When researching about a city before visiting for the first time, it can be hard to get a sense of what places to try, and what places to avoid. Sites like Yelp and CitySearch can only go so far in conveying the essence of a place. TurnHere lets visitors vibrantly see places with streaming videos backed by professional filmmakers.

Similar in style to the recently reviewed Rooftop Comedy, TurnHere focuses on quick and easy video browsing, except this time, the topic is travel and locations. Basically, they hire filmmakers with either professional or prosumer equipment, and with a passion for travel, to submit videos documenting cool places to visit. Businesses can also buy shooting time from TurnHere to promote themselves.

This all sounds like a pretty typical film production company, but, what’s different about TurnHere is that they make all the films available free on the web, supported by ads. Currently, most of the videos congregate around New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, with a long tail sprinkled around the rest of the US. Most videos are around 5 minutes long, and try to be entertaining while providing relevant information.

The interface is spot on, allowing users to easily browse videos in different cities. The videos are delivered using a flash based player, and they’re fast to start.

What we’re seeing is traditional film production companies turning to the web for content delivery, which is great for the consumer, since it gives them more flexibility and options. But, in the end, companies like TurnHere have not scratched the surface of user generated media (which is what YouTube is solely focused on). Not everyone can be a TurnHere filmmaker.

What I would love to see is a video-based Yelp. Alongside textual reviews and photos are user-uploaded videos reviewing businesses. I’ve already seen many videobloggers doing it on their individual blogs. Heck, I’ve even done a video review on my blog about a popular sushi restaurant in Palo Alto (don’t laugh, I used my dinky little Canon Elph). I believe that there’s enough passion amongst the video blogging crowd to make a very valuable video reviews site. Someone like YouTube just needs to provide the bandwidth and infrastructure, and we’ll be set to go.

Rooftop Comedy has the goal of becoming the leading interactive media distributaion and syndication site for up-and-coming stand-up, sketch comedy and comic films. Launched in February of 2006, they currently have a large collection of comedy videos that are hard to find anywhere else. In addition, the interface is slick and the videos load quickly. Comedy fans that are looking for an alternative to traditional comedy channels should definitely pay attention to this site.

RC is powered by a comic, a computer geek, and former broadcasters (some of whom were from the interactive agency IconMedialab) who have realized that the traditional media channels haven’t been fully successful in connecting comics with comedy fans. There simply isn’t a place for comedy fans to enjoy a wide array of comic videos–RC is currently trying to fill this space by providing an online comic video vertical.

Users are able to search videos by comic, rating, or club. With literally hundreds of comics and thousands of videos to choose from, comedy fans of all tastes should be able to find videos worth watching. The interface for watching videos is intuitive and familiar, with a right hand menu allowing users to browse top clips and related clips. All videos are delivered via Windows media player, and they suggest that your connection be able to sustain a 600kbps downstream. In my experience, the videos started quickly, and were on par with the other video giants like YouTube and vimeo. They are also working on delivering content via podcasts. What I would like to see are options for video podcasts and audio podcasts, which would allow users to choose the best option for them.

When viewing clips, you’re also able to rate them and send links to friends. They mentioned that commenting would be available, but I didn’t see any forms for that on the video page. Being able to comment and discuss clips would be a great feature for fostering a community on the site.

RC’s business model is based on a combination of advertising, merchandising, and premium subscriptions. Right now, there is no cost to join, and they will never charge to view the newest content. Premium subscriptions (which have yet to be established) will allow users to access the entire video archive. There will never be a cost for comics to participate. Rooftop Comedy could be very successful, especially if their content keeps growing. They could potentially be the iTunes of comic media.

As RC matures, they say that they will be rolling out some never-before-seen interactive features, and they are hoping to expand their video content to even more comic performances around the world. They are doing this by partnering with local comedy clubs, allowing them access to syndicate their content.

Overall, Rooftop Comedy excels at bringing quality comic content to users. Watch out for them as they trump the traditional comedy media outlets by providing the long tail to users who are just craving for that comic that they saw at a small club that will never be broadcast on TV.