The Skate Spot

Our homies started this website called TheSkateSpot.com, and we wanted everyone to know a little bit more about it, so I had Neil Dutta come by to talk some more about it.

UBS: so where did this whole thing come from neil?
Neil: I've always been really into skate videos, I'm always watching video's online. That's when I noticed a big problem, there is no one place where you can watch videos online with out being hassled. youtube is the main place right now, but I can’t upload a video without either A. the company removing the video or B. some record company removing the song from the video which basically ruins everything. Along with that your account with probably get suspended. In this day in age I shouldn’t have to visit 30 sites to stay up to date on the newest footage. So I was just kind of thinking why don't companies want their content on youtube?, it got me thinking on how can I solve the problem and get the industry to benefit from people watching their content.

UBS: so how did the skate spot come about.
Neil: To be honest with you, it's something me and trung thought of one day for fun. There were lots of cool sites online but me and trung just wanted to do something different and we just started a blog with all the sk858 homies. From then on it got bigger every day.

UBS: so how did it start, did you guys see a void that you could fill?
Neil: Honestly when we started it, it was just for fun. We had no clue if people were even going to the site or that it was even going to turn into anything big.

UBS: did you have any experience running things on the web before or was this your first go at it?
Neil: I've actually had some past experience, me and my brother have don’t some stuff in the past. I had lot of friends help out as well.

UBS: how has the support been within the industry? Have the vendors helped you with links and riders and that kind of stuff?
Neil: yeah I think a lot of people have been super supportive. And I hope more people will be when they see the new site. I remember within a few months of just starting the blog, we had an interview in the skateboard mag, from templeton elliot. So we were getting a lot of love from the skateboard mag and now were just working on tweaking the site and making it better for both the users and the Industry.

UBS: now that you revamped the site, what's different on it??\
Neil: The biggest difference is our focus on giving companies specific benefits they don’t have on youtube. Companies remove their content from youtube because they feel their content is being stolen and would rather have you watch it on their website which probably loads much slower. We want to offer enough benefits so that companies want their videos on our site. Everybody wins.

UBS: so how would you describe your site to the average consumer who doesn't skate?
Neil: I would describe it as the youtube for skateboarding but with some major differences that work with the changes online to better benefit the skateboard industry. This intern provides more/better content for our users.

UBS: so it's all skating nothing else?
Neil: it's all skating and not another money bucket.... your not going to see adds about getting ripped abs in 6 weeks haha.

UBS: is there something specifically that you want to do with the site to help the industry?
Neil: Youtube makes money from the millions of people watching skate videos on their site. This does nothing for skateboarding. .The benefit to the industry on out site is prime marketing capabilities though their channels which utilize lots of different social media sites like twitter and flickr. Also all their content is viewed on their channel regardless of who uploads it. Features they would not have anywhere else online.

UBS: so you want all the companies to be on the same page with you and have it be legit unlike the music industry..
Neil: exactly, we want the companies to know that the content on our site is going to have a direct benefit for them whether it be more people interacting via social, or the fact no one is “stealing their content” because the videos are watched exclusively on their channels. Companies are not going to be able to keep their videos offline so they might as well have a place where they get credit for it.

UBS: Is there anything else in the works for the future?
Neil: right now we are in our beta version of the new site so were still tweaking things around, fixing bugs ect. In the future we are still going to be working on making the site better and adding new features for all our users.

http://www.TheSkateSpot.com/