There isn't much I can add to Alex's story. Many happy returns - Jeopardy is celebrating its 25th anniversary!
Cybercast credit: LiveConnect via Brightcove
February 28, 2009
Jeopardy Goes High Definition
Believe or not, Jeopardy originally used cardboard and magic markers (isn't THAT a riot?) but now broadcasts in HD, in a $4.1 million all-digital production. You can watch Alex Trebek here, to tell you how the show has changed over the years:
There isn't much I can add to Alex's story. Many happy returns - Jeopardy is celebrating its 25th anniversary!
Cybercast credit: LiveConnect via Brightcove
There isn't much I can add to Alex's story. Many happy returns - Jeopardy is celebrating its 25th anniversary!
Cybercast credit: LiveConnect via Brightcove
February 25, 2009
Free Video Calls? - Try ooVoo!
I've waited to write about ooVoo until they made it available for the Mac. Now you can download the (beta) software here.
ooVoo???
ooVoo is (another) free web video service that allows you to communicate face to face over the internet with people all over the world.
You can connect with up to six friends, family, and colleagues at any time, through high quality video and audio. Organize a family get-together, share breaking news, or heckle your friends during your favorite sporting event.
Here are the features on ooVoo that make life easier and more fun:
Video calling:
* See, hear and speak with up to 6 people.
* Call Friends who don't have ooVoo can video call you from their Web browser.
* Embed a video chat in any website, blog or social network.
* Make video calls in high resolution
* Record your session to create and share instant memories.
* Send a video greeting to multiple people at once.
* Customize your video calls and messages with fun effects.
You can also:
* Call a mobile or landline AS A PHONE.
* Text chat with up to 6 friends at once.
* Send files up to 25 MB each.
* Change the size of a video call window.
* Find people you know or find new friends on ooVoo.
* Bring your blog or MySpace page to life with an ooVoo link.
* Control who can see or contact you.
IMPORTANT THESE DAYS: Will save you a lot of time and travel expenses too!
ooVoo???
ooVoo is (another) free web video service that allows you to communicate face to face over the internet with people all over the world.
You can connect with up to six friends, family, and colleagues at any time, through high quality video and audio. Organize a family get-together, share breaking news, or heckle your friends during your favorite sporting event.
Here are the features on ooVoo that make life easier and more fun:
Video calling:
* See, hear and speak with up to 6 people.
* Call Friends who don't have ooVoo can video call you from their Web browser.
* Embed a video chat in any website, blog or social network.
* Make video calls in high resolution
* Record your session to create and share instant memories.
* Send a video greeting to multiple people at once.
* Customize your video calls and messages with fun effects.
You can also:
* Call a mobile or landline AS A PHONE.
* Text chat with up to 6 friends at once.
* Send files up to 25 MB each.
* Change the size of a video call window.
* Find people you know or find new friends on ooVoo.
* Bring your blog or MySpace page to life with an ooVoo link.
* Control who can see or contact you.
IMPORTANT THESE DAYS: Will save you a lot of time and travel expenses too!
February 22, 2009
MIT Students Turn Internet Into a Sixth Human Sense
Students at the MIT Media Lab have developed a wearable computing system that turns any surface into an interactive display screen.
The prototype was built from an ordinary webcam and a battery-powered 3M projector, with an attached mirror -- all connected to an internet-enabled mobile phone. The setup, which costs less than $350, allows the user to project information from the phone onto any surface -- walls, the body of another person or even your hand.
Pranav Mistry, "the brains behind the project," wears the device on a lanyard around his neck. Colored Magic Marker caps on four fingers (red, blue, green and yellow) help the camera distinguish the four fingers and recognize his hand gestures with software that Mistry created.
The gestures can be as simple as using his fingers and thumbs to create a picture frame that tells the camera to snap a photo, which is saved to his mobile phone. When he gets back to an office, he projects the images onto a wall and begins to size them.
When he encounters someone at a party, the system projects a cloud of words on the person's body to provide more information about him -- his blog URL, the name of his company, his likes, interests, and who knows what else....
