Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Streaming Media West - Updated News Coverage






Updated of Streaming Media West News Coverage from Sept 29-30, 2008.

Windows Media Player and Silverlight join hands
IT Examiner - Banglore, Karnataka, India - - Sept. 30, 2008There was also a host of specialty server and client products that were sprinkled around the Streaming Media West show floor. We highlighted one of those in ...

Wowza Media Server® Pro Preferred Over Adobe® FMS by Streaming ...
PR Web (press release) - Ferndale,WA,USA - Sept. 30, 2008
... was made by Streaming Media Magazine's editor Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen at a special ceremony held September 24, 2008 as part of Streaming Media West, ...



ABC’s Albert Cheng: It’s Revenue Per *Episode*...New York media zigged over to Ad Week ongoings, we zagged to San Jose, California, for Streaming Media West. There, Disney-ABC digital media EVP Albert Cheng showed off ABC TV’s new Web-based video player and said that what seems like a “closed” strategy — forcing people to watch the network’s video in its window — was really very open, because ...
ScribeMedia.Org
-
ABC "Opens" Its Video Player to Developers
...told the Streaming Media West conference last week. CNET's Webware contributor Dorian Benkoil has the story.Developers can use the player to fit particular needs, although the content will be from ABC as will the ads. Here's how Dorian explains it, quoting Cheng:"This month ABC launched its "Open ABC" initiative, giving access...

Beet.TV - Sep 29, 2008


CDN Wrap: Streaming Media Leftovers
While some industry execs at Streaming Media West were busy reviewing term sheets and discussing the merits of peer-to-peer (P2P) for video distribution, still others were busy making news...panels at Streaming Media West
Contentinople: Ryan Lawler -


CDN Consolidation Poised to Begin
Consolidation in the content delivery space could be imminent, according to attendees at Streaming Media West last week. Given the more than 40 or so companies in the content delivery business, it seems inevitable that market consolidation would be on its way. But attendees at say merger and acquisition activity may begin sooner rather than later...
Contentinople: -


Sunday, September 28, 2008

Streaming Media West - More News Coverage

I've listed several more news stories from the events of Streaming Media West that appeared the last few day along with several posts from Contentinople that were published by Ryan Lawler last week. There's been a number of articles written about the keynotes by ABC digital media EVP Albert Cheng, Jordan Hoffner, of YouTube, Werner Vogels of Amazon.com and Anthony Wood of Roku. The announcement that Roku would open up its platform to other streaming content owners seemed to generate some of the biggest buzz. It's no wonder since it's a set-top box that will help connect the living room to the Internet. I'm sure more news from the Streamingmedia.com editors will be forthcoming and I'll have more updates of my own to share as well.

Here's the latest news from wire:

Roku Becomes All Encompassing Video Player | $99 Set-Top Box Moves Beyond Netflix
..streaming hybrid player we looked at in July. Expanding The Content Clearly, Roku cannot limit itself to being purely a box for Netflix to hawk its wares, and so there have been rumblings of an increase in the amount of content soon to be available through the Roku set-top box. In July, Roku’s vice president of consumer products, Tim Twerdahl...

Web TV Wire
-

Things We Really Should Discuss

...Streaming Media West, I’m afraid I’ve been ignoring you, my little blog - so sorry. ??And we have so many topics to cover that I thought I should at least jot down a quick list of things we can cover later, when i’m more coherent. The details of the H.264 support in Silverlight The Flash
Encoder Server IBC/Coverage (this will no doubt be ...
Real World Video Compression
-

Akamai Still Dead Money: CDN Market Softens, Competition Grows

...scours the Streaming Media Conference for a reason to buy Akamai (AKAM)...and comes up empty: * We attended the SMW conference in San Jose, CA, from Sept. 23-24. We participated in panels on the Worldwide CDN Market, CDN pricing, and online video and mobile video monetization. In addition, we spoke with many CDN service providers, including...

Silicon Alley Insider
- ABC's Digital Frontier: Closed is open
CNET News - San Francisco,CA,USA
While Disney-ABC digital media EVP Albert Cheng's keynote speech at Streaming Media West last week at the San Jose Convention Center was laden with PR spin ...
See all stories on this topic

P2P Still Lags for Video Distribution
Contentinople - Written by Ryan Lawler
Friday, September 26. 2008 at 02:30 PM EDT
Execs at Streaming Media West say it still has a long way to go before it's considered a go-to technology for video distribution...


