Results tagged “video” from The Flixwagon Blog

Some fun news today from Flixwagon, so let's jump right in:

1. New Mobile Client: We've just released our new Symbian mobile client, which offers substantially improved video and audio quality. Also, depending on what version you're currently running, you may discover these new features we added over the past few months: auto-check for future updates, manually posting on twitter and YouTube, 2-way chat and more. Get the latest version via your mobile browser from m.flixwagon.com/nokia. Also, iPhone users, make sure you're running the most current version by refreshing your sources on Cydia or Installer.

2. Sharing and Notifications: We’ve changed the privacy settings on flixwagon.com so that now you can send an encoded direct link to private flix without requiring your viewers to log in (please note though: this also means that whoever you share your flix with can forward those links to others!) Additional changes include adding the video thumbnail in email notifications. To add your contacts, create groups, and set sharing alerts: log in to flixwagon.com, go to Contacts → My Contacts. Also, check out this video tutorial on how to manage your sharing settings.

3. More  Tutorials: and speaking of tutorials, check out our additional demos on how to change the user details generated via Express Registration, and how to share flix on YouTube and Twitter. And speaking of Twitter, check out the new customizable default twitter message via Settings → Twitter.

4. Folio Mag: Following Conde Nast's Brides.com recent fashion show coverage using Flixwagon, here's what Folio Mag had to say about us (third part of the story): http://www.foliomag.com/2008/technologies-look-2009

The demo below shows how you can easily share your Flixwagon videos with your twitter followers and on YouTube:

Check out our tutorial on how the new sharing and notifications settings work on Flixwagon:

 

Flixwagon users and friends: Mashable has just announced its 2nd annual Open Web Awards, and we'd feel honored if you nominated us. Nominations close on Sunday, November 16, 2008 at 11:59pm PST.

For your convenience, we've included the nomination widgets below, pre-set with Flixwagon for the Mobile Applications and Video Sharing categories (you can nominate the same company in as many categories as you'd like, but you cannot nominate the same company in the same category multiple times under one email address).

Thanks, and we'll keep you posted on the results!

    + 

We're happy to announce that Flixwagon has just launched its integration with Nokia's Share on OVI service. For the benefit of users of both services, we're including a description of Flixwagon and Share on OVI below, with instructions on how to use the two together:

Flixwagon gives you the power of live video broadcasting in one click, right from your mobile phone. Share with family and friends, enjoy 2-way IM chat with viewers while broadcasting or watching, and easily determine who can watch which video. And now you can also instantly upload videos directly to Nokia's Share on Ovi!

With Share on Ovi you can share your photos, video and audio with one person, groups of people or the whole world, anytime, anywhere. Enjoy unlimited storage and share files of up to 100mb.
 

To start sharing live and stored videos from your mobile phone on Share on OVI here's what you need to do:

1. Download and install the latest Flixwagon application directly on your Symbian phone from here, or by signing up via our our website here. (FAQs)

Note: even if you already have Flixwagon installed, you still need to upgrade to the most recent version. Simply download the client from m.flixwagon.com/nokia and insert your login details instead of performing express registration.

2. On your computer, log-in to http://www.flixwagon.com (using the login details you got via SMS, or those you entered via the website), go to Settings/OVI, and enter your Share on OVI user name and password. Choose whether to have automatic or manual uploads to Share on OVI, and which Share on OVI channel/library to post your videos to.

Please note: Share on OVI requires separate sign-up and login from other OVI properties. To sign up for Share on OVI go to: http://share.ovi.com.

3. Open the Flixwagon application on your phone and click broadcast. If you set your preferences to automatic uploads, your public Flixwagon videos will appear in Share on Ovi instantly (and all your videos will also appear on Flixwagon.com). Remember, only public videos can be shared on Ovi by default.

If you set to manual uploads:
 
1. from the mobile broadcasting screen go to: Options --> Advanced Options --> Upload Flix to OVI.

