Vlare.TV is a video sharing site created by Jan and Mel (Sudeurion) in an attempt to provide content creators with an Alternative to YouTube.
The site combines elements of Modern YouTube and Social Media as it aims to increase the interactions between Content Creators and the people that are following their channels.
History
According to Plutonium Digital, Vlare was originally a video website.
During early development, private sign-ups were conducted through VidLii, with a request to access to the private alpha (via Private//Direct Message).
The website was officially unveiled on December 10, 2018, and began public-testing in September. It would include it's own features, as well as well-regarded features YouTube has removed including Groups, Friends, Live-Chats, video sync-playback (such as Watch2Gether), and personal channel blogs.
On April 24, Vlare's Twitter Account would announce that the Co-Founder of Vanillo Sudeurion had joined Plutonium as both a Content Creator and a Developer for the site, where he was assigned to design the Site's UI and to improve the site as it neared its launch.
It is confirmed Vlare plans to bring video annotations, a feature that YouTube removed back in January 2017. Vlare exited beta and became public on May 7th, 2019. In 6 months, Vlare gained over 3,000 sign-ups. During November 2019, the site experienced massive growth due to concern for the impact COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) would have on YouTube. Slivr and Vanillo merged with Vlare around this time, and as a result over 15,000 members joined, creating traffic that caused the development team to upgrade to a 40 Terabyte Server.
In 2020, the development team has confirmed the plans to release a major update currently referred to as "Vlare 2.0". This rebuild of the site and API promises to give the site a new interface and additional site features. But before these changes could be implemented, Melony resigned on December 15th, 2019 due to mental health concerns, though she had stated they may rejoin the team and make a return in the future. (In which she did on January 17th, 2020)
In February 2020, Mel and BMF would lay off the Majority of Moderators due to their inactivity and slow growth on the site. And on the 14th, the Vlare Discord Server would become limited to those who were original members, patrons, and premium members because of toxicity in the community. Causing an over exaggerated reaction among many users on the site.
Some People Left on February 16th 2020, at that time, VTTP a new account made videos talking to destroy, he made accounts that were very racist, he made fake accounts of these people impersonating:
- MASF (Banned Twice)
- James Andrew (Banned)
- Kawaii Boy/ !*vikipedia*! (Banned)
- Melony (Banned)
- mrbananan (Banned)
VTTP's account was banned. the originals were not banned but the copycats were banned.
In April 2020, Vlare celebrates its 12th birthday, & gets its new logo.
Features
The website has a vertical navigation toolbar with quick access to all options.
Like VidLii, Vlare.TV allows free hosting for videos with up to 720p@30fps up to a certain file size. Users with Vlare Premium are currently granted uploads up to 1080p@60fps. Vlare Premium also comes with a number of other benefits, including:
- Video downloads
- Animated avatars
- Extended video file-size limits
- Ad-free viewing
- Premium role in their official Discord server
These monthly subscriptions further the site by assisting with the costs of hosting the service and developing new features.
Vlare.TV includes many smaller features to all members to compete with other video sites including:
- Multi-channel management under a single account
- A real-time count of active viewers of the current video.
- Custom thumbnails
- Content-specific channel categories
- Animated video previews for all uploads
- Mobile website layout, in addition to Desktop website layout
- Channel blogs and blog categories
- Statistics about each channel
- Public statistics across the entire site
- Quick-list (similar to YouTube "Watch-later" feature)
Vlare.TV maintains features that have been gradually removed from YouTube over the years, including:
- Groups
- Video responses
- Ability to see currently watched videos
- Ability to sort videos by ratings
- Ability to explore the most rated, discussed, or viewed videos of today, this week, this month or all time, or newest videos.
- Custom channel backgrounds, text color, transparency, layouts, widget colors
- Direct messaging
- Live chat with other users
- Friends (separate from Subscribers)
For Vlare 2.0, the team plans to include:
- Live Streaming
- Watch along feature
- New Algorithm
- Website Themes
- New UI
- Annotations
- New API for future updates
- Additional channel categories
Flaws
- 1080p resolution and 90-minute duration is currently only available to Premium members
- Edits to comments can only be made within a certain time frame
- Guidelines can be considered strict when compared to other similar sites
- Video thumbnail previews are auto-generated as low-quality GIFs by the uploader
- Vlare lacks comment linking, as used by YouTube
Gallery