Execs See Challenges in Moving HD Video Online
Contentinople - Written by Ryan Lawler
Thursday, September 25. 2008 at 10:00 PM ED
T
Despite strong demand for high-quality online video, media and technology executives say there are still serious challenges in making high-def content available over the Internet


Roku Opening Up to Non-Netflix Video
Contentinople - Written by Ryan Lawler
Wednesday, September 24. 2008 at 02:15 PM EDT
Roku will soon open up its Netflix Player to other content owners looking to stream IP video to the TV...


ISPs: Video Flood Will Drive Tiered Broadband Pricing

Contentinople - Written by Ryan Lawler
Wednesday, September 24. 2008 at 10:45 AM EDT
Due to poor capacity planning on the part of ISPs, some executives say that service providers may have to implement tiered pricing to deal with the massive explosion in streaming video...


Amazon CTO: We Can Help Media Companies -
Contentinople - Written by Ryan Lawler
Monday, September 22. 2008 at 05:30 PM EDT
Amazon CTO Werner Vogels says his company's Web services are essential to helping new media companies scale...

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Streaming Media West Interview with Dan Rayburn, Conference Chairman and EVP of Streamingmedia.com

In the last hours of Streaming Media West I had a few minutes to speak with Dan Rayburn, EVP of Streamingmedia.com and Conference Chairman. Dan led two sessions on the CDN market and in this interview he provides an overview what the conference is about, what's important to making the 10-year old event a success, the demographics of the attendees, initial feedback of the sessions and keynotes, and an outlook for the streaming media and CDN industry.


MP4 version here

A note on process for all you online video content producers:
  • This is the first of several interviews and videos I recorded at Streaming Media West using my Flip Ultra video camera. I used Quicktime Pro to trancode the Flip .avi file into a .mov and edited it in iMovie. I then uploaded the file to Tubemogul for distribution and syndication on my video sharing sites.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Streaming Media West Day Three News Round Up

Streaming Media West has now come and gone and the conference moves onto Europe next month. In it's 10th year SMW is one of the only conferences that has consistently focused on video and audio delivery over Internet and other distribution networks. New and familiar themes dealing with online video content delivery, new advertising models, brand strategies and how to monetize content were a few of the many discussed by the 110 speakers and some 4000 attendees who had traveled from all over the world to join the discussion and learn. With online video consumption continuing to rise the ad dollars are still not equal to that of the broadcast TV networks and the general consensus was that it will be a few years before content producers will really start making money.

This year I spent more time in sessions than in the exhibit hall and met many new friends. There were a number of workshops and social events that really fostered the community building and while the economy is in the dumps the streaming media community is alive and well.

Several videos from Day One of Streaming Media West 2008 and the Readers' Choice Awards are already available for viewing on TV Worldwide. Thanks to Kevin Shively, Audrey Adams, Alex and the TV worldwide team.
Dan Rayburn has already started uploading some of the conference session presentations of which some are listed below or available here.


Streamingmedia.com: The 2008 Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards Winners - Faces familiar and new were among the winners announced Wednesday evening at the Streaming Media West in San Jose, Calif.
Thurs., Sept. 25, by Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen



FierceOnline Video Streaming Media West:

Here's a sampling of the most current news items about the show:

BrightRoll Selected as Best Video Ad Network at Streaming Media Awards
Market Wire (press release) - 4 hours ago
Winners were announced at an awards reception at Streaming Media West in San Jose on September 24th. The online video ad network, which has helped leading ...


Does and open source Roku change the content game?
ZDNet - 4 hours ago
At Streaming Media West TV executives described the task of getting Web streams from PCs to TVs as “really hard” but it isn’t. Within minutes of hooking my ...


Digitalsmiths Wins Streaming Media Readers' Choice Award for ...
MarketWatch - 7 hours ago
The winners were announced at a gala reception and awards presentation at the Streaming Media West show in San Jose, California. This year's Readers' Choice ...
ViewCast Osprey-700e HD Wins Streaming Media 2008 Readers' Choice ... MarketWatch

StandoutStocks.com: "Stocks that Standout" picks for today are ...
Trading Markets (press release), CA - 6 hours ago
24 at the Streaming Media West show in San Jose, marks the second consecutiveStreaming Media Readers' Choice Award for ViewCast. ...OTC:VCST - OTC:FEEC -CVE:GNO


Frustration Runs High at Streaming Media West
Wired News - 9 hours ago
That's the recurring theme at Streaming Media West, an online video conference in San Jose, Calif. While ABC, NBC and Fox have all embraced the internet ..

