Sunday, November 29, 2009

Streaming Media West 2009 Red Carpet Interview - Brent Friedman, Electric Farm Entertainment

I'm pleased to present this Streaming Media West 2009 Red Carpet Interview, which I interview Brent Friedman, Co-Founder and President, Electric Farm Entertainment, a leading digital media company specializing in the development of intellectual properties across multiple platforms. At EFE, Brent works on the bleeding edge of online storytelling producing high-end webseries that are distributed globally on broadcast, broadband and mobile. These unique "entertainment experiences" offer audience full immersion and interactivity. Brent created, wrote and produced EFE’s first two groundbreaking webseries, Afterwold and Gemini Division distributed by Sony and NBC respectively. Brent is presently serving as Executive Producer on EFE's next webseries, Woke Up Dead, a "zomedy" done in conjunction with Sony and Kodak. He is also the Co-Creator and Executive Producer of Valemont, EFE's collaboration with MTV. Upcoming is Prophet, another webseries Brent created and will produce for Disney.



Brent spoke as a panelist on the Streaming Media West session Web Television Comes of Age which was moderated by Marc Hustvedt, Co-Founder, Tubefilter & Editor-in-Chief, Tubefilter News and also featured Zadi Diaz, Creative Director, Co-Founder, Smashface Productions, Jenni Powell, New Media Consultant and Thom Woodley, Partner, Chief Creative Officer, Dinosaur Diorama.

Electric Farm Entertainment recently made NewTeeVee’s Next Big Thing List for 2009, which recognized 10 companies that are rapidly gaining traction in emerging aspects of the online video business. Brent also spoke at NewTeeVee Live 09 and shared his prediction on where he sees online entertainment going which he also discussed on the Streaming Media West web television panel session and in this Red Carpet interview.

Brent says,
"My prediction moving forward, is there's going to be a greater stratification of web content. You're going to see more professional content come in with higher budgets and become more ambitious. And the user gen and amateur content isn't going to go away. I just think you're going see a little more disparity between the haves and the have nots in terms of budgets. And what I think you're going to see with the bigger budget projects is it's not just going to be about the webisodes anymore. It's going to be creating much more of an integrated entertainment experience."

Brent sees fully immersive destination sites evolving out of big media companies looking to create a much deeper level of engagement to the point that he calls, "universes worthy of devotion." This takes the notion of fan sites to a new level, where fans can interact with an existing narrative but add to it, much like the social entertainment experience first pioneered by the creators of LonelyGirl15.

Brent described that with the current project, Valemont University, the story has bled over into other platforms. Users can register for the student community through the web site, join the Facebook group, follow Twitter updates from the main characters, see photos on Flickr, watch the webisodes on MTV and get extra dirt and mobile content from the product integration with Verizon. He noted that the community has grown organically, with tens of thousands already registered on the web site playing along as part of story. EFE is currently working on securing a second season of Valemont on MTV.

Brent thinks that we're in the dawn of the web television era. As companies like Verizon, MTV, Sony and others partner with content creators he sees more opportunity for experimentation in non-linear or transmedia storytelling across platforms (mobile, TV and computer).

More from Electric Farm Entertainment

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Streaming Media West 2009 Red Carpet Interview - Paul Riismandel, Northwestern University

In this Streaming Media West 2009 Red Carpet interview, Peter Cervieri chats with Paul Riismandel, Director of Curriculum Support at the School of Communication at Northwestern University, about some of the challenges that educators face in adapting the classroom and lab experience into video along with the value that video brings for students. Paul specializes in educational technology for higher education, with a focus on digital media and conferencing. He writes for Streamingmedia.com and has moderated many panel discussions at Streaming Media East and West. He blogs and podcasts about other media stuff at mediageek.net and is better known as the @mediageek on Twitter. 

In addition to all his new media work he also dabbles in old media. Paul is the adviser to Northwestern University's WNUR-FM 89.3 FM, where he now produces his radio show, mediageek, every Thursday at 9 PM Central Time. 