When Mistry folds his hands in "namaste" fashion, the system opens a menu to allow him to choose an application. If he wants to read e-mail on his phone, he draws an @ symbol in the air with his finger. He can project a phone pad onto his palm and dial a number without removing the phone from his pocket. As he reads the newspaper on the subway he can project a video onto the page that provides more information about the topic he's reading.
Maes, Mistry's instructor, and Mistry have been working on the project for four months, day and night, and have filed a patent for it.
Maes' MIT group, which includes seven graduate students, were thinking about how a person could be more integrated into the world around them and access information without having to do something like take out a phone. They initially produced a wristband that would read an RFID tag to know, for example, which book a user is holding in a store.
They also had a ring that used infrared to communicate by beacon to supermarket smart shelves to give you information about products. As you grab a package of macaroni, the ring would glow red or green to tell you if the product was organic or free of peanut traces -- whatever criteria you program into the system.
"We wanted to make information more useful to people in real time with minimal effort in a way that doesn't require any behavior changes," Maes said. "The wristband was getting close, but you still had to take out your cell phone to look at the information."
That's when they struck on the idea of accessing information from the internet and projecting it. So someone wearing the wristband could pick up a paperback in the bookstore and immediately call up reviews about the book, projecting them onto a surface in the store or doing a keyword search through the book by accessing digitized pages on Amazon or Google books.
They started with a larger projector that was mounted on a helmet. But that proved cumbersome if someone was projecting data onto a wall then turned to speak to friend -- the data would project on the friend's face. Last month, they switched to a smaller projector and created the pendant prototype to be worn around the neck.
This year's TED demo was the first time they've shown it in public, though they're far from making a commercial product or forming a company around their invention. "But we're really excited about the potential," Maes said.
They learned recently that cellphone makers soon plan to release cellphones with projectors integrated in them, which will simplify their system even more.
Cybercast credit: Brightcove
The prototype was built from an ordinary webcam and a battery-powered 3M projector, with an attached mirror -- all connected to an internet-enabled mobile phone. The setup, which costs less than $350, allows the user to project information from the phone onto any surface -- walls, the body of another person or even your hand.
Pranav Mistry, "the brains behind the project," wears the device on a lanyard around his neck. Colored Magic Marker caps on four fingers (red, blue, green and yellow) help the camera distinguish the four fingers and recognize his hand gestures with software that Mistry created.
The gestures can be as simple as using his fingers and thumbs to create a picture frame that tells the camera to snap a photo, which is saved to his mobile phone. When he gets back to an office, he projects the images onto a wall and begins to size them.
When he encounters someone at a party, the system projects a cloud of words on the person's body to provide more information about him -- his blog URL, the name of his company, his likes, interests, and who knows what else....
When Mistry folds his hands in "namaste" fashion, the system opens a menu to allow him to choose an application. If he wants to read e-mail on his phone, he draws an @ symbol in the air with his finger. He can project a phone pad onto his palm and dial a number without removing the phone from his pocket. As he reads the newspaper on the subway he can project a video onto the page that provides more information about the topic he's reading.
Maes, Mistry's instructor, and Mistry have been working on the project for four months, day and night, and have filed a patent for it.
Maes' MIT group, which includes seven graduate students, were thinking about how a person could be more integrated into the world around them and access information without having to do something like take out a phone. They initially produced a wristband that would read an RFID tag to know, for example, which book a user is holding in a store.
They also had a ring that used infrared to communicate by beacon to supermarket smart shelves to give you information about products. As you grab a package of macaroni, the ring would glow red or green to tell you if the product was organic or free of peanut traces -- whatever criteria you program into the system.
"We wanted to make information more useful to people in real time with minimal effort in a way that doesn't require any behavior changes," Maes said. "The wristband was getting close, but you still had to take out your cell phone to look at the information."
That's when they struck on the idea of accessing information from the internet and projecting it. So someone wearing the wristband could pick up a paperback in the bookstore and immediately call up reviews about the book, projecting them onto a surface in the store or doing a keyword search through the book by accessing digitized pages on Amazon or Google books.