OR:
 
2. login to your account on Flixwagon.com, open the video page, and click the OVI logo to share.

Feel free to edit titles and tags, post chat messages, and more. You can also view videos directly from your mobile phone on http://share.ovi.com.

Weekend treat for Flixwagon users: Cooliris is a neat browser plugin that allows you to browse and discover multimedia content in a cool 3D environment. We thought you might enjoy using it to watch your flixwagon videos as much as we do!

To view and navigate through your Flixwagon videos via Cooliris, simply download and install the plugin from here, go to your Flixwagon videos page (i.e. flixwagon.com/YourUserName) or our home page, and then hit the Cooliris icon on the top-left corner of your browser, or within a video thumbnail. You'll see the Cooliris interface open with all the videos, which you can then play or flick through. Enjoy!



Cooliris Icon

In the October Issue of Fast Company, Robert Scoble says every newspaper should equip its reporters with phones that can broadcast live video to the web, using apps like Flixwagon to "stream compelling live events -- crime scenes, postgame locker-room interviews, new-product introductions -- and package analysis on top of it." We absolutely agree.

The full story: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/129/scobleizer-breaking-news.html

We're happy to announce the launch of Flixwagon Solutions for Mobile Carriers and Media Companies.

The scoop: our business solutions allow our clients to deploy live video broadcasting capabilities from mobile phones to the web and TV on a large scale, with customizable features, and extremely fast time-to-market.

Mobile carriers can offer the service to their own subscribers to improve subscriber experience and generate additional revenue via service fees and data plans. Subscribers can then share live or stored videos directly from their mobile phones with their friends, family, and colleagues via any wesbite, blog, social network, video sharing site and more, and interact with their viewers through live 2-way chat.

Media companies can create new cost-effective content offerings around live mobile video by allowing their reporters and entertainers to make live high-quality videos from anywhere in the world. These videos can be watched online and/or on TV, in combination with viewer participation (live chat, viewer submitted questions and requests, etc.). Also, the Flixwagon platform allows media companies to incorporate citizen journalism and user-generated content by supporting video feeds from up to hundreds of thousands of contributors. The web and TV experience is entirely customized to fit the media organization's existing properties.

Feel free to check out our Viacom/MTV case study, which includes info on various projects we powered for MTV, including 'Coose or Lose' that featured an exclusive interview with VP Candidate Sarah Palin, and 'Jonas Brothers: Live & Mobile' that pulled over 6 Million video streams in just one weekend.


Our new Solutions page for Mobile Carriers and Media companies is here: http://www.flixwagon.com/solutions

The press release is here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/google/20080916005463/en

And here's our flickr account with photos and screenshots: http://flickr.com/photos/27816411@N02/


Updates:

Some coverage from this morning:

Center Networks

ReadWriteWeb

NewTeeVee



  

Great news today: Flixwagon is working with Web 2.0 Expo NY to cover the conference live from mobile phones to the web. During the expo we’ll have a number of bloggers and Flixwagonners at large in the different events making live videos all throughout. Starting with the Ignite NYC II event Monday Sep 15 and through the end of the conference, you can watch live videos of the show.

So what can you expect to see? Our folks will roam around and make continuous live videos. We’ll interview CEOs and start-up execs, tune in to some of the buzz in the hallways, live stream from the cocktail receptions, broadcast some of the panels, and more.

Check out the videos starting Monday Sep 15, here:  http://www.web2expo.com/communityvideo


 

Flixwagon was just announced as a finalist in Streaming Media's Readers' Choice Awards 2008 in the Mobile Video Platform category. The winner will be announced during the awards ceremony on September 24. Thanks to all Streaming Media readers who voted for us and to Streaming Media Magazine!

Finalists list:

http://www.streamingmedia.com/article.asp?id=10646

Also, check out our previous post about our very own Sarig Reichert's interview with Streaming Media Magazine about Flixwagon.

