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January 2008 ArchivesWe are very happy to announce that Flixwagon has partnered MTV:
NEW YORK, Jan. 31 -- MTV's army of Street Team '08 citizen journalists will cover the youth vote like no one else on Super Tuesday, delivering the first-ever live mobile-to-web broadcasts -- from polling stations, caucuses, candidate rallies and everywhere young voters congregate February 5th. The real-time, on-the-spot reports will be streamed live all day from correspondents' video-equipped mobile phones to MTVNews.com and ChooseorLose.com. Throughout the day, MTV will regularly break into programming and showcase news featurettes excerpted from the live reports. The effort is part of MTV's constantly evolving, Emmy-winning ''Choose or Lose'' campaign and will offer the network's citizen journalists an unprecedented stage -- with the potential to reach as many as 100 million viewers -- as they bring all the Super Tuesday action to America's youth as it happens. ''Young people are taking hold of the political process like never before, and are clamoring to share and react to the stories as they unfold on the campaign trail in real-time,'' said Christina Norman, President of MTV. ''The Street Team's Super Tuesday coverage will be hyper-focused on the issues and stories that matter most to our audience, empowering them to experience the day's historic events in a whole new way.'' MTV's Street Team of citizen journalists will be using Nokia N95 devices, fully-fledged multimedia computers with a leading-class 5 megapixel camera and DVD-like quality video camera capabilities that allow them to create, edit and upload their stories instantly to the Internet. ''Nokia is proud and excited to see our flagship Nokia N95 multimedia devices being used so creatively to support and promote the electoral process,'' commented Bill Plummer, Vice President, Sales, Nokia Americas. ''Nokia Nseries devices are at the forefront of mobile technology, in this case delivering real-time high-quality Internet- ready audio and video reporting from the polls -- the very way that first-time and future voters have come to expect their news.'' An innovative application, provided by Flixwagon, powers the mobile broadcasting technology by allowing anyone with a capable 3G phone to stream live video to the Internet and store it for later viewing. ''Flixwagon.com is changing the way people share life experiences,'' said Eran Hess, President, My Frame Inc. ''The Choose or Lose campaign is an excellent example of how Flixwagon can empower people to broadcast their own unique perspective of Super Tuesday from their mobile phone and share it live on the Web with millions of people.'' An interactive map at MTVNews.com and ChooseorLose.com will notify users when the citizen journalists are broadcasting live from one of the 23 states holding a primary or caucus on February 5th. In addition to mobile reporting, the Street Team members will be blogging the latest from every Super Tuesday state throughout the day on ChooseorLose.com. MTV's innovative mobile phone-to-Web efforts on Super Tuesday are an element of its acclaimed ''Choose or Lose '08'' campaign to engage, educate and empower young voters. A major component of this year's campaign is the ''MTV Street Team '08'' -- 51 state-based citizen journalists who contribute weekly, multimedia reports (such as short form videos, blogs, animation, photos, podcasts) that are distributed via WAP site m.StreetTeam08.com, carriers in the MTV Mobile family, the Think Community (Think.MTV.com) and several other media platforms. Carefully selected by MTV after an extensive nationwide search, the one- of-a-kind press corps utilize mobile media like laptops, video cameras and cell phones to uncover the untold political stories that matter most to young people in their respective states. All 51 of the ''Street Team'' members have active profiles on Think.MTV.com, MTV's online community where young people, their friends and some of the biggest names in pop culture come together to bring about positive social change. The ''Street Team '08'' program is made possible by a $700,000 Knight News Challenge grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Knight News Challenge, at www.newschallenge.org, is an annual worldwide competition awarding $5 million for innovative ideas that use digital media to inform and inspire communities. The Knight Foundation plans to invest at least $25 million over five years in the search for bold community news experiments. On the Saturday before Super Tuesday, MTV, MySpace and the Associated Press are offering all of the frontrunner candidates from both parties one last chance to address the important youth voting bloc with ''Closing Arguments: A Presidential Super Dialogue.'' Taking place Saturday, February 2, 2008 at 6 PM ET live on-air, online, radio and mobile phones, the event is the next installment of MySpace and MTV's acclaimed Presidential Dialogue Series. More info on how to watch or join in and pose real time questions to confirmed participants Hillary Clinton, Mike Huckabee, Barack Obama and Ron Paul is available at www.ChooseorLose.com.