They started with a larger projector that was mounted on a helmet. But that proved cumbersome if someone was projecting data onto a wall then turned to speak to friend -- the data would project on the friend's face. Last month, they switched to a smaller projector and created the pendant prototype to be worn around the neck.
This year's TED demo was the first time they've shown it in public, though they're far from making a commercial product or forming a company around their invention. "But we're really excited about the potential," Maes said.
They learned recently that cellphone makers soon plan to release cellphones with projectors integrated in them, which will simplify their system even more.
Cybercast credit: Brightcove
February 19, 2009
Global IPTV Growth Creates Opportunity…Even Now!
No, not everything is going to hell … so take heart!
Matt McCall, Managing Director of VC firm DFJ Portage, notes that the internet is growing globally as the primary means of delivering television.
The statistics show strong adoption in China and Europe, but much weaker growth (essentially none) in the US.
Hong Kong 31%
Iceland 27%
Estonia 10%
France 10%
Cyprus 10%
Sweden 8%
S Korea 7%
US <1%
Growth in IPTV services and infrastructure creates significant opportunity for all of us that have innovative ways to deliver distribution, advertising, niche content, mobile integration, and a whole host of other related services.
Are you with me?
Matt McCall, Managing Director of VC firm DFJ Portage, notes that the internet is growing globally as the primary means of delivering television.
The statistics show strong adoption in China and Europe, but much weaker growth (essentially none) in the US.
Hong Kong 31%
Iceland 27%
Estonia 10%
France 10%
Cyprus 10%
Sweden 8%
S Korea 7%
US <1%
Growth in IPTV services and infrastructure creates significant opportunity for all of us that have innovative ways to deliver distribution, advertising, niche content, mobile integration, and a whole host of other related services.
Are you with me?
February 16, 2009
Internet Video Rescues Super Bowl Ads
The sexy PETA ad NFC refused to air also turned up on PETA's site (surprise, surprise....). YouTube also had Saturday's skit from SNL, mocking the actual Pepsi ad that would air Sunday. Ironically, the Web site for Jack in the Box crashed right after they'd aired their cliffhanger about Jack's bus accident, prompting one critic to joke, "Should we assume he's dead?"
A pirated version of Budweiser's un-aired Super Bowl ad also appeared on YouTube proving the Web is more democratic than NBC.
www.peta.org/content/standalone/VeggieLove/Default.aspx
www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7bQZLtgHts
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/01/MN0T15LDLS.DTL
Cybercast credit: YouTube
A pirated version of Budweiser's un-aired Super Bowl ad also appeared on YouTube proving the Web is more democratic than NBC.
www.peta.org/content/standalone/VeggieLove/Default.aspx
www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7bQZLtgHts
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/01/MN0T15LDLS.DTL
Cybercast credit: YouTube
February 13, 2009
You See, You Hear, You Report - on YouReportTV.com
Where they honestly believe that your news is good news!
Honest - that’s what they do say! So submit your story (in the UK that’s what they call a video too, it seems) to You Report TV, if it covers any of these subjects:
* Today
* Business
* Technology
* Politics
* Entertainment
* Sports
* More…
What do they want?
To help you here are their guidelines. Your content should be:
* Newsworthy, or based on news. Current or old news, that are news to YOU
* Video, mobile video, photo, audio, text or a combination of these
* As clear as possible
* Legal - for guidance refer to our terms and conditions
* Taken at no risk to you. Be safe!
What don't they want?
* Child pornography… SO ADULT PORNO IS OK?
* Dangerous or illegal acts
* Unlawful, obscene, defamatory or libelous material
* Images of rape, bestiality, intercourse, masturbation
* Sadistic or masochistic abuse
* Explicit depiction of male or female genitalia or pubic areas
* Paedophilia or necrophilia
* Spam (DUH)
* Unsolicited sales messages or advertising
Remember, YouReportTV is *Your* personal news channel. Only upload, contribute, share, discuss, or comment if it’s fun or useful for you and others.
Honest - that’s what they do say! So submit your story (in the UK that’s what they call a video too, it seems) to You Report TV, if it covers any of these subjects:
* Today
* Business
* Technology
* Politics
* Entertainment
* Sports
* More…
What do they want?