Roku to “Open” Netflix Player to Third Parties
eHomeUpgrade (press release), CA - 12 hours ago
By Alexander Grundner | September 25th, 2008 Comments (0) In a surprise announcement at Streaming Media West, Roku CEO, Anthony Wood, told attendees: “We’re ...

Execs see challenges delivering Net content to TV
EE Times India, India - 12 hours ago
... but just how that content will come to mainstream TVs remains unclear, according to speakers at the Streaming Media West conference. ...

Roku set-top box to become an open platform
BetaNews - 12 hours ago
Roku CEO and Founder Anthony Wood, formerly of ReplayTV, gave a keynote speech yesterday morning at the Streaming Media West conference in San Jose, ...

Roku reaffirms desire to work with other content providers
engadget, CA - 17 hours ago
At the recent Streaming Media West conference, Roku CEO Anthony Wood reiterated details that we already knew: it really, really wants to work with companies ...

Qumu Displays Leadership at Streaming Media West - BroadcastNewsroom
Conference to Feature Three Qumu Customers EMERYVILLE, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 09/23/08 -- Qumu, Inc., the leader in Enterprise Video Communications, will have a prominent presence at the upcoming Streaming Media West conference, which takes place from Sept. 23-25 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center. Three of the company's customers -- Safeway, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Raytheon -- will be featured on panels to discuss the benefits of enterprise video...

ADOBE BIG WINNER AT STREAMING MEDIA CONFERENCE
1590 KLIV Silicon Valley News, CA - Sep 25, 2008
San Jose - Another Streaming Media West convention has come and gone and the annual internet video conference ended with an awards presentation. ...ADBE


Stay tuned for more coverage from Streaming Media West. In the coming days I plan to download my photos, edit the videos, spellcheck and fix the grammar on my notes from the sessions I attended

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Streaming Media West Day Two News Round Up

It's now day three of Streaming Media West and I had planned to post more timely updates from the conference I found that I didn't get much down time. My second panel session is later today and I'm looking forward to an engaging and lively discussion with Paul Kontonis, CEO, Co-Founder, For Your Imagination, Saidah Nash VP, Global Product Development, Thomson Reuters and Mark Rotblat, VP of Sales and Marketing, TubeMogul.

The two keynotes yesterday were by Albert Cheng, Executive VP, Digital Media, ABC and Anthony Wood, Founder, CEO, Roku who both discussed their vision for the future of online video with ABC targeting every screen from desktop, handheld device to living room with their online video player and Roku focusing on the living room with their set-top box. Roku has future pans to open up it's platform to any video platform, opening SDK to allow any video from the web to run on the TV. Anthony Wood used this Qwest commercial from 1999 to help emphasis his point.


Tim Siglin detailed the keynotes in this article:
I'll provide more analysis from the sessions I attended along with videos and photos. The day concluded with the 2nd Annual Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards.
Congratulations to Qik for winning the best Mobile Video Platform. I was Qikking from the event and but unfortunately I didn't catch their award on this Qik video.


Here's some news from Day Two:

Wall Street Journal
Move Over Netflix -- Roku To Open the Box
Wired News - 21 hours ago
... will open its platform to any content provider over the next few months, says Roku CEO Anthony Wood, speaking at Streaming Media West. ...
Roku wants to stream everyone's content CNET News
all 97 news articles »
Execs see challenges bringing Net video to TV
EETimes.com - 15 hours ago
... but how that content will come to mainstream TVs remains unclear, according to speakers at the Streaming Media West conference here. ...
VMIX Unveils New Video Platform, VMIX 3.0
PR Web (press release), WA - 23 hours ago
San Jose, CA & Streaming Media West 2008 (PRWEB) September 24, 2008 -- VMIX, a leading provider of video publishing and management solutions, today unveiled ...
VMIX Announces New Player Platform, Accelerates Expansion PR Web (press release)
all 4 news articles »
Disney Won't Give Up Control of Video Content Anytime Soon
Wired News - 19 hours ago
... and that won't change," said Albert Cheng, executive vice president of digital media at Disney|ABC, while speaking at Streaming Media West. ...
The New Era of P2P -- Big Business Joins In the Fun
Wired News - 11 hours ago
... said Brian Jensen, a managing director of global corporate communications at Cushman & Wakefield, speaking on a panel at Streaming Media West. ...