According to MediaWeek, FoxSports.com on MSN is planning an
Interestingly, sports - that in the past were broadcasted to TV - find their way to the web, as more and more peoople watch rich media online (also here and here). We hope to see fan questions to the players and other online interaction with users being done live using Flixwagon. Imagine a live video from a fan being answered by a live video from his\her fav player... :)
We are very happy to announce that the Flixwagon public alpha site is open to all! [Before it was just a bunch of friends, testing stuff around] If you want to take part in the action - please register here and we will send you a personal invitation. Enjoy!
Web communities and online networks have been the word of the day for many days now… :) Many mobile players have been trying to get a piece of the pie, among them is Nokia who has been working on several mobile social networks (one of them is Mosh). PaidContent published earlier this week that these days, Nokia and Facebook are working on porting the social network on to Nokia handsets in a major way.
We have seen several attempts to mobilize social communities. Some made the social network accessible from the mobile, while others tried to increase the convergence, i.e. to enable the user to be present in his/her online community even when he/she is not near a computer (take Helio and MySpace for example). However, the mobile phone can and should be used as a handy content creation tool, i.e. the user should be able to easily share content that was created on the mobile with his\her friends on his/her preferred web social network. This is the playground for Flixwagon. Nokia’s finding in its recent global study about the future of entertainment strengthen it:
Say hello to our new embedded video player. From now on there is no need for any HTML hacking! Simply copy and paste a link and voila!
And here's the flix... enjoy!
just posted a very positive review of Flixwagon:
There is also a nice poll and voting so if you think Flixwagon is a killer strat up - please vote for us here :) Hi friends, We are attending the Mobile World Congress Barcelona (February 11-14 2008). We'd love to meet so If you're interested - you are very welcome to drop me a line: xen [at] flixwagon [dot] com Hope to catch up there, Chris Albrecht from NewTeeVee reviewed a new start up called Big Think. According to Chris,
Putting the writers' negative impressions aside, Big Think have a very smart segmentation, aiming to the higher-end of the population and not necessarily to the masses. When evaluating start ups or new websites, one must differentiate between the relevance for him\her and the relevance for the target segment. Although Big Think might make some people feel as if they are in a big Ivy League club to which they are not welcomed, many others might feel at home. This is exactly what segmentation is all about – specifically tailoring products and services for designated populations. Of course people who do not belong to the relevant segment might feel left out. Otherwise it wouldn't be segmentation at all. This is precisely the reason why adults might feel left out when their children play with Barbies, or action figures. Or why career driven businessmen might feel out of place in a cooking course. Good segmentation. That's why. The segment of choice for Big think, the higher-end, is a segment that spends hours online and is always on the search for quality resources and quality content; i.e. the high-end segment is also part of the addressable market for video content. While this segment might have been consuming "light" content, it is well-equipped to enjoy more complex messages and will probably appreciate "heavy" content. Some examples of successful segmentations have already made their way into marketing textbooks (such as manufacturing different car models to address different segments). Video content as a market has already reached the masses (YouTube, MetaCafe etc'), therefore segmentation is the natural next step. Lately we started to see some players addressing specific segments, like 5min and now BigThink. So, if you feel left out, don't worry – some player will target your segment soon enough.
Continue reading Video Content Not Only For The Masses.
NewTeeVee asked their panel of experts this question: POINT: UGC will rule 2008. COUNTERPOINT: UGC will die in 2008. Our answer here at Flixwagon, in reply to the previous discussion, is UGC will rule 2008. The cost of producing a video is becoming more and more redundant. Today, growing numbers of people have cam phones at hand. Also, at the age of web 2.0 people are getting used to creating content, sharing it with wider communities (not only with my family and or immediate friends but with my entire online community) and consuming it. Using Flixwagon they will be able to live broadcast from the mobile and publish to their favorite social websites. Therefore, with more people capturing live videos on the go and broadcasting straight to their favorite websites, more video content will show up on the internet and be available for consumption.
David Adewumi of VenturaBeat published a new post covering 14 ways to broadcast yourself live. Flixwagon received a very positive review:
Thanks David!
But we do have a special treat for you. This morning, when we arrived to the office (after a very long night of fixing bugs, pizzas and beers) we received a notification from Lydia who was live broadcasting from her mobile phone. It was very amusing to share her new year's party at the US while here in Israel it was morning already. And here it is for your pleasure:
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