At Northwestern University, the demand for video is driven more by tech savvy students who rely on the video recordings rather than taking notes. This helps them stay more engaged since they don't have to worry about missing part of the lecture when they can just watch it later for review. Paul says that video in the classroom rewards the most motivated students who are challenged to do well, and it gives them the extra opportunity to do better. He says that for instructors, the learning experience has to lend itself to a form that translates well into video.
 
Supporting the technology are film students who staff two wired classrooms that have built-in remote controlled cameras, microphones with active mixing, SMART Podium interactive pen displays to capture notations and Mediasite recorders for Powerpoint and screen capture. Students log in through the Mediasite portal to access the content but Northwestern University is evaluating a broader, platform agnostic portal that would serve as a DAM (Digital Assessment Management) system. Paul pointed out that, with the thousands of universities out there, the market is ripe for SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions in higher education. 

Paul also moderated two panel sessions at this years Streaming Media West and the Online Video Platform Summit. The first session, How to Produce Effective Educational Content, featured Scott Nadzan, Director, Technology Services, Syracuse University, Richard Bloom, Course-cast Coordinator, UC Berkeley, Dan Balzer, Training Technology Manager, Retail Learning and Development, BP America and John Morris, CTO, Director of Operations, Drexel University who discussed how they work with subject matter experts, practical production techniques, and the tools used to get optimal results in service of learning goals.

At the Online Video Platform Summit, Paul moderated, Best Practices Round Table - Online Video Publishing Strategies and Tools, which featured Matt DeLoca, SVP, Sales & Marketing, KIT Digital, Wayne Kao, VP, Product Engineering, VMIX, Ken Kaplan, Broadcast and New Media Manager, Intel Global Communications Group and Linda Crowe,Group Manager, Media Strategy & Production, Sun Microsystems who discussed cost-effective tools, techniques, and best practices for online video publishing.

Linda Crowe also did a Red Carpet interview which focused on enterprise video which I'll feature in an upcoming post. Videos from both of those sessions will be available on Streamingmedia.com/videos

Here's a sample of Paul's Streaming Media articles from this past year, read more here:

Monday, November 23, 2009

Streaming Media West 2009 Red Carpet Interview - Brett Wilson, TubeMogul

In this Streaming Media West 2009 Red Carpet Interview, Jose Castillo of thinkJose.com sits down with Brett Wilson, Co-Founder and CEO of TubeMogul. Brett leads the strategic direction for TubeMogul, a free online video distribution and analytics service that provides a single point for deploying uploads to the top video sharing sites, and powerful analytics on who, what, and how videos are being viewed. TubeMogul's free beta service has been live since November of 2006, and in January 2008, TubeMogul announced the launch of its Premium Products, which include a host of new professional features.


TubeMogul was founded in 2006 by Brett and a handful of 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.

Through its acquisition of Illumenix in October 2008, TubeMogul is also able to offer rich engagement and performance metrics to video sharing sites, content creators and advertisers. Earlier this year, TubeMogul launched TubeMogul 2.0 which offered video publishers for the first time, access to a single, standardized set of rich, census-based analytics measuring far beyond the metric of video “views,” including per-second audience dropoff, what sites and search terms are referring viewers, audience geography and much more.

Brett says TubeMogul has a few competitors on the syndication side that doesn't provide analytics and have a host of competitors on the analytics side but doesn't have the tools to help with campaigns. TubeMogul will soon be offering a feed-based solution that will launch later this year which will offer content owners greater hyper-syndication tools.

Brett was on two panels sessions at both Streaming Media West and the Online Video Platform Summit. The Streaming Media West session, Successful Content Syndication and Aggregation Strategies, was moderated by Jim Louderback, CEO, Revision3. Other panelists included Vanessa Pappas, Director, Audience and Strategic Partnerships, Next New Networks, Tom Gorke, VP, Digital Distribution, MTV Networks, Brandon White, Interactive Manager, FUNimation Entertainment who discussed the new ways content owners and site developers are aggregating content and distributing it on the web. They talked about the shift from super-syndication (shotgun approach to distribution) to hyper-syndication which is more of an audience play reaching out to social sites, blogs and other sites that will give you a niche audience for your content within a specific vertical.

