Couchville Beta

A few days ago Snapstream released Couchville.com, a sleek and simple TV Listing site open to anyone on the net. The current version of the site is in beta, so it will no doubt have tweaks and changes in the future. Surfing on over to the Couchville main-page, I was greated by a page that reminded me a lot of the Google approach to doing business: very simple, yet it gets the job done. Snapstream's simple approach has garnered a lot of praise around the net and rightly so.

Couchville.com is not cluttered with ads and stories about our favorite celebs going into rehab. This made it easy to find out where to add my zip code and get my listings in a quick three step process. I would also note that the AJAX coding is done VERY well here. The loads are very quick.

After that, you are free to browse your listings. Similar to Google Maps, you are able to drag the listings to get the channel and time you so desire. Again, very simple and effective.

Above the Guide there are three buttons used for navigation. Obviously one for the guide, and the other two are for BTV Buzz and Guide Settings. BTV Buzz is information taken, anonymously of course, from thousands of BTV users that ranks top recorded TV shows, and top upcoming recordings. The settings page allows you to customize your channel lineup to better match your subscription.

Currently, the site uses a browser cookie to save the preferences. In this stage of the beta there isn't an ability to create a login and thus keep your settings regardless of the computer you are at. To follow the look and feel of the website, I would keep registration strictly optional and low key. People who want it can register, if not, cookies should be enough :).

I am not sure what else Snapstream has planned for Couchville.com but they have the start of a great TV based community :).

Couchville Home	Guide	BTV Buzz	Listings Setup