Shelby.tv shuts down to focus full efforts on building a new version from the ground up

Following the announcement that Shelby.tv has been secretly developing “the next generation of Shelby,” codenamed “Shelby GT,” cofounder Reece Pacheco told TNW this morning that his company is completely shutting down its current, live product to rebuild the service “from the ground up.”

We first heard wind of this relaunch when it was released in private beta on stage at TNW 2012, and since then things have been curiously quiet. Now that the current version is being shuttered, the Shelby team will be able to focus on one product at a time.

In a lot of ways, this is a great use of resources and is sure to draw a bit of attention as well. Even having known than a rebuilt version of Shelby is on its way, I’m still caught off guard to see such a strong push for this upcoming release. Honestly, it helps build the suspense, and is a sign that a lot of things are about to change.

According to Pacheco, here’s a hint at what’s changing and what users can look forward to:

We started Shelby with a big first goal — to make sense of the fragmented web video space. We knew it wouldn’t happen overnight and looking back, a lot has happened since our first launch last year.

We’ve tripled the size of our team, processed millions of videos, broken databases, created our own link shortener, and built a powerful data graph. All of this work enables us to start delivering on our promise to be your home for video and we’re hoping to address the concerns you’ve had. We’ve listened intently to your feedback, and without giving anything away, here are a few things to look forward to:

• Speed. Shelby’s faster every step of the way.
• Discovery. Better processing power means more videos.
• Community. More ways to connect, share, and curate.

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What’s closing down:

Shelby will go dark over the weekend. The Chrome Extension, iOS apps, bookmarklet, and weekly emails will also be shut off soon. (If it’s important to you that we migrate your Likes and Watch Later videos to new Shelby, please write toellisisland@shelby.tv.)

Adding to this, we already got a sneak peek at what’s next back in April, including the new “Rolls” feature. Here’s what we heard:

At the core of GT is what the team calls “Rolls,” a tool for users to organize and share video with friends. A Roll is a living, dynamic group of videos that can be automatically created by a feed (tweets, posts, etc.) or personally curated by one or more individuals. Shelby seems to want to bring curation to video — something that when done right, has quite a lot of potential.

We’ve followed Shelby.tv since the team first stepped into the scene on the TechStars NY’s reality TV show. Since then, we watched the company build a gorgeous social video experience and attended its first hackathon. The battle for the future of social video continues to rage on, and now we’re left wondering what’s next.

If you’re itching to get into Shelby GT early, head over to gt.shelby.tv and sign up for a private invite.

Featured image by skippyjon