Rabbit, also known as Rabb.it, was a

video streaming Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of o ...

website and mobile application. Launched in 2014, and based in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, United States, the service enabled multiple people to remotely browse and watch the same content in real-time. A host could create a room, invite others to it (or, alternatively, set it to public so the room appeared on the site's homepage for anyone to join), and share content using a virtual computer called a "Rabbitcast," or using the Google Chrome extension "Share on Rabbit." Whatever content the host opened was displayed to the other users in the room along with audio and video. Rabbit offered text and video chat alongside this functionality. Unlike other popular streaming websites such as

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

and

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

, Rabbit did not host the content viewed on it. Instead, Rabbit streamed a virtual computer (Rabbitcast) with a browser, which could then be used to navigate to other websites and content. A Rabbitcast was a Rabbit-hosted, shared Firefox browser that could be viewed and controlled by anyone within the room. The built-in

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...

had an ad-blocker pre-installed.

History

After a

beta release A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...

in 2013 which offered limited Mac-only functionality, the company redesigned Rabbit as a

web app A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection. History In earlier computing models like client-serve ...

in the summer of 2014. The service took off, adding 400,000 users by the end of the year. With around 3.6 million monthly active users, Rabbit users viewed content using the service for an average of 12.5 hours a month, with the most active users doing so for 28.5 hours a month. The company had 30 employees worldwide as of May 2019. In July 2019, Rabbit CEO Amanda Richardson announced that the site was soon to cease operations; a round of VC funding had failed in May, and Richardson was forced to lay off staff and begin shutting Rabbit down immediately. Despite announcements that all staff members had been let go, the site remained semi-functional until July 31, 2019 when the servers were shut down. On July 31, 2019, it was announced that its remaining assets—intellectual property, software stack, and several patents—had been acquired by fellow streaming service Kast.

References

External links

* {{Official American entertainment websites Defunct websites Internet properties disestablished in 2019