Brett also spoke on the Measuring Success panel session at the Online Video Platform Summit which was moderated by Jan Ozer, Principal, Doceo Publishing and included Mike Newman, CEO, Accordent Technologies, Brian Shin, Founder & CEO, Visible Measures and Ben Weinberger, CEO & Co-Founder, Digitalsmiths.

Look for videos of both of those sessions coming soon as well more Red Carpet interviews on Streaming Media TV.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Streaming Media West 2009 Red Carpet Interview - Zadi Diaz, Epic Fu

In this Streaming Media West 2009 Red Carpet interview, host Peter Cervieri of ScribeMedia.org sits down with Zadi Diaz, new media producer and co-founder of Smashface Productions, her production company with husband Steve Woolf. She is co-creator and host of EPIC FU, the award-winning web series about internet culture, as well as co-founder of Pixelodeon, a screening festival recognizing innovation in global online video.

Zadi talks about the growing pains felt by the web television industry and how her show built a community and grew from into a full-time job. In 2006, her small production company began making web shows, called JET SET then, which they distributed through multiple video sharing sites. They wanted to make what they were passionate about a career find partners to help with the business and marketing. Distribution was a time-consuming task several years ago, but when TubeMogul came along they were able to better reach their audience who were on a number of different sites.

In 2007, they entered into a distribution and sponsorship agreement with Next New Networks who gave them a licensing fee for each episode. They moved to Revision3 the following year in June 2008 with other web shows like Wine Library TV, but parted ways in December 2008 after the Revision3 restructured programming. Currently, Epic Fu is independently run and distributed through Blip.tv, and Smashmouth productions is busy working on a number of interactive web projects including J!NX Television Spots, PBS and Hacking Hollywood.

Zadi appeared as a panelist on Streaming Media West 2009 panel session, Web Television Comes of Age, in which she and moderator by Marc Hustvedt, Co-Founder, Tubefilter & Editor-in-Chief, Tubefilter News, Tubefilter and other panelists Thom Woodley, Partner, Chief Creative Officer, Dinosaur Diorama, Jenni Powell, New Media Consultant (LonelyGirl15, The Guild, Legend of Neil) and Brent Friedman, Co-Founder, Electric Farm Entertainment (The Gemini Division, Afterworld) discussed what it takes to create, market and sell a web television series. The TV Worldwide has a video of the session here and an embeddable version will be available on Streaming Media.com/videos in the coming weeks.

Look for more Red Carpet interviews coming soon!

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Streaming Media West and Online Video Platform Summit - Special Edition News Round Up

It was a busy news week with major announcements from companies participating in Streaming Media West and the Online Video Platform Summit. This year, Fox Business News was on site on the exhibit floor right next to the TV Worldwide booth with live news updates throughout the week. While the numbers are not yet in, the conference sessions, exhibit hall and Red Carpet interviews all saw a great deal of traffic and even on day three attendance was still high. Hashtags #smwest09 and #ovps09 saw a lot of action with live Tweets from the keynote, conference sessions and social events that highlighted a groundswell of mainstream attention on our nascent space.

