends with Frequency

Looking for new friends – new friends with new feeds to watch? Bored with your usual Facebook, Twitter and YouTube social streams? We have the answer. With Frequency’s Guide, you can find people to follow – people with new video posts delivered daily to your inbox.

Here’s how it works:

-Navigate to our Guide, Featured People section
-Check out the top performers showcased there and follow the people that interest you
-Upon following, you’ll see a brand new icon appear in your tuner – this is your Frequency Friends folder, and every person you’re watching on Frequency will be inside that folder

Wow, that’s cool, you say. But how do these people know I’m following them? Well, as soon as you clicked the “follow” button on a person, that person received an email letting them know you’re following them. In that email, they can click on your avatar to find your favorite videos. (After seeing how cool your stream is, they might even follow you back!)

With your network of Frequency Friends, you can see who’s following you and who you’re following anytime by navigating to the Guide’s Social Section where you’ll find two columns, “You’re Following” and “Following You,” respectively.

So now you’re following people but no one’s following you? Don’t worry, it happens to us all. Here’s how to gain Frequency Friends:

-Pimp out your Frequency profile by adding an avatar and filling out the bio section
-Start favoriting videos you like – users following you will only see the videos you’ve marked as favorite, so get clicking! (Once you favorite a video, hover over the Favorite button under the video player to see if other Frequency users have favorited the video. If they have, you can click on their name in the hover-over and navigate to their personal video selections.)

Now that you have a few new friends, remember to spread the word by sharing your favorite Frequency videos on your own social networks.

-Audrey
QA Team

Say Goodbye to Your Mother-In-Law

Have you connected your Facebook and Twitter social networks into your Frequency? (If not, stop reading right now and go here to get the most out of your feeds.) If yes, good! As a fully loaded Frequency user, you’ve probably got a gang of videos in your feed and can watch all the postings from your friends, family members, and loved ones. But maybe this isn’t so great, you say. Maybe you’re not too friendly with some of your friends on Facebook or maybe you love your mother-in-law, love her so much – but would rather not view her hourly cat video updates. Maybe you’re just not interested in grandma’s sewing circles or knitting techniques.

We understand.

Your time is valuable. When you navigate to Frequency, you want to quickly scan your Facebook and Twitter feeds and watch only the videos that interest you.  Our team of top-notch engineers created a way for you to not “block,” not “de-friend,” but simply hide anyone from your social networking feeds. Here’s how:

-Go to your Facebook or Twitter feed (click the supporting icon in your Tuner)

-On a video thumbnail, click the “X” mark on the upper right corner and you’ll be asked if you want to hide that user. Yes. Yes you want to hide that user

-Now that the user is hidden, go to your Facebook or Twitter feed and you’ll no longer see their videos

Changed your mind? Maybe your mother-in-law asked you why you didn’t see her latest YouTube kitten cuddle upload? Here’s how to unhide a user:

-Go to Your Preferences

- Find the “Hidden Sources” area where you’ll see everyone you’ve hidden from your connected social networks

-Unhide whoever you want and their next posting will show up in your feed

And don’t worry – no one will know that you’re a selective video watcher and that you’re not watching their videos. Remember you can always unhide them whenever you want.

-Audrey

QA Tester

We Love This Review of the Frequency iPad App by iPhoneAppReview

“Frequency: The World of Internet Video at Your Fingertips”

Reviewed by Luke Patrick

If you’re much like us (and God help you there, Mates!) you really like watching videos on the Internet. You’ll spend hours combing through what’s hot on YouTube, checking CollegeHumor for the latest, or even just viewing what your friends have posted to Facebook. With that in mind, how cool would it be if one iPad app could combine all of these various sources, bringing you the best in online video entertainment instantly? With Frequency, by the developer of the same name, this dream can in fact be a reality. And we can’t bloody get enough of it. For our full review of this stellar video-based app for the iPad, check below just beyond the break!

Concept and Functionality

As stated, Frequency has one goal and one goal only: It wants to deliver to your doorstep all the customized and best videos the Internet has to offer. It does this through a variety of means, but in a lot of ways, the app can most be likened to Flipboard. Both allow you to choose from a list of categorized sources, and then both display the refreshed results from those items. For instance, you can add Adult Swim as a source, and it will appear in your dashboard for easy viewing. There are nearly hundreds of different sources to choose from, adding up to one heck of a lot of videos. Once you’ve clicked on a single source item, you’ll then be shown all of the available videos you can watch. Click on any one of them, and they load nearly instantly in high definition. From there, you can share them, favorite them, like them, etc. All in all, if the sum total experience of this concept sounds incredibly awesome, that’s because it simply is. It’s like having an immediate filter to sum up what’s going on in Internet entertainment for the day, a filter that delivers to your door.

