4oD introduces recommendations…

… of a sort.

We left this out of yesterday’s related news roundup, but wanted to cover it.

A week ago Channel 4 released a little service (in beta) that makes use of Facebook Connect (the service that lets users login to external sites using their Facebook credentials) and applies it to the 4oD video content. The site is called Test Tube Telly, and you can find the full C4 intro blog post here.

Part of the functionality of Facebook Connect is that actions on the Test Tube Telly site can be fed into your Facebook news feed, and you can also see what your Facebook friends have been watching (if they are in fact using Test Tube Telly).

Why is this important? Because content/video recommendations is something that is becoming increasingly important as more and more archive video content becomes accessible on demand. The BBC iPlayer team have repeatedly publicly said the next major version of iPlayer will have a heavy focus on recommendations, revolving around knowing what your (explicit or implicit) friends are watching.  Test Tube Telly from C4 is a (albeit arguably crasser, but more immediate, present) version of this same feature.