To help you here are their guidelines. Your content should be:
* Newsworthy, or based on news. Current or old news, that are news to YOU
* Video, mobile video, photo, audio, text or a combination of these
* As clear as possible
* Legal - for guidance refer to our terms and conditions
* Taken at no risk to you. Be safe!
What don't they want?
* Child pornography… SO ADULT PORNO IS OK?
* Dangerous or illegal acts
* Unlawful, obscene, defamatory or libelous material
* Images of rape, bestiality, intercourse, masturbation
* Sadistic or masochistic abuse
* Explicit depiction of male or female genitalia or pubic areas
* Paedophilia or necrophilia
* Spam (DUH)
* Unsolicited sales messages or advertising
Remember, YouReportTV is *Your* personal news channel. Only upload, contribute, share, discuss, or comment if it’s fun or useful for you and others.
February 10, 2009
Monetize Your Video with Storybids
Storybids is a (relatively) simple and useful web service for video producers and media ad buyers. They connect those with creative ideas for product placement with advertisers who want to place their products in user generated videos, mini-dramas, and webisodes, music videos, and online commercials.
How does it work for us, video producers?
Using Storybids' powerful creative and auction house tools, you can sell your creative ideas, embodied in your videos, to advertisers who want to place their products. You get your work noticed, the advertiser gets product placement and you get paid for your work. Pretty cool, huh?
How does it work for your prospective advertiser?
Storybids enables ad buyers to review the videos you upload and make available for bidding. This minimizes their risk and maximizes their ads’ potential impact, when it comes to distribution online through social networks, viral marketing, and video sites such as YouTube, MySpaceTV, and Facebook.
Automatic distribution and traffic tracking
Storybids provides distribution and video analytics measurement by optimizing finalized video for search engines and submitting to several video hosting sites such as YouTube, MySpaceTV, Veoh, Metacafe, DailyMotion and others simultaneously allowing dashboard reporting on the video’s performance via views, comments and ratings aggregated across the various video sites.
Cybercast credit: MetaCafe
How does it work for us, video producers?
Using Storybids' powerful creative and auction house tools, you can sell your creative ideas, embodied in your videos, to advertisers who want to place their products. You get your work noticed, the advertiser gets product placement and you get paid for your work. Pretty cool, huh?
How does it work for your prospective advertiser?
Storybids enables ad buyers to review the videos you upload and make available for bidding. This minimizes their risk and maximizes their ads’ potential impact, when it comes to distribution online through social networks, viral marketing, and video sites such as YouTube, MySpaceTV, and Facebook.
Automatic distribution and traffic tracking
Storybids provides distribution and video analytics measurement by optimizing finalized video for search engines and submitting to several video hosting sites such as YouTube, MySpaceTV, Veoh, Metacafe, DailyMotion and others simultaneously allowing dashboard reporting on the video’s performance via views, comments and ratings aggregated across the various video sites.
Cybercast credit: MetaCafe
February 7, 2009
Interactive TV - Actually Video - the Klickable Way
Klickable is a new online video platform that provides interactivity on your qualifying online videos. "Qualifying" probably means no sex, blood, or other non-PC content. Where is the fun in that?
Despite of all these restrictions, it's still true that interactive videos create a more engaged viewer, a more comprehensive publishing experience, and the opportunity for targeted contextual advertising. Klickable also claims that their members also provide publishers with comprehensive facts and figures to make your videos extra engaging.
"Klik-enabled" videos
"Klickable" videos give your viewers the option to klick on their favorite actors, objects, whatever they want. The Klick Kart provides you with the option of saving your klicks for later - that way you can revisit any part of the video (and any klicks) when you want to.
You don't have to to download of any software and only need a Flash 9.0 enabled computer and an Internet connection (preferably broadband). Klicakble allows you to embed your "klickable" videos on other Web sites, blogs and social networking pages.
