Redux Lands On The PS3 And Launches Riffsy, A New Way To Browse And Share Video On Mobile Devices

Video discovery startup Redux has spent the last several years working to provide a new way for users to browse and find content that they love, and has focused mainly on the connected TV market. Today it’s announcing that it’s bringing that experience to game consoles, while also launching a new service for mobile called Riffsy.

Until this year, connected TVs have been Redux’s primary focus, and it’s done a pretty good job of gaining distribution by partnering with major consumer electronics manufacturers like Samsung, Sony and LG. Those partnerships had brought its connected device footprint to more than 40 million devices.

But now it’s coming to gaming consoles. In particular, the app will become available on the PlayStation 3, which will expand its distribution to more than 100 million TVs around the world. Redux will be one of the featured video apps, and will help viewers discover a wide new range of videos that weren’t previously available on the game console.

But Redux is also looking beyond connected TVs to launch a new app for discovering and sharing videos on mobile devices and websites. Riffsy, the company’s new mobile app, is designed to solve one of the core problems of video on mobile — i.e. that thumbnails often aren’t sufficient for getting across what a video is about, especially as viewers decide whether or not they want to invest their time in watching the whole thing.

Riffsy solves that problem by enabling content owners to create “Riffs,” which are basically like animated GIFs that are optimized for viewing and sharing on mobile devices. With those Riffs, viewers can preview a video and get a better idea of what it’s about before deciding to watch it, which improves the overall discovery experience. Users can also send Riffs via email or SMS and point to a specific moment in a video, rather than having to share the entire thing or telling others to skip to a certain moment in time.

Redux has created a browser extension to allow users to quickly create Riffs on the desktop. They then can upload and share particular moments of a video with others through the Riffsy app. Content owners and regular viewers can create Riffs with the tool to share with others. Already, though, the company has gotten networks like Machinima and Geek and Sundry to start creating Riffs as marketing tools for their videos.

Since being founded in 2007, Redux has raised about $8 million from investors such as Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Alsop Louie Partners, and Peter Thiel.

You can download the app here.