Channels.com: with a falling sky, an entrepreneur remains cheerful
VentureBeat, CA - Sep 24, 2008
I wandered the mostly empty halls at the Streaming Media West conference today and encountered some unbridled optimism in spite of the economic doom and ...

Roku to Open Its Box to Anyone
NewTeeVee, CA - 19 hours ago
The Roku set-top box is closely associated with Netflix, but during a speech at Streaming Media West this morning, company CEO Anthony Wood said that it ...

Online Video Goes Back to the TV
WebProNews, KY - 16 hours ago
Roku CEO Anthony Wood reaffrimed this at Streaming Media West. Of course Netflix also announced a awhile back that they would be streaming content through ...
Verizon Has No Plans To Cap, Throttle
BroadbandReports.com, NY - Sep 24, 2008
... capping plans on the horizon: Doug Pasko, Verizon senior technologist broke the news to a crowd during a panel I moderated at Streaming Media West. ...VZ
Live from Phoenix
FierceVoIP, DC - 2 hours ago
Tuesday, I saw a pair of keynotes at Streaming Media West and followed it up with a strong dose of meetings; you can see the pictures and stories over at ...

That's all for now, I'm off to the morning keynotes and sessions on this last day of the conference.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Streaming Media West Day One News Round Up

There has been a lot of focus on the topic of how content owners can monetize video content on day one of Streaming Media West. I attended a number of sessions on the subject, got a few interviews with my Flip Video camera and moderated my first of two online video publishing panel sessions. In the coming days I'll be providing more complete coverage but for now here's a collection of news items, blog entries and Qik videos. Stay tuned for more.

Steve Garfield's Streaming Media West blog:
Streaming Media West Qik Event page for Sept. 23rd:
From Dan Rayburn's blog:

Streamingmedia.com Featured articles:

More news:

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Streaming Media West: Pre-Conference Planning, Building, and Launching A Video Blog Seminar

The Pre-Conference sessions kicked off Streaming Media West yesterday with some great seminars. This is a video from a live mobile Qik broadcast from Planning, Building, and Launching A Video Blog Seminar (SM4) presented by Jose Castillo, President, thinkjose.




I moderated one of my two panels sessions today on the topic of Online Video Publishing and Marketing Strategies. There was another change in speakers as Sundance DiGiovanni was unable to attend. I want to thank Robb Miller from The Feedroom and Amir Ashkenazi from Adap.tv for joining the panel in the eleventh hour and also thanks to Christina Cece from Glam Media and Sanjay Desai from Brightcove for their participation. The session went great and I'll talk more about the session in a following post. I'm moderating another session on Thursday.

Right now I'm off to the Tilzy.TV - TubeMogul Online Video Producers Meetup @ Streaming Media West.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Streaming Media West Pre-Conference Sessions are Today

Streaming Media West kicks off at the San José McEnery Convention Center today with Pre-Conference workshop sessions. I'll be attending these sessions and I've listed the schedule of events from the conference program. The conference sessions start on Tuesday and run through Thursday and the exhibit hall is open on Wednesday and Thursday. See the full conference program here.

Monday, September 22
, 2008

Broadcasting Live Flash Video and Building Custom Players
Pre-Conference Seminars (SM1) 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM

This hands-on workshop will walk you through the end-to-end workflow of capturing, encoding, and posting live content directly to your website using Flash Video. We'll also cover how to build a Flash player, how to customize it, and how to take advantage of tips and tricks that make it easy for you to deliver a customized, impactful, and interactive online live Flash Video experience.

Presenter:Kevin Towes, Product Manager, Flash Media Server, Adobe Systems, Inc

Encoding H.264 Video for Streaming and Progressive Download
Pre-Conference Seminars (SM2) 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM

This seminar focuses on producing H.264 video for streaming or progressive download. It will start with a deep look at key H.264 encoding parameters like B-frames, profiles, and levels, and how to customize encoding parameters for distributing via QuickTime and Flash. The seminar will also provide quality comparisons for H.264 codecs from Apple, MainConcept, Dicas, and Ateme, and recommended settings and workflows for Compressor, Squeeze and Adobe Media.