Our very own Sarig Reichert was recently interviewed by Streaming Media Magazine for their Content Delivery 2008 issue. Sarig talked about lifecasting, the Flixwagon widget and social network notifications, business uses for mobile broadcasting with companies like MTV, and the future of the mobile broadcasting industry. Feel free to check it out here. Also, the full vitual issue is here.

A few great upgrades today for our iPhone 2.0.x version:

1. New EDGE-friendly and high resolution settings: we added a new setting specifically for Edge connections with lower video quality but much faster upload time. Very useful when you're out and about, both on original iPhone and iPhone 3G (which tends to jump back to Edge every so often). We also added a Still Items setting, for showing higher resolution, yet mostly-still items like pictures or presentations while capturing sound. The original settings still include high frame rate broadcast (for videos with motion), and high resolution (for sharper frames).



2. Chat function: you can now see chat messages from your viewers directly on the iPhone screen. When viewers on Flixwagon.com comment on your video while you're broadcasting, the messages will appear on your screen.




3. New app design (see above).


To get the updated app, go to Cydia or Installer 4 on your iPhone 3G/2.0.1, refresh "Changes" (Cydia) or "Sources" (Installer), and follow the upgrade instructions. You may need to restart your phone to see our new icon. To install the app from scratch use the following instructions: http://flixwagon.com/pickphone/IPhone/.

As usual, let us know what you think!

Following several successful projects with Flixwagon, MTV yesterday deployed a number of street reporters armed with Flixwagon-equipped mobile phones to cover the National Democratic Convention in Denver. A similar number of reporters will also be on the scene using Flixwagon at the upcoming Republican National Convention.

The street reporters are making live videos throughout the four days of the convention from their mobile phones directly to their pages on the MTV Think website, in another installment of MTV's Choose or Lose campaign. The street reporters can easily broadcast live video and capture the atmosphere of the conventions in real-time without the need for large camera crews or bulky equipment. The official release is here.

Some of the videos and street reporters can be found here:

http://think.mtv.com/profile/trevorFmartin

http://think.mtv.com/profile/cgeraci25

http://think.mtv.com/profile/MiGoNev

http://think.mtv.com/profile/janeflemingkleeb

http://think.mtv.com/Issues/politics



blog home

Great news: Flixwagon is now available for iPhone 3G and for original iPhones running firmware 2.0.1!
After being first to broadcast from iPhones back in June, and first to launch our public iPhone app for 1.1.4  in July, we're now releasing our app for iPhone 3G and original iPhone 2.0.x. This means we now support all iPhone models and firmware!

To install you'll need an 'opened' iPhone with either Cydia or Installer. Simply open Cydia or Installer, make sure all your versions and resources are up-to-date, and then install Flixwagon from the multimedia folder (under 'Sections' in Cydia, or 'Categories' in Installer 4. You can also find it under the iSpazio directory). Special thanks to Fabiano from iSpazio.net for all the great help with Cydia and Installer!




Flixwagon iPhone Broadcast Screen

Advantages:

• Super-fast sign-up: there is no need to sign-up in advance anywhere. Simply launch the app on your iPhone, enter your phone number, and you'll be instantly logged-in and can start broadcasting video immediately. You'll also receive an SMS message with your new user name and password which you can then change or restore via flixwagon.com.

Express Registration

• Highest Frames per Second rate: Flixwagon broadcasts the highest frame rate per second on iPhone in the market -- at 12 frames per second -- providing a smoother broadcast flow.

Choose between sharper resolution or more frames per second

• Edit video details on the fly: change title and tags directly from the iPhone before or during broadcast. This is especially useful in helping more users discover your broadcast while you're still live, by adding relevant tags and titles based on events in the broadcast.
  

• Set sharing preferences directly from the device: set flix as private, public, or viewable only by certain groups like friends, family, co-workers, etc., all directly from the iPhone and while broadcasting. 

