One of the greatest changes on VocalVideo since its inception is the shift of focus from a video sharing platform to a full featured social networking platform designed to make it easy to share many types of multimedia content (e.g. videos, pictures and sounds). Such a fundamental change also represents a new direction, towards social modules and easy to use interface. As you may understand, a social network like Twitter is completely different from a video hosting service like Youtube.

Videos aren't the only content anymore

Even if videos are still really important to VocalVideo's appeal, videos aren't the only content users will be able to share on a social VocalVideo. This means users must be able to share any kind of content. All that data must get the same level of integration into the system as videos. The videos must look like everything else outside of the video player.

Users are closer to the interface

A social network's interface is ought to be easy to use, simple, and must offer obvious use stories and show obvious feedback to a user's action. In other words, a social network's user interface is its main key to success. It must present familiar elements to the user but must also be innovative in order to compete against other platforms. A user must like the way he interacts with the interface as much as how the interface responds to him.

Strong system

A social network must be strong enough to carry many hundreds of connection at once. Meanwhile, it must not generate errors due to the many simultanuous writes and reads to the database. The code must be structured in a way that makes it easy to maintain, debug in the case of an issue, or add new features. Access to the system by remote clients like javascript scripts and mobile apps must be carried by an API that encompasses many security layers. Three key words are important here: Reliability, Security and Maintainability.

More prone to lawsuits and copyright infringement

More users and more content means greater risks to fall under lawsuits from various copyright holders. A social network must have an extensive copyright infringement policy in order to protect itself and its users from unwanted lawsuits. These policies must contains instructions on how to share copyrighted content and who is responsible of copyright infringement for each type of content.

Like a media hosting service but with wider scope

Unlike media hosting service (Youtube, DeviantArt, Pixiv, ...), a social network's main focus is on the way users share content between each others. It can't only focus on a video's page, for example. As VocalVideo is trying to close the gap between both type of services, its goal will be to bring as much importance on sharing between users, like social networks, than on the features proper to each media hosting services.