Presenter:Jan Ozer, Principal, Doceo Publishing

1:30 PM
Live Broadcasting for Silverlight and Windows Media Player
Pre-Conference Seminars (SM3) 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM

This session will cover the end-to-end steps required to encode, manage, and deliver live streaming broadcasts. Learn how to plan the production workflow, organize your Windows Media Services infrastructure, and when to target either Silverlight or Windows Media Player. The workshop will cover topics such as server-side playlists, configuring proxy servers for intranet delivery, distributing your live broadcast via CDN, techniques for archiving and distributing the event on-demand and Digital Rights Management.

Presenter:Jim Thill, Senior Product Manager, Silverlight Media, Microsoft

Planning, Building, and Launching A Video Blog
Pre-Conference Seminars (SM4) 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM

This hands-on workshop will cover the basics of planning, building, and launching a video blog. Whether you are an individual or part of a large corporation you will learn the power of user-generated content tools for capturing, editing, and sharing video online. Attendees will get a chance to participate as we launch our own video blog during the workshop. We will cover easy-to-use video capture devices, basic video editing tools, and online distribution platforms for your video blog.

Presenter:Jose Castillo, President, thinkjose

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Seesmic Goes Mobile, New Nokia N95 Application Lets You Bring the Conversation Anywhere

The popular video conversation community now extends to the mobile network with the release of a new Seesmic client for the Nokia N95. Both the Seesmic blog and founder Loic Le Meur announced the public application release this past Friday. It had been in development for some time and almost a month ago on his blog Loic asked, Do You Have A Symbian Smartphone Nokia n95 Or The Like?, in an effort to recruit some testers.

Now you can take Seesmic with you and as the Seesmic blog says,
"Seesmic users will be able to record and watch Seesmic videos directly from their cell phones. On top of that, this application stands as the first tool in which users can reply to their friend's videos and build a threaded conversation from their cell phone. Also, true to its social software nature, the Seesmic application allows users to post a Twitter message with a link to their new videos."
Here's the official video announcement and demo:



To install the client on your N95 just go to http://m.seesmic.com from your cell phone, and follow the easy download instructions. For more information go to the Frequently Asked Questions page.

I spent some time today testing the client on the Nokia N95 that I have on load from Nokia/WOM World. I wasn't able to playback any videos due to some player configuration or network issues that I haven't yet resolved. Here's the video thread from my test.

Nokia N95 test
Thank you to Steph and the Nokia/WOM World team for sending me the loaner Nokia N95 so that I could test this new application. Look for more updates from me this next week from Streaming Media West. I'm packing my bags and heading off to San Jose in the morning.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

My New Business Cards for Online Video Publishing [dot] com

[larrykless_card.jpg]

I proudly present my new social media business cards. I've been asked why I didn't put my picture on card and the image I chose dates back to my first blog post. I think it adds an old school new media vibe to the card.

I included my main channels of communication and while I'm expanding in other networks I listed where I spend most of my time.

Online Video Publishing [dot] com will be at Streaming Media West starting this Monday with the Pre-Conference sessions.

Stay tuned to this space for video and updates from the conference.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Streaming Media West: Updating and Syndicating Your Channels for New Media Distribution - Speaker Profile

This is a companion post to my previous one profiling the speakers participating in the two panel sessions I'm moderating at Streaming Media West. This session had originally featured Andy Plesser from Beet.TV but he was unable to make it and currently his seat has not been filled. Ric Camaho from Thomson Reuters was also originally scheduled but Saidah Nash who's also from Reuters has taken his place.

Updating and Syndicating Your Channels for New Media Distribution
Date: Thursday, September 25, 2008
Track B (B302) 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM

Moderator:

Larry Kless, Founder, President, OnlineVideoPublishing [dot] com

See the previous post for my bio.




Presenters:

Mark Rotblat, VP of Sales and Marketing, TubeMogul

Mark leads the Sales and Marketing efforts at TubeMogul, with a focus on communications and marketing activities surrounding customer acquisition, product launches, and industry analysis. He previously worked in Marketing and Business Development at Healthline.com where he developed partnerships for the company's content and tools. Prior to Healthline, Mark was a management consultant for Stockamp & Associates where he advised multi-billion dollar healthcare organizations on IT implementations for operational improvement and financial reporting. Mark has an MBA from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

Founded in 2006 by online video buffs who met while in graduate school and won the UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition, TubeMogul's objective from the start has been to empower online video producers, advertisers and the online video industry by providing publishing tools and insightful, easy to interpret analytics.With TubeMogul, users upload videos once and TubeMogul deploys them to as many of the top video sharing sites the producer chooses. TubeMogul's integrated analytics then provide a single source of metrics on where, when, and how often the videos are viewed. TubeMogul's free beta service has been live since November of 2006. In January 2008, TubeMogul announced the launch of its Premium Products, which include a host of new professional features. Upon launch, TubeMogul boasts a client list including CBS Interactive, Michael Eisner's new media production company, Vuguru, Next New Networks, and several agencies representing the top brands in media, technology, and consumer products.