Edit video details and sharing preferences on the fly

• Light app: the entire package is only 98Kb.
  

If you're using iPhone 1.1.4 of older check out info for your phone. Please note, the iPhone apps (1.1.4 and 2.0.1) are both in Alpha, and are used primarily for us to learn and experiment more with the iPhone platform. Feel free to email us comments or feedback about the alpha app at feedback [at] flixwagon [dot] com. Once the iPhone SDK supports native video we expect to develop an app for the new official app store. We don't encourage 'opening' or 'jailbreaking' iPhones and users do so at their own risk.

36 hours, 600 clips, over 6 Million video streams, 60,000 hours of video viewed, 90,000 user comments, at least 2 clips per hour on air during commercial breaks on MTV over the weekend, three 30-minute compilations on TV -- shot entirely on mobile phones, over a dozen locations including backstage at Madison Square Garden, and 3 Jonas Brothers. These are some of the stats from MTV's Jonas Brothers event this past weekend using Flixwagon. We knew this was going to be our biggest event to-date, but it surpassed even our wildest expectations. For example, according to MTV, the latest season finale of reality show The Hills got 5 Million video streams during its first 3 days.  The Jonas Bros event pulled in more traffic in a much shorter period of time, and consisted of live videos made via mobile phones -- making this the biggest live mobile video event in the world to-date that we know of. The official press release is here.

As mentioned last week, we provided MTV with the Flixwagon platform to cover the Jonas Brothers tour of their new album “A Little Bit Longer”. Throughout the 36-hour event, a number of MTV bloggers and reporters made live videos directly to the MTV site and TV studio using mobile phones running the Flixwagon application. The videos showed the Jonas Brothers as they traveled and prepared for their concerts and even showed some candid moments like the brothers reacting emotionally to some items on the news. Even the brothers themselves carried one of the phones and made several live videos throughout the event.
 


MTV Website with the Flixwagon video player, showing Kevin Jonas making a live mobile video using Flixwagon

Apart from the successful event itself, what we’re also extremely happy about is that we were able to show again how the Flixwagon platform can scale and be customized to fit different types of live broadcasts, in terms of number of concurrent broadcasters, web video streams, and streaming from mobile phones to internet and/or television.

All the videos are available exclusively on the MTV site here: http://jonasbros.mtv.com.

Some very exciting news today: for the first time in a music event of such a scale, MTV will use Flixwagon to broadcast live video feeds from numerous mobile phones to the web and TV from the Jonas Brothers tour of their new album this weekend. This is great news, not only because it's the biggest event by a band of this level of fame to receive continuous live mobile video coverage of their tour on and off stage, but also because we're expecting our highest-ever traffic of any single event to-date!



Jonas Brother in Concert (Source: Official Jonas Brothers Flickr)

During the event, a number of MTV bloggers/reporters will broadcast live videos from their 3G mobile phones to the MTV website and TV channel using Flixwagon while they tour with the tween sensations. The videos will give a personal peak behind the scenes of the Jonas Brothers in real time as they travel and get ready for their shows in Jones Beach and Madison Square Garden. The best Flixwagon clips will also be broadcast on MTV's TV channel during commercial breaks, as well as during two special 30-minute compilation programs. Also, viewers on MTV.com will be able to comment on videos and chat with the bloggers and other viewers.



We've been providing MTV with live mobile broadcasting solutions for some time, for example with their live citizen journalist coverage of the Super Tuesday Primaries, but this one should be a record breaker for us in terms of number of videos, viewers, and general fun to be had.

Coverage on both MTV and MTV.com will start on Friday, August 8th 2008 at 4pm ET/PT and run through Saturday August 9th at 10pm ET/PT. Feel free to check out all videos on http://jonasbros.mtv.com. MTV will also show select clips during commercial breaks on MTV Friday and Saturday, and on two compilation shows on Saturday August 9th at 2pm and 10pm.

