In our earlier review, we pointed out that Meefedia's interface left much to be desired. The new version could still use some cosmetic updates, but it is already more usable than the first version. In March, we complained that there were very few logical connections between different parts of the site. Thanks to a stronger focus on channel browsing in this new version, this problem has now been remedied.

One feature we especially like on Mefeedia is the ability to import your subscriptions from YouTube, Vimeo, Blip, DailyMotion, and Hulu to your Mefeedia account. This way, you can indeed use Mefeedia as your one-stop shop for online video content.

Movie Channel

Mefeedia's new movie channel aggregates content from Hulu, Crackle, Archive.org, and others.  The selection of movies in this channel is obviously limited by the content on these other sites, and most of the full-length movies seem to come from Hulu. For now, there are very few interesting movies in this channel, but once the movie studios decide to license more full-length films for online streaming, this channel will surely become more exciting.

Competition

While YouTube is surely the first stop for many users, this does exclude a lot of good content on other sites like Vimeo or DailyMotion. In March, we already considered Mefeedia to be one of the best media search engines on the net. While Mefeedia's competitors like Blinkx or Truveo might offer more features, Mefeedia's focus on content and the ability to aggregate your subscriptions from other services still gives it an edge over those services.

The Mefeedia interface could use some work; it's not very pretty and there are a few logical connections from one part of the site to another that haven't been made. We could complain all day about anything, though. Mefeedia is now a better media search engine than probably any other available.

That list, from the company's blog post announcing the launch of search, is best seen in action by doing some searches there. While the vast majority of video search goes on at YouTube, there's no reason to exclude the more artistic content available on Vimeo or the international content at DailyMotion.

Mefeedia isn't doing any fancy speech-to-text analysis or probably anything other than searching titles, description and tag fields - but that's ok. Other services that leverage heavy technology for media search (like Blinkx or Everyzing) may be good for high-stakes reputation tracking, but as a user I just want an extensive index and a good user experience. Mefeedia isn't all full of Flash that slows down my browser.

The best things about Mefeedia besides the new search are the playlists, subscriptions and community features the site has always offered. As you might guess from the name, there are RSS feeds all over the site - which is great. Mefeedia has a healthy little audience taking advantage of those features. You may want to check them out when stopping by to search the big media index. More than anything I wish the service could look at my viewing history and recommend particular items, people and playlists to me.

Interface Problems

The thing that may keep you from making a regular home at Mefeedia is that the interface is pretty atrocious. There's a lot of AJAX, which is nice, but the site is an undifferentiated mass of lines and white space, fields running over each other, ugly pop-up screens and "if only I could" near-misses in site navigation. Let's not even talk about the company's favicon, that zonked out old-school TV set. I think that speaks for itself.

Finally, it has to be said that Mefeedia's allowing users to consume whole gobs of other peoples' content in a player set next to ads for which they get no revenue is likely to irk some number of content publishers.

I've spent a few afternoons going through the Mefeedia community and playlists and have found some good stuff and I'm sure I'll be going back there regularly now that the site has established itself as a particularly good place to search for media.

"It’s a client for subscribing to, watching and listening to podcasts which can also transcode the content and sync it with a number of portable devices including smartphones," Rupert told Voice Over Times. The ability to sync with a wide range of portable devices was always one of FireAnt's most attractive features. Judging by the screenshot (above), the new Odeo media browser is based directly on the FireAnt software. While it is hard to tell from just a screenshot, to my eyes it looks nearly identical to the last iteration of FireAnt.

The relaunch positions Odeo to compete with companies like Veoh and their VeohTV service and Mefeedia. FireAnt's player has always been very slick, and Odeo still has name recognition as one of the first podcast authorities, so combining the two in the way Odeo plans makes sense. Can Odeo make a comeback? We'll begin to find out next month.