The Online Video Platform was a new event that was held in conjunction with Streaming Media West. Over 30 companies in the online video platform category participated in the show as either speakers, event sponsors or exhibitors, and many others came to see what was going on. We had attendees from all over the U.S. and international attendees they came from as far away as Argentina, Brazil, Calgary, Japan, Malta, Mexico, New Zealand, the Netherlands and Norway. The OVP space has evolved over a short time and has moved up the stack as a SaaS (software as a service) offering eclipsing CDNs, which just a few months ago saw their own summit at Streaming Media East. Ben Homer, who I was glad to finally to meet at the show, pointed this out in his post, SMW Closing Thoughts | Online Video Watch,
"CDNs were noticeably missing from the event floor. There were a few, Internap was there, but Neither Akamai or Limelight had a booth this year. Several years ago CDNs were everywhere you looked at Streaming Media shows. Now it’s platforms."
Streaming Media publisher Joel Unickow, launched an Online Video Platforms Group on LinkedIn several months ago and in a related discussion he asked,
"Is control going from CDNs to OVPs? Over the past 18 months, I've seen Online Video Platform companies come out of the woodwork, like termites out of a log. With Could Services for Transcoding getting more attention, it's interesting to see how end users are no longer so much concerned (or even know) which CDN content is streaming on, but more-so about the 'easability' of getting video online, up and running with bells and whistles. Now, don't get me wrong, CDN's are the core component of the Ecosystem, but my question is - does that matter anymore ?"
With so many platforms in the market, many agreed that there are too many to be sustainable. There will be compression in the space with major changes likely in the next 12-24 months. The emphasis of the Streaming Media West show seems to be moving away from CDN companies that deliver the bits, to the applications layer of the stack with an all-in-one solution offered by OVPs. The annual show focused on the business and technology of online video has been held in San Jose for years, moves to Los Angeles next year. Many have commented that with show closer to Hollywood it will bring in more of the web television and industry.

It's an exciting time to be involved in online video and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes. Now, onto the news and related updates in this special edition Streaming Media West and Online Video Platform Summit News Roundup. Look for upcoming analysis, interviews, videos, photos and more over the next few weeks. Videos of all the sessions and Red Carpet interviews will be available on Streaming Media TV, but many of the sessions, demos and interviews can be seen right now on TV Worldwide's Streaming Media West 2009 webcast archives.

To help kick things off, here's an interview with Dan Rayburn, Conference Chair and EVP, StreamingMedia.com, who spoke with Beet.TV about the growth of broadband enabled devices and the online video ecosystem.



Beet.TV: Streaming Media West Download: Broadband-Enabled Devices are Big
SAN JOSE, CA -- Streaming Media West, the annual industry gathering of broadband executives, drew a bigger crowd this year then last and the focus has changed from delivery and distribution to devices and content, says Dan Rayburn, head of the show. We caught up with Dan on Wednesday afternoon for a rundown on the show and industry trends.



Streamingmedia.com Featured News

Blogs

News from around the web
PC Magazine
... Shalini Govil-Pai, lead product manager and strategist for Google's youtube at a recent panel discussion at the Streaming Media West show in San Jose. ...

Microsoft Sees 'Natal' as Your Next TV Remote
PC Magazine
... Xbox 360-powered TVs, Marc Whitten, the general manager responsible for Microsoft's Xbox Live service, told attendees at the Streaming Media West show. ...

Google Not Sold on 'TV Everywhere' Concept
PC Magazine
At a panel discussion at the Streaming Media West show here, Shalini Govil-Pai, lead product manager for Google's YouTube, said that concept assumes that ...

Endavo Media Showcases 3-Screen Content Delivery
TVover.net (blog)
Endavo Media showcases its 3-Screen content delivery solution this week at the Online Video Platform Summit, a featured event at Streaming Media West. ...


HD Cloud offers 10 Terabytes of free video transcoding to Streaming Media West ...
StreamingMedia.com (press release)
HD Cloud, a leading on-demand transcoding provider, announced today an innovative promotion for Streaming Media West Conference attendees in which it will ...
Qualcomm's FLO TV makes a bid to become the mobile TV king (video)
VentureBeat
Speaking at the Streaming Media West show in San Jose, Calif., Stone said that Qualcomm has collectively invested more than a billion dollars in lining up...