Facts: Over 300 million views from videos deployed through TubeMogul
Over 35,000 fanatical users
Zero animals harmed



Paul Kontonis, CEO, Co-Founder, For Your Imagination

Paul is the Chief Executive and a co-founder of For Your Imagination and is a seasoned marketing executive and general manager with 15+ years of experience in building interactive marketing agencies and online media companies, as well as, traditional marketing and sales roles at education and pharmaceutical companies.

Paul has a track record of success achieving revenue, profit and business growth objectives within start-ups, established companies and overall dynamic environments and new markets. Paul was the General Manager of Educational Marketing and Corporate Sales for Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions, the leading test preparation provider. Prior to joining Kaplan, Paul was the Chief Marketing Officer of btldesign, a 25-year-old marketing communications agency, specializing in business-to-business marketing communications for Fortune 100 global brands like MasterCard, Samsung, Pfizer, Major League Baseball and the FIFA World Cup. Paul's interactive experience began as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at SenseNet, a Web application development agency, and as the Director of Business Development for Silver Shock, a boutique interactive agency. He appears in a number of marketing publications, digital media books including the Documentary Filmmakers Handbook, and is a speaker at several industry conferences and seminars annually

For Your Imagination develops and markets high-quality original Internet TV and web video series, turning concept into reality for brands and content creators. The company works with brands and content creators to develop their online video content, offering them the opportunity to reach a targeted advertiser-friendly audience effectively and monetizing quickly.
For Your Imagination’s talented team writes, produces and markets entertaining videos for online distribution and monetization through advertising, sponsorships, merchandising and licensing. New York City based For Your Imagination is built upon the experience of industry veterans whose combined expertise include web development, major television and movie production, national marketing campaigns and technology.

Saidah Nash VP, Global Product Development, Thomson Reuters

Saidah Nash is Vice President for Digital Rich Media at Reuters. In this role, Saidah leads overall product management, direction and strategy for new multimedia digital syndication product offerings. Key areas include developing new markets, non-traditional revenue streams and next-generation distribution models for Reuters agency medias online propositions.

An expert in content syndication, product development, and commercializing content-rich experiences, Saidah has had several roles at Reuters over the years. Previous roles include Director of Globlal Product Marketing, where Saidah was responsible for global product launches, global customer research and embedding client feedback into the product planning processes. Saidah joined Reuters in 1997 having graduated from the College of William and Mary in Virginia, with a degree in International Relations with a concentration on East Asia. Saidah speaks Mandarin Chinese has been at Reuters for 11 years.

Thomson Reuters is the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. Thomson Reuters combines industry expertise with innovative technology to deliver critical information to leading decision makers in the financial, legal, tax and accounting, scientific, healthcare and media markets, powered by the world’s most trusted news organization. Thomson Reuters' media properties are seen by over 1 billion people every day. Reuters Media informs the world by providing authoritative news and information to media and business professionals.

Thomson Reuters shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: TRI); Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: TRI); London Stock Exchange (LSE: TRIL); and Nasdaq (NASDAQ: TRIN)

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Streaming Media West: Online Video Publishing and Marketing Strategies - Speaker Profile

Streaming Media West 2008 is now a week away and I've been busy preparing for the conference. Over the last several weeks I've been connecting with the speakers who are participating in the two panel sessions that I'm moderating. The topic for both sessions is online video publishing strategies and within the last week there's been some significant changes to each panel session. Several speakers have dropped out and new ones have been added. For this post I'm featuring a profile on the speakers who are part of the first panel session. This session had originally featured Eric Hadley from Heavy.com and Roger Lee from Battery Ventures but both of them recently canceled. We're looking for another presenter for this panel session as Dan Rayburn noted on his blog, Last Minute Speaking Spots Open At Streaming Media West Show. Contact Dan Rayburn if you are interested.