If you are a publisher
Klickable offers to publishers the ability to offer more information to their users and to provide a more interactive and engaging experience. Our data has shown that users watch a Klickable video almost four times more than a regular static 20th century video. Tyey also increase a video's ad inventory through what they believe will be a new form of advertising: contextual overlay.
If you are an advertiser
Klickable gives advertisers an opportunity to serve contextually relevant advertisements within their videos. By making the brand an integral part of content either in post-production or product placement, Klickable advertising provides high brand recognition and recall as well as a high return on investment for ad spend. See our advertising section for more details.
I covered a similar online service from PlyMedia about a year ago, but haven't had a chance to try it, so I can't compare the two here.
Despite of all these restrictions, it's still true that interactive videos create a more engaged viewer, a more comprehensive publishing experience, and the opportunity for targeted contextual advertising. Klickable also claims that their members also provide publishers with comprehensive facts and figures to make your videos extra engaging.
"Klik-enabled" videos
"Klickable" videos give your viewers the option to klick on their favorite actors, objects, whatever they want. The Klick Kart provides you with the option of saving your klicks for later - that way you can revisit any part of the video (and any klicks) when you want to.
You don't have to to download of any software and only need a Flash 9.0 enabled computer and an Internet connection (preferably broadband). Klicakble allows you to embed your "klickable" videos on other Web sites, blogs and social networking pages.
If you are a publisher
Klickable offers to publishers the ability to offer more information to their users and to provide a more interactive and engaging experience. Our data has shown that users watch a Klickable video almost four times more than a regular static 20th century video. Tyey also increase a video's ad inventory through what they believe will be a new form of advertising: contextual overlay.
If you are an advertiser
Klickable gives advertisers an opportunity to serve contextually relevant advertisements within their videos. By making the brand an integral part of content either in post-production or product placement, Klickable advertising provides high brand recognition and recall as well as a high return on investment for ad spend. See our advertising section for more details.
I covered a similar online service from PlyMedia about a year ago, but haven't had a chance to try it, so I can't compare the two here.
February 4, 2009
Wallstrip Goes Down with Wall Street
The first week of 2009 brought some disappointing news to fans of the online video show "Wallstrip." Parent CBS Interactive is shutting production down.
For those unfamiliar with "Wallstrip," it has been the "pop culture meets stock culture" (as described by the site) video site that examined "hot" stocks and attempted to provide a down-to-earth explanation of why they were so hot.
What makes this story significant is that "Wallstrip" was one of, if not the first, online video original-production success story. Launched in 2006 with little more than some industry buzz and promotion by noteworthy financial and technology bloggers and about $500,000 in funding, it was acquired less than a year later for a rumored $5 million by CBS Interactive. See my first post, dated March 31, about it here.
There's been little released about why "Wallstrip" is being shuttered, but clearly difficulty in monetizing a site about hot stocks during the worst stock market since the Great Depression was the major reason.
While this is disappointing, we can probably learn a few good lessons from the "Wallstrip" story. CBS probably agrees, as they plan to use the “Wallstrip model” for their BNet property.
What is the “secret” of Wallstrip? In short, it "got it," at least from a viewer perspective. The creators took a fun, educational approach to what is a difficult to understand or even boring topic and built a following among a coveted audience (higher income financial enthusiasts). Episodes were relatively short, averaging 3-4 minutes at most, always entertaining, and came out three times a week due to the low production costs involved. Finally, users were kept engaged long after the clip ended with discussion boards and voting tools.
Why did it prove to be so difficult to monetize Wallstrip? The economic environment has no doubt been a factor -- perhaps the biggest one. Traffic has had to be a factor, too. According to Quantcast, "Wallstrip" only reached 14,000 users a month at its peak. Finally, advertising didn't seem to be the biggest focus -- original content was -- and this was compounded by the fact that repurposed content ala Hulu is still an advertiser medium of choice.
I very much hope that Wallstrip’s demise doesn't dampen the enthusiasm from other niche web video producers!
Cybercast credit: YouTube
For those unfamiliar with "Wallstrip," it has been the "pop culture meets stock culture" (as described by the site) video site that examined "hot" stocks and attempted to provide a down-to-earth explanation of why they were so hot.