The MTV bloggers will be carrying mobile phones with the Flixwagon application that allows them to broadcast live video with one click to the web and TV studio (without any bulky equipment or cumbersome file transfers). The entire mobile broadcast is powered by the Flixwagon platform.

Hope you get a chance to watch the live broadcasts, and feel free to give us your feedback or contact us with any questions. Here's some more info from MTV's Buzzworthy blog: http://buzzworthy.mtv.com/2008/08/07/jonas-brothers-are-about-to-get-live-mobile-and-were-going-along-for-the-ride/
 

We're broadcasting live from Personal Democracy Forum  2008. Check it out:






PDF2008 website

Our very own Sarig Reichert interviewed by Beet.TV's Andy Plesser. Thanks for a great interview Andy.

 

We're happy to announce that our development team at the Flixwagon lab has successfully streamed the first-ever live high-quality video from unlocked iPhones to the web, using Flixwagon's alpha client.

 

While we don't condone or recommend unlocking iPhones, as avid iPhone users ourselves we wanted to experiment with ways to enable flixwagon on the iPhone, until the official SDK supports video. We're going to continue working with the iPhone SDK in the future so we can offer this functionality to all users once video becomes a standard part of the iPhone.

 

After Flixwagon is installed on the phone, users can broadcast videos with one click to the flixwagon website. Videos can be watched live or saved for later. Also, videos can be embedded in blogs via our flixee widget or uploaded to the user's YouTube account. Users can also easily determine which of their contacts to share each video with.

 

We'll release the iPhone version to our Alpha testers in July. In the mean time, if you want to sign up for Flixwagon or get updates on future roll-outs and supported mobile devices, click here. Also, feel free to follow us on Twitter for continuous updates. Finally, check out the iPhone demo below:  

 

Demo of iPhone Streaming Live Video via Flixwagon:

 

 

Video broadcast by an iPhone:

http://twitter.com/flixwagon

Http://www.flixwagon.com

http://flixwagon.com/iphone

Totlol is a niche new video sharing which is community-moderated to fit those between the ages of 6 months and 6 years. Or in other words, YouTube for the youngest crowd and their parents.

So cute!

We're here at the Blogtropol.us bloggers lounge at the Web2.0 Expo in SF. We be streaming live videos using 6 mobile phones so be sure to check out the live stream of video at http://www.flixwagon.com/web2_0 . Feel free to send your comments live, directly to the broadcasters!

Ayelet Noff, a.k.a. Blond 2.0, is hosting a dinner for our guests of honor this week in Israel:

Robert Scoble
Craig Newmark
JD Lasica
Susan Mernit
Renee Blodgett
Cathy Brooks
Deb Schultz
Sarah Lacy
Brad Reddersen
Jeff Saperstein

The dinner party is sponsored by MeeMix and Flixwagon. We will be broadcasting to you live from the event by Flixwagon, you can check out the videos here: http://www.blonde2dot0.com/blog/2008/04/14/israel-innovation-dinner/ . The event begins tonight at 7:30pm Israel time. Stay tuned for live broadcasts! :)

Ricky Cadden, Editor in Chief at www.Symbian-Guru.com, and his lovely fiancé Christina, decided to celebrate their wedding as never done before. As a tech savvy blogger, Ricky decided to broadcast his wedding LIVE to the internet using Flixwagon and 4 S60-powered Nokia N82 smartphones. Friends and family who couldn’t join the celebration as well as readers and online friends will be able to celebrate with Ricky and Christina and witness these special moments in the lives of the young couple. The cameras will be rolling all day long, so that visitors can follow the bride and groom as they get ready for the big event. All broadcasts will be available here: www.flixwagon.com/wedding/ (mind the last /)

Flixwagon, by MyFrame Inc., leading provider of high-quality live video broadcasting from mobile phones to the Web, is changing how people capture and share video on the web.  It provides an application to easily stream live, high-quality video from a mobile phone directly to the Web.  With Flixwagon, you can broadcast your world to individuals and groups, your blog, social networks and leading video sites.  MyFrame Inc. is privately held with offices in Boston, USA and Tel Aviv, Israel. For more information, visit www.flixwagon.com.

