Hey @bredren! Yeah, I agree that this makes for a nice user experience. This is how the paid VideoMentions.com service works- users can search for channels by name or keywords, without the need to paste in URLs. It looks like this: https://cloudup.com/cUgKqErcx8G
That auto-complete lookup requires spending a finite number of API calls, though, which is why it’s restricted to customers and not available on this freely accessible VideoMentions Search page.
Thanks for checking it out, and for your feedback!
Your pricing model is really solid. I can see how useful this is to people or companies with a brand.
I don’t have one of those, but I can also easily imagine wanting to find “that one video that I watched a while ago” in some topical “power tools” channel where they talked about “parallel battery” tech, without recalling the channel name. If I really wanted to find that again in order to buy the tool, it’s easily worth $5. And then I have a whole month to chase down other vaguely-recalled references!
Well done. I hope this post gets the attention it deserves. You have solved a problem that many people have, and have griped about. Companies and people who maintain brands need to know about it. And your free tier (which I assume is funded by the paid options) has already helped me find something I’d been after for a while. I want this to stick around.
However, I don’t use YouTube enough to mess w channels much. I’m usually searching on a particular topic.
For example, “drop ceiling panel replacement.”
Perhaps you could help users limit the channel scope by making an intelligent channel selection by keyword.
So I would put in “home improvement,” and you could choose some appropriate channels to search for my search terms.