Three years in, the YouTube and Vimeo video-discovery service Shelby.tv is lowering the barrier to entry into its world of nonstop, must-see videos (that your friends love). Its latest iPad app no longer asks you to sign up or provide any kind of social media credentials to start consuming video.
For new users, Shelby.tv's free, updated iPad app, which launches on Friday, offers a single channel of trending video that includes all the channels you might find on YouTube or Vimeo. It still presses you to connect your Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr accounts.
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The idea is that the more social media accounts you connect, the more precise your video recommendations will get — turning the left column into a list of videos your friends are watching or love. That said, Shelby.tv founder and CEO Reece Pacheco acknowledges that not requiring an ID at the door is necessary.
"People don't want to do it, they don't trust apps," he said, adding that people simply want to get in and personalize the experience when ready.

Reece Pacheco is founder and CEO of the video consumption platform Shelby.tv.
Image: Mashable / Lance Ulanoff
It might seem like a risky move for a company which, founded three years ago, still has fewer than 100,000 users. But Pacheco believes people want a more curated experience, one that both breaks the grip of media companies telling you what to watch ("they're programmed from the top down") and that better reflects their interests and connections.
"YouTube shows you what everyone else in the world is watching," Pacheco said. "We’re saying view count is bullshit. It doesn't really matter."
He's not dismissing YouTube or Vimeo — Shelby.tv wouldn't work without either of those services — but Pacheco is convinced you don’t have to watch a video simply because everyone else is watching it.
"If one person with a strong signal to you finds a TED talk from three years ago, who cares if it's three years old?" he asked.
Conceivably, if you sign up for Shelby.tv with your social media credentials, your video feed will be filled with ones that have been Liked and shared by your connections. The service includes its own Like system, in fact, which show up publicly for everyone using the service. (You can also share the videos directly to your social networks.)
No one, though, wants to suffer from FOMO, so trending videos curated by the Shelby.tv team can show up in your feed, too.
If you don't sign in or create an account, the channel will fill with the most recently YouTube and Vimeo videos, along with curated ones from Shelby.tv with the "highest signals."

Shelby.tv's upgraded app on the iPad Air.
Image: Shelby.tv / Screen Shot
A gesture-friendly playback stream sits on the right. A swipe up brings in the next video, which starts playing immediately, because Shelby.tv is caching it in the background. A swipe down brings you back to the previous video, right where you left off. The video stream is continuous; a new video in your list of recommended content automatically starts after the previous one has finished.
Shelby.tv does not charge a fee for the app or its services, and is focused on building scale, not profit — right now. Pacheco said that eventually, the company will use its understanding of your viewing habits (what you watch, how long you watch) to help partners deliver videos you want to see. But there's no timetable for this monetization plan.
With some competitors, like Plizy, going out of business, and others, like VHX, pivoting significantly, one has to wonder about Shelby.tv's long-term plans.
"We were a little early and had to outlast a lot of what’s gone on in the space,” Pacheco said. To do so, they kept the team small: It's just Pacheco, four engineers and a product manager. They're also slowly sipping their cash — a total of $3.7 million in funding from investors like Avalon Ventures.
Pacheco thinks he is built to make it to the finish line.
"I’m training for the Boston Marathon, my second one," he said. "Maybe I just like the endurance of it. It just takes time."