Interface and Design

However, none of this is really new to the scene. So what makes Frequency completely different from any other Internet video app we’ve looked at? To cut things short, it’s the interface. It’s simply one of the most gorgeous and simplest designs we’ve ever seen. Users can access the dashboard with the touch of a button, instantly add sources, and do just about anything else they’d like. And thankfully, there are no tabbed navigational displays. Only smooth scrolling and sliding mechanics and flawless, flawless playback.

Overall Value

Incredibly enough, Frequency will cost you absolutely nothing to enjoy. For an interface this good, we’re surprised at the price, but there you have it. With no money down, you can get daily the best Internet videos wrapped in a gorgeous design and smothered in high definition streaming. And if that doesn’t sound like a good deal to you, then we have no idea what ever will.

Frequency requires iOS 4.3 or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. A small expedite fee was paid by the developer to speed up the publication of this review.

The iPhone app reviews rating: 

Hubze.com Frequency iPad App Review

There’s not much that Scott Ayres, chief information officer of Hubze.com likes more than watching videos on his iPad, so when he reviewed our App, and proclaimed Frequency to be one of his “favorite video Apps for the iPad,” we were delighted.

One of Scott’s favorite things about our App, is the social sharing capabilities of Frequency – not only can you connect your Facebook and Twitter but you can also share videos from Frequency with all your friends on Facebook and Twitter. Scott showed this by simply tapping the Twitter icon under a video, and in just one move that video is posted on his Twitter. “It’s a cool way to share videos fast…”

Scott also discovered a key Frequency feature – we don’t just load the actual videos your friends share through their Facebook and Twitter, but we also analyze each link that comes into our system, and pull videos that appear within a page. “If you share a link that happens to have a video [on Facebook], I’ll get that video in my Frequency feed.”

Not only can you watch videos in a variety of views (think full screen), but, if your short on time, you can also save videos to watch later. When Scott’s in a rush and sees a lot of videos he knows he wants to watch, he just taps the folder icon under the video and it’s now in his Watch Later folder, up in his Tuner.

So, if you haven’t already, download our App on your iPad today. Because, “Frequency makes it easy to find the stuff you want to watch…”

Frequency On The Go

Here you are again. Monday. If you’re like me, for the next 8, 10, or even 12 hours you’ll be sitting in front of a computer, staring into a fixed screen. You’re drinking coffee, eating a glazed donut. There’s chow mein noodles in your future. Then, after lunch, more sitting. Are you fed up with being a sedentary office drone? Do the rolls of fat hang over your pants? And maybe you try every week to get to the gym after work, but the thought of walking on a treadmill and staring at the corresponding wall is about as exciting as Tuesday morning in the office.

But before you give up, slide way down into your chair and say you’re too tired, too bored to do anything after work but go home to bed, consider Frequency – no, not just Frequency.com on your desktop, but Frequency’s App on the iPad. With thousands of videos at your fingertips, Frequency can be taken with you anywhere – even the treadmill. How, you ask? Easy. Simply connect your Frequency.com account with our App, and you can view your favorite videos, your Smart Channels, your saved clips right on your iPad.

So while you’re at your desk, on the computer, get your Frequency account tuned up by building a motivating feed. What are your favorite music channels to work out to? Bundle those together into an optimized Smart Channel.

With your Frequency fully loaded, prop up your iPad in front of you on the treadmill and say goodbye to that hour of staring at the wall, walking on a machine. As you’re watching your favorite music videos (here’s mine) or enthralled by a movie channel in our Guide, mile 3, 4, 5, even 6 went by and you didn’t notice because you were having such a great time with Frequency on your iPad.

-Audrey
QA Team

P.S. The gym is not the only place you can take Frequency’s App – you can also listen to your favorite Frequency videos via your iPad when you commute to work. So tuck your iPad under your arm and we’ll always be there for you – just a tap away.

Cyber Culture: The Pulse of the Web

If you’ve never poked around Frequency’s Cyber Culture category, I’d highly recommend doing so.  It features some of our favorite aggregates like Reddit Video, Gizmodo and Boing Boing, as well as original and new web shows like SlateV, American Hipster and Vice.  In my opinion, Cyber Culture is the most entertaining category on Frequency. 

If you want to stay on top of the hottest videos on the web, or check out the latest in original web content, it is the premier destination on Frequency. 


Jason Castle
Channel Curator