What makes this story significant is that "Wallstrip" was one of, if not the first, online video original-production success story. Launched in 2006 with little more than some industry buzz and promotion by noteworthy financial and technology bloggers and about $500,000 in funding, it was acquired less than a year later for a rumored $5 million by CBS Interactive. See my first post, dated March 31, about it here.
There's been little released about why "Wallstrip" is being shuttered, but clearly difficulty in monetizing a site about hot stocks during the worst stock market since the Great Depression was the major reason.
While this is disappointing, we can probably learn a few good lessons from the "Wallstrip" story. CBS probably agrees, as they plan to use the “Wallstrip model” for their BNet property.
What is the “secret” of Wallstrip? In short, it "got it," at least from a viewer perspective. The creators took a fun, educational approach to what is a difficult to understand or even boring topic and built a following among a coveted audience (higher income financial enthusiasts). Episodes were relatively short, averaging 3-4 minutes at most, always entertaining, and came out three times a week due to the low production costs involved. Finally, users were kept engaged long after the clip ended with discussion boards and voting tools.
Why did it prove to be so difficult to monetize Wallstrip? The economic environment has no doubt been a factor -- perhaps the biggest one. Traffic has had to be a factor, too. According to Quantcast, "Wallstrip" only reached 14,000 users a month at its peak. Finally, advertising didn't seem to be the biggest focus -- original content was -- and this was compounded by the fact that repurposed content ala Hulu is still an advertiser medium of choice.
I very much hope that Wallstrip’s demise doesn't dampen the enthusiasm from other niche web video producers!
Cybercast credit: YouTube
February 1, 2009
Obama Inauguration: A Big Day for iTV Too
While Obama’s inauguration day was a day of many milestones in U.S. history, it was also a big day for web-internet-interactive-mobile television. Today's online video technology either didn't exist during the last inauguration or was in its infancy. Online video, the social Web, and mobile applications took center stage, as millions worldwide accessed and shared the inauguration experience and information online.
For online video specifically, a record number of Americans viewed the event at work, school, or at home. According to Akamai, a record 7.7 million viewers did so simultaneously, making it the most-watched live event in online video's history.
Outside of some expected capacity issues that excluded some users from accessing the stream optimally, the inauguration online was by most reports a success. Some long-time online video enthusiasts might remember an event almost exactly 10 years ago that did not go as well.
By the headline and sub-header, we surely have come a long way. For me, the web stream was moving even faster online than on cable TV!
I also downloaded the Ustream app for my iPhone the day before and thus was able to watch the inauguration while on the road. (No, I was NOT driving!) According to Ustream, over 100,000 users downloaded this application before the inauguration, making it the 6th most popular application in the iTunes store.
This certainly has the hallmarks of a major breakthrough in mobile and online video. I do expect live sporting events and the like to follow shortly, as sports fans, for a reasonable fee, sign up by the millions to watch their games whenever an wherever they want.
PS. I’m told, that if you had a Facebook account, you could log in via Facebook Connect while watching the CNN.com live stream.
For online video specifically, a record number of Americans viewed the event at work, school, or at home. According to Akamai, a record 7.7 million viewers did so simultaneously, making it the most-watched live event in online video's history.
Outside of some expected capacity issues that excluded some users from accessing the stream optimally, the inauguration online was by most reports a success. Some long-time online video enthusiasts might remember an event almost exactly 10 years ago that did not go as well.
By the headline and sub-header, we surely have come a long way. For me, the web stream was moving even faster online than on cable TV!
I also downloaded the Ustream app for my iPhone the day before and thus was able to watch the inauguration while on the road. (No, I was NOT driving!) According to Ustream, over 100,000 users downloaded this application before the inauguration, making it the 6th most popular application in the iTunes store.
This certainly has the hallmarks of a major breakthrough in mobile and online video. I do expect live sporting events and the like to follow shortly, as sports fans, for a reasonable fee, sign up by the millions to watch their games whenever an wherever they want.
PS. I’m told, that if you had a Facebook account, you could log in via Facebook Connect while watching the CNN.com live stream.
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