Interview with Mary Hodder of Dabble
|
Dabble is a video search and social community. We index video from around the web (like at Youtube, iFilm, Brightcove, Comedy Central, Revver, etc) and make it searchable, though the video continues to live out at those sites. We also have a social community that selects video it finds interesting for discovery.
Mary Hodder founded Dabble in 2005. Before that, Mary worked at various live web search companies, blogged at Napsterization.org stories about disruptive technology and Biplog.com on intellectual property, security and privacy from a technology builder’s point of view. Mary holds a Masters in Information from UC Berkeley. |
In developing Dabble, did you see a gap in the current video space that led you to develop the product or was there some other inspiration behind the idea?
Yes.. in early 2005, there were only about 3 video hosters (Google video hadn’t yet come online) and so people I was working with were skeptical that we needed video search since it wasn’t too hard to go search three sites. But by the winter of 2005, there were 50+ and it was becoming clear that search in a very particular domain with very particular metadata and activity would be very helpful. Also, we realized that discovery was much more important than search, but that if we did what we needed to for search, we would also make discovery easy.
Given the competitive landscape that you are in on the West Coast, how do you attract and maintain good talent?
We are working on something interesting, so we have a lot of people who come to us. But you are right that its hard to find good people. I think people really like the challenge we’ve laid out for ourselves. It’s meaty.
When the company was in my apartment, I would make lunch for the engineers once a week or so, but now that we are in an office space, that’s harder. Though I did get lunch the other day. But I try to make them cookies or something now and then. We also do a daily stand up for engineering which I think helps people feel coordinated and in sync.
Since Dabble does not host any videos directly, does this free you up from any potential legal issues that may arise?
Yes, because we aren’t hosting we can point to videos around the web, but not be liable for distribution. We work with the owners of video like Comedy Central to show their videos at their site. We are still working with hosters and others to show the right videos. We want to be as agnostic and neutral as possible.
What is your favorite video out right now that you have a shortcut for in Dabble?
Here is a playlist for God, Inc. It’s terrific!
http://dabble.com/playlist/6726751
Also, here is a video I absolutely love, that I found online through a Dabble recommendation:
http://dabble.com/node/390690
Copyright © 2007 by Will Kern