Look who was a guest at the Pop17 show!

Rory Cellan-Jones of BBC News published a video interview featuring Eran Hess, Flixwagon's Co-Founder and CEO. The interview was taken at the BBC's Television Centre, right in front of the live News 24 studio.

Apart from the great interview with Eran, Rory raises an important question:

"What would happen if everyone, anywhere, could have their own live television station from a mobile phone? So I could broadcast something as banal as my walk with the dog, or citizens could go live in conflict zones?"

Let me rephrase the question a little to make my point:

What would happen if everyone, anywhere, could have their own blog/online news site on the internet? So I could cover something as banal as my walk with the dog, or citizens could go live in conflict zones?

This probably sounds familiar to those of you who have been long enough around the blogosphere. So my answer to "what would happen?" is that change would happen. It means that we will probably witness the proliferation of the new technology, bringing alongside huge amounts of video contents with it. At first, we might be swamped, just like before everyone learned how to use Technorati and Google Blog Search to sort through all the blogs out there. Later, we will probably find our way (using new recommendation tools, directories and so on) and find new talents and new forms that couldn't have managed to get under the spotlight any other way.

 As for a 'walking with my dog' video, every new technology enables content generators the freedom of creation while the consumers need to sort and find what they like. This rule has been applied to books, music, TV shows, blogs, why not live video content? Also, even a 'walking with my dog' video will probably be relevant to someone, it may be my immediate circle of friends, dog lovers and people who want to get closer to me (potential dates etc'). 

 

Hi guys,

Don't miss it! There are live broadcasts from SXSW brought to you by a talented group of bloggers using Flixwagon.

Here is a short preview of the treats you can find at our special event page:

Pete Cashmore broadcasting Marshall Kirkpatrick of Read Write Web.

 while Marshall is broadcasting Pete: 

 Sarah Meyers interviewing Robert Scoble about his party

 

And there is a lot more from those came from, so head over to the Flixwaogn SXSW event page:

Captured by Mastro:

 

Thanks Mastro! :)

As promised, here's our live broadcasted video recipe of pasta with Alfredo and mushrooms sauce. We were very happy with the outcome, very tasty and really easy to cook.

Broadcasting it while cooking made us realize that there are "dead" moments when we needed to wait for the water to boil or the mushrooms to cook. We thought those moments are probably boring for the viewers... So we decided to take some breaks and divide the broadcast into a few interesting parts.

I hope you'll enjoy it. And you're very welcome to share your recipes with me. Drop me a line and I'll even publish then here.

*Thanks Ricky for the great inspiration, and thanks to Idan for cooking! :)

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5:

Watching live video broadcasts at Flixwagon.com has made me both hungry and motivated to prove my cooking skills. I invite you to share your favorite recipes using flixwagon and promise to share mine in my next posts. If you want your video to be featured here - just drop me a line.

The credits for inspiring this go to Ricky's latest 'Cooking with the Guru' series and to WhatleyDude.

Bon appetit!

Hey guys, after a rather slow start with a crash of the 3G network and hardly no WiFi coverage, Flixwagon is live broadcasting from Mobile World Congress :)

You can see our broadcasts here - http://www.flixwagon.com/gsm/index

Feel free to comment during broadcast.

For the non-US people out there on the web (which I am one of them), MTV's Choose or Loose initiative has provided a whole new experience of being a part of and great opportunity to have a closer look of the US elections.

