Vancouver-based Strutta has finally launched to the world after being a hot presenter recently in Vancouver.  Strutta was on a lot of people’s lips at SXSW and I begged for an invite (yes, begged).  Jordan Behan emailed me last week with a heads up that they were launching today.

Other folks got in first with their reviews:

The Strutta site is built around the idea of online video competitions. Users can challenge each other in video-based Battle-Royales for bragging rights, nerd notoriety, and geek glory, or simply vote on entries in the various ongoing games. Source: Strutta Puts On Its Game Face

Techcrunch and Mashable did their thing I have something none of them have–an exclusive “Best Canadian Joke” game!

That’s right no one else is talking about their own game, but I have one!  Heh!

Enough bragging, okay maybe a little more later, but what is Strutta?

Strutta: Online games with a new twist

Strutta isn’t about building a “friends network” or sharing your goofy LOLcats, it’s about submitting a video that you think is the best in a game.  Like my, exclusive to MapleLeaf 2.0 readers best Canadian Joke game, you put up a video and people vote and the most votes wins.

I browsed around and there are the pet videos (not lolcats, but there was a dog howling like a police siren), or tech or whatever.  To play you just sign up, sign in, watch a video and vote. 

Simple, easy.

So why now?  What’s hot and new about this?  This tells me that technology has really taken another great jump forward.  So many people have built-in webcams that you can just easily make a quick video and post it.  Like Seesmic we can now just make and share video in an instant.

Will I go lots to play?  Lots?  No, but I think it might be a nice break from RSS feeds.

Now, what’s your best Canadian joke?

While I’ve been catching up this week Strutta came out of stealth and Techvibes got the first post/scoop on this new online video-based game:

Strutta is an arena, a platform for video competitions, called “games”. A game is created with a theme, such as “Best George W. Bush Impression” or “Best Surprise Wedding Dance”. Users can submit videos for that theme, watch others, and vote which they think is the best.  A key rule is that a user must submit their own video: either they appear in it or are holding the camera. A broad set of categories makes space for almost any video. Leaderboards and graphs provide comprehensive statistics. I was impressed with the clean and functional interface design. Users can start using the site right away and register later.

The site incorporates Web 2.0 features well: videos can be recording from within a browser, uploaded, and embedded from YouTube. Contacts can be added from Facebook and LinkedIn. Its built on Drupal, and powered by Amazon’s EC2 and S3 services, ready to scale. Source: Strutta comes out of stealth: a different kind of “video game” | Techvibes Blog

I don’t have an invite in, yet, and I didn’t see a way to request one on the homepage.  No matter, I’m sure I’ll be able to get a look at it soon enough.

This takes YouTube and Seesmic to the next level.  Who can be the most creative on a given theme?  Who has a great video stashed somewhere to share?  This, to me, is a sign that computers and connections are ready for online video as a solid source of entertainment.  Or is it?

Have computers and connections really caught up?
I hang out with a lot of non-geeks (shocking, I know) and it seems to me that there are a lot of computers out there that can’t really handle this kind of video.  Believe me I’ve tried to help (though I’m starting to play dumb when people ask about their computers), but sometimes an older machine with barely enough RAM and a basic or “lite” Net connection just can’t have a decent experience with online video.

So geeks might be ready…but the rest of the world?  I don’t know.

This isn’t to say that this isn’t cool and great.  In fact the more cool and fun things (okay and useful stuff helps too) there are online, the more people will want faster machines and faster connections.

Other Strutta coverage:

• Strutta - The Game is (Almost) On
• What is a Strutta and is the game on yet? » Miss604’s Vancouver Blog
• Vincent Janelle » Strutta.com launch