The bio and company information featured here was provided by each speaker and from their web site. I'll highlight the speakers in the second session, Updating and Syndicating Your Channels for New Media Distribution, in the next post.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Online Video Publishing and Marketing Strategies
Track A: (A102) 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
In the world of video publishing, how do you get started? How do you create compelling content? With so many options for live and on-demand video, how do you choose your distribution platform? How do you find your niche? Build your audience? Establish your brand? How do you create a sustainable model to monetize your content and generate income? This is an opportunity to hear some of the most well-known and respected online video publishers discuss online video publishing and marketing strategies.

Moderator:
Larry Kless, Founder, President, OnlineVideoPublishing [dot] com

Larry Kless has worked in the videoconferencing and streaming industry since 1990. His day job is at a corporate multimedia department working as a videoconferencing production manager, director and producer for live events, webcasts and multimedia productions. He's presented at two previous Streaming Media West conferences on Distribution & Delivery of Digital Media and Best Practices For Webcasting Production. Larry launched Online Video Publishing [dot] com in June 2008 as a resource for sharing strategies, best practices and tips for online video publishers. His clients are corporate, non-profit and independent producers.

He's currently working with Streamingmedia.com, an Information Today Inc. company programming panel sessions for the Streaming Media West 2008 conference. His blogs, Online Video Publishing [dot] com and Larry Kless's Weblog focus on the converging technologies of streaming media, online video, videoconferencing, collaboration and social media applications.

Larry's background is in Fine Arts and he's a long time member of Canyon Cinema and The Filmmakers' Cooperative.

Presenters:
Sanjay Desai, Product Marketing, Brightcove

Sanjay serves as Vice President of Product Marketing at Brightcove. In this role, he leads the product team responsible for Brightcove’s core service and spearheads product marketing across the organization. Before joining Brightcove, Sanjay spent several years leading product management/marketing for Tellme Networks’ consumer business in Mountain View, California. Prior to Tellme, Sanjay served as VP, Strategic Planning at The Walt Disney Company, focused on ABC’s broadcast and production businesses. Earlier in his career, Sanjay gained experience within Goldman Sachs’ technology, media and telecom M&A group and as a strategy consultant for KPMG. He holds a BA from the University of California, Berkeley and an MBA from Stanford Business School.

Brightcove, Inc. provides Internet television services. It transforms the distribution and consumption of media. The company provides video marketing solutions, advertising solutions, and advertising and marketing.


Sundance DiGiovanni, Co-Founder, Chief Brand Officer, Major League Gaming

Sundance co-founded MLG with Michael Sepso in 2002 with a vision to combine his lifelong passion of gaming and his deeply competitive nature. As chief brand officer of Major League Gaming, Sundance focuses on the long-term roadmap of competitive video game play and the various distribution channels that can bring this burgeoning sport to the masses. In addition to his management responsibilities at MLG, Sundance serves as an on-air gaming expert for several television networks including ESPN, USA and CNBC. As an internationally recognized gaming expert, Sundance has quickly become one of the world’s leading experts on gaming culture. Prior to co-founding MLG, Sundance was worldwide Creative Director at Gotham Broadband, a broadband media pioneer. He is a veteran creative executive with over 12 years of experience in a variety of media working with such brands as AOL Time Warner, DirecTV, Sony, Pfizer, Nortel Networks, and Sprint. He also loves the color purple.

Major League Gaming (MLG) is the largest organized league and international sanctioning body for the world's fastest growing competitive sport: professional video gaming. Recognized as the global governing authority for millions of competitive gamers worldwide, MLG's ongoing professional video gaming tournaments have attracted competitors from over 28 countries. MLG operates its online, television production, game development and product licensing operations through MLG Properties and through MLG Management develops the careers of a roster of the world's most accomplished pro gamers.


Christina Cece, Sr. Product Manager, Glam Media

Christina manages all Glam Media Products. She manages Glam.com, Glam’s owned and operated properties, Glam’s publisher products and internal tools and our flagship video product – GlamTV.

She held senior positions at IBM, MarkLogic Corp (Sequoia-funded xml content server company), Deloitte, and a year as a senior engineer at CafePress. She has a degree in Econ and Computer Science from Duke University.