Using Flixwagon, a series of 23 young reporters went out to cover the real stories from polling stations, caucuses, candidate rallies etc' live from their mobile. One of my favorite reporters is Sara Benincasa, a citizen journalist for the 2008 MTV Choose or Lose Street Team. All day long I was watching her live broadcasts which portrait NYC, the of New York voters, Hillary's winning speech and many other items.

This was a very amazing experience of getting video news breaks on real time from a young point of view. Here are some treats, however I strongly encourage you to follow the link to Sara Benicasa page and see them all.

Enjoy!

 

Today is the day! 

MTV

's street journalism team will broadcast from 23 states to ThinkMTV from their Nokia N95 mobile devices using Flixwagon. Throughout the day, MTV will regularly break into programming and showcase news features on TV from the live reports.

Here at Flixwagon we will bring you some highlights of today's coverage. Bellow is David Whiteside's flix showing people getting pumped up to vote:

Ricky Cadden

and Matt Jones came up with a very cool idea of how to use Flixwagon. They announced a blogger battle! It's called Geek vs Guru - The Workout competition.

Ricky and Matt are going to use Nokia Sports Tracker Online to report distance covered and Flixwagon to broadcasttheir weigh-in. Here are the battle rules:

The Rules:

1. Participants MUST workout and post a video recap on Tuesday and Thursday on their respective blogs. You can view the videos here: 

• Matt's at NokiaGeek.com
• Ricky’s at Symbian-Guru.com.

2. Workout MUST register in Nokia Sports Tracker Online. The distance covered will be taken from there.

3. Weight on scales must be recorded in the video recap and reported in the bi-weekly post in kilograms.

Points:

One point will be awarded for each kilometer covered, as well as each kilogram lost. 5 points will be deducted for not recording a workout or for not posting a video. The winner receives the satisfaction of knowing that he is the more in-shape blogger.

Winner:

The winner gets the satisfaction of knowing he is in great shape, as well as bragging rights.

Get updated:

• Make sure you’re subscribed to both NokiaGeek’s and Symbian-Guru’s RSS feed to get the latest updates on Mondays and Wednesdays.
• Go to the contest homepage, and get updates and links to the most recent coverage.
• Matt’s Flixwagon videos can be found here, and his SportsTrackerOnline profile is here.
• Ricky’s Flixwagon videos can be found here, and his SportsTrackerOnline profile is here.

We're gonna watch closely. Any bets, people? :)

• Mobile video ‘gets interesting’
• A New And Improved YouTube For Mobile
• OnMedia Panel: Monetizing Online Video
• YouTube + Digg + Obama = YouBama
• Metacafe teams with mobile entertainment companies for short-form videos

 

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!

• Report: Online Video Traffic Doubled in 2007
• Thanks to YouTube, Professors Are Finding New Audiences
• Deloitte: Nearly Half Of U.S. Consumers Frequently Create, Post Content Online
• JuiceCaster debuts mobile video search tool
• 3D barcodes will bring video to your phone

Chris Albrecht from NewTeeVee reviewed a new start up called Big Think. According to Chris,  

"Big Think wants to become the YouTube for ideas. The site has experts like professor Steven Pinker, author Deepak Chopra, and Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer answering big questions on topics like identity, politics and media. The video answers to these questions are supposed to kick-start discussions with people like you and me who can post responses or comments."

"In a world in which everyone’s a pundit, it’s nice to see someone recognizing the value of experts, but I just can’t see Big Think taking off. It’s just…so…heavy. Questions like “How are language and identity connected?” or “Has capitalism run mmok?” require too much brainpower when I’m multi-tasking with my computer, and the answers are snippets, so the topic can’t be more fully explored. While I haven’t watched all the videos, the only “fun” on Big Think I came across was “Writing for the Harvard Lampoon,” and “What is the most lavish party you have been to?” It’s like I’m reading cartoons from The New Yorker — clever, but fun in a way that’s elitist. Ultimately the whole thing feels like a big Ivy League club that I’m not welcome in."

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.

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.

 

This is Hagit and me (wearing pink) getting ready for the alpha, or better said - getting crazy...  Enjoy the quality!

[Needless to say this flix was broadcasted live from the mobile phone usinf Flixwagon... right?]

David Adewumi of VenturaBeat published a new post covering 14 ways to broadcast yourself live. Flixwagon received a very positive review:

"The Good. Video seems to have higher quality than competitor Qik. Users can edit video info from their phone.

Users don’t lose precious moments of broadcasts, thanks to a feature that stores video and saves for later viewing. Users can also broadcast alerts to friends and family and automatically upload their video to YouTube or Facebook."

 

[via VentureBeat]

Thanks David!

 

I was just reading at Go2Web2.0 about Samsung & YouTube's NewYears project. YouTube users are invited to answer one of the following questions in a short video (less than 1 minute long):  

1. Make a video that reveals the one word that is your personal theme for 2008
2. Reenact the best of worst thing that happened to you in 2007
3. What cool things have you done with your mobile phone this year?
4. In 2008 what kind of cool mobile phone should Samsung develop for you?

Users can also browse the videos using Google map and pick videos by location.

I can easily answer question #4 and say that Samsung (and other leading handset manufactures) should embed the Flixwagon live mobile broadcasting service in all of the devices. That way, users will have the application preinstalled and ready to use when they get a new device :)

 

 

To make sure that we provide you the best video quality ever while broadcasting live from the mobile, we sent Sarig Reichert, a.k.a. Rigi, to test drive the Flixwagon service in a ski slope.

These are the results:

As you probably know, the end of the year at the blogsphere is the time when bloggers summarize the year and make predictions for the upcoming year. Personally, I am going to leave the summarizing and forecasting tasks to my colleagues. The only thing that I will say in this context is answer a question I was asked by a fellow blogger friend. He asked me what was one of the most meaningful moments in my industry/business/market?

I think that finding out that one of the leading players in the web video sharing arena points out the need to have more friendly tools to capture life moments and broadcast them easily to the web video community live is a meaningful moment for us; in other words, there is a huge demand for what Flixwagon, the company I just joined, offers.

And in case you still don't know what I am talking about [and that is totally ok :)] I am referring to what YouTube co-founder Steve Chen said in an interview to Om Malik and Liz Gannes @ NewTeeVee Conference about a month ago:

Liz Gannes: "What's Youtube in 3 years?"
Steve Chen: I think that we're gonna see probably some stuff with a lot easier... I still think it's a problem with how to capture most of the videos on youtube and how to get them on to the site so we're gonna see just content creation tools getting better but getting easier. So I think that some of the new cell phones being able to just capture the videos and directly sending them without having to go home to your desktop plug it in the USB and then find the file and upload it. I think that's gonna get a lot better. I think there are still a lot of situations in the past were people said "oh shocks I wish I had my digital camera here to capture this" and now it's probably, with cell phones, it's I wish I had my cell phone out to capturing. So maybe something else there to be able to just almost capture everything that is happening and then anytime that something is interesting you can --
Liz Gannes: "live video capture?"
Steve Chen: "A third eye..."

[via NewTeeVee Live]

 

Happy Holidays everyone!

At Flixwagon, we decided to arm a group of teenage boy scouts with a Flixwagon supporting device and let them broadcast live pieces of their lives. The results were very amusing and are brought here...  Enjoy :)

A Double party for Flixwagon! Liz Gannes from NewTeeVee covered Flixwagon as well:

"If you’re going to bare your soul via a live video stream, what better way to do it than by using your ever-present cell phone to both shoot and send?
Flixwagon’s proposed offerings are similar to those of Qik, but include the promise of better picture quality and compatibility with a larger number of phones. Users will be able to stream live video from their cell phones to the web — and eventually, if all goes well, other cell phones. The company has developed versions for both Symbian and Java, but it really requires 3G to get it right."

[Via NewTeeVee]

Thanks Liz!