Glam Media’s vertical content network, with a reach of 77M unique visitors, is effectively changing the very definition of what a media company is in the 21st Century. Glam Media leverages the increasing fragmentation of the Internet —bringing together owned-and-operated websites, including flagship Glam.com, with the Glam Publisher Network of more than 600 popular lifestyle websites and blogs and syndicated content from leading media companies. Glam Media’s distributed media network model effectively bridges hundreds of unique digital “voices” representing the best content in each category relevant to women, and offers advertisers truly unprecedented quality reach through a single brand advertising platform: Glam Evolution.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Hey Jim Kukral, I Bought a Flip Video Camera!

So I finally took the advise of both Jim Kukral and Chris Pirillo and bought a Flip Video camera yesterday. I had been thinking about getting one for a while and decided to pick up the Flip Ultra at Costco. After so many years of wrangling with videotapes I'm really tired of dealing with them. This will make it easier for online video publishing and video blogging. Anyone else out there have a Flip? What do you think?

Here's my Seesmic video before the unboxing.

This my first Flip video just testing it out in a controlled setting. I plan to use it the week after next to capture interviews and updates at Streaming Media West.


My First Flip Video from Larry Kless on Vimeo.

The quality is pretty good and according to the specs it can shoot 60 minutes of video at 640 x 480 in Advanced Profile MPEG-4 AVI format with an average bit rate 4.0Mbps (auto-adaptive algorithm) at 30 frames per second (constant frame rate, progressive scan), it has auto-adaptive white/black balance and exposure, works up to 2 hours on two AA batteries, has all the standard camcorder functions and has a built-in omni-directional microphone, speaker, tripod mount and a TV-out cable with RCA video and audio connectors. Built-in flip-out USB arm and ease of use upload really makes this a useful product. Stay tuned for more videos.

Here's some details on it's video compression engine: Pure Digital Flip Video Ultra by John Virata

UPDATE: If you're interested in buying a Flip, check out
www.buytheflip.com

Tina Fey Returns to SNL to Play Sarah Palin, Will It Go Viral?

Tina Fey returned to SNL last night to fulfill the role she was destined to play as Republican Vice President candidate Saran Palin. Amy Poehler joined her in the season opener playing Hillary Clinton. The official video on the NBC web site has recieved 88,668 views within twelve hours of its premiere 247,294 views as of 6:35 PM PDT.

Liz Shannon Miller of NewTeevee brought back the feature, Will It Spread? Tina Fey as Sarah Palin on SNL « NewTeeVee, which rates the viral qualities of the video and the factors that play into its viral success. Read more here.



Stay tuned for the upcoming posts on Streaming Media West now just one week away.

UPDATE: There's a good chance this video will go viral. Micheal Learmonth wrote yesterday in his Silicon Alley Insider post, YouTube Thanks ABC For A Great Sarah Palin Interview, "Consider: Over the past week, videos mentioning Palin -- including her acceptance speech, pirated news clips and dozens of parodies, including this by Web comedienne Lisa Nova, have been getting more views than either Barack Obama or her running mate, according to Web analytics firm TubeMogul:
Palin: 38 million
Obama: 29 million
McCain: 25 million"
UPDATE 9/17/08: The answer is yes, this video went viral. Beet.TV reported today that the video has been streamed 5 million times between the NBC site which has 3,786,957 combined with the various video sharing sites.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Sarah Palin Interviewed by ABC, Video Bloggers Respond

ABC’s Charlie Gibson interviewed the Alaskan Governor and Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin this past week and the internet was not lacking in video responses to her appearance. @Queen of Spain tipped me to a video blogger I've added to my list, James Kotecki's Video Blog on Politico.com. He produces a daily video blog in a short form sarcastic style similar to The Soup and The Daily Show.



While over at NewTeeVee Liz Shannon Miller posted a round up of, Weekend Vid Picks: Ladies On Sarah Palin, which includes videos from supporters and critics including this one from the sketch troupe One Hot Mess, which Liz says "gets savage. “Finally, a candidate our vaginas can relate to” is just the beginning of this assault on the girl-power-for-the-sake-of-girl-power mentality."

See more funny videos at Funny or Die


It's also rumored that Tina Fey may return to SNL to play the Alaskan Governor on the season premiere tonight which features an appearance by Democratic Presidential candidate Barrack Obama. There's been a lot of discussions, like this one from Friendfeed, that Hollywood should stay out of the political discourse but American actors and entertainers have the right to free speech and also vote just like Matt Damon.