Press Releases

About Streaming Media, the organizers of Streaming Media West and the Online Video Platform Summit
Streaming Media an Information Today, Inc. company, is a diversified news media company serving and educating the streaming media industry and community. Originally founded in 1998, the company was sold by Penton Media to Information Today Inc. in December of 2002. Our business consists of three core areas: StreamingMedia.com, exhibitions and conferences, and research and publications. Lead by a team of recognized industry experts, Streaming Media is dedicated to providing industry professionals and corporations utilizing digital media technology with global real-time news, resources and services through editorial, discussion lists, feature articles, and much more. Contact: David G. White, Information Today, Inc. 609-654-6266 dwhite@infotoday.com

Updated 11/22/09: Added information on TV Worldwide webcast and OVP Summit Summit attendees
UPdated 11/23/09: Added link to CDN Summit http://www.contentdeliverysummit.com/2009/

Friday, November 20, 2009

Online Video Platform Summit Keynote - Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire, November 18, 2009

Brightcove CEO and Chairman Jeremy Allaire delivered the keynote address,""Setting the Stage for 2010 and the Future of Online Video", at the Online Video Platform Summit this past Wednesday, November 18th at 1:45 p.m. PST. His keynote was streamed live on Streamingmedia.com, and on this and many other blogs and websites powered by Livestream through an embeddable player. You'll see me in the beginning of the video introduce Jeremy, who presented a high level overview of some the underlying currents and drivers in the online video market and the shape of the online video platform industry and it's role in the broader development of web. He talked about the pervasiveness of video on the web, which he discussed in detail in my CEO Conversation post from earlier this week, and how virtually every professional organization - from SMBs (small medium-sized businesses) to major corporations or media publishers - are investing in their web sites and are starting to realize that video is one of the most effective mediums for their marketing and communication and education objectives. He also discussed the announcement earlier this week of the release Brightcove 4, an extensible suite of tools with a host of new features and many other new capabilities and Brightcove Express, an entry-level version of the service.



Twitter played a large role in the Online Video Platform Summit and Streaming Media West providing great conversation context to the sessions. There were a number notable Tweets during the keynote including:
@dboyll: Jeremy, re OVP's "it's only a platform if developers are building on top of it"
@ayolo: Jeremy Allaire: Expansion of how online video is being used is "driving the complexity." Want to do more with video - brand, site #ovps09 and
@jbreitfelder: Brightcove #ovps09 keynote - two best ways to spread video: search & social

Stay tuned for more #smwest09 and #ovps09 coverage!

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Online Video Platform Summit Interactive Video Panel - Building Value With Real Interactivity

Video is more than just a one-way communication medium. At its best, it actively engages viewers in a lean-forward experience by allowing them to interact with the content in a unique way, including the ability to comment, rate, and share it across social networks; explore clickable objects within the video player; and even remix their own video responses using webcams or mobile devices. Live video streaming can offer even more functionality and an even higher level of interaction through real-time chat, live comment streams, and status updates. Our speakers will show examples of what you can do to make your video more of a targeted and personalized experience and discuss why you should make the effort.

Building Value With Real Interactivity
Thursday, November 19, 2009 3:30 PM PST

Moderator
Tim Siglin
Chairman
Braintrust Digital

Tim Siglin is a contributing editor for StreamingMedia.com. He serves as Chairman of Braintrust Digital, a digital media production company, and is a co-founder of the go-to-market consulting firm, Transitions, Inc. He has been involved full-time with strategic consulting and digital media integrations fields for almost 20 years. Besides writing as a contributing editor for StreamingMedia.com, Siglin has also recently created a new blog, covering digital media workflows, with emphasis on metadata and online video in the corporate, higher education, web development production industries. The blog can be accessed at www.workflowed.com

Braintrust Digital is a media production and design company specializing in creation and delivery of content through traditional and new media. Braintrust also provides AV integration services for select clients that require high-quality viewing experiences on corporate, religious and educational campuses.

Transitions, Inc. - a business and technology development firm - assists startups and hypergrowth businesses in the financial services, digital media and advertising / marketing industries.


Speakers
Alex Blum
CEO
KickApps

As the CEO of KickApps, Alex is responsible for building a world class technology, marketing, business development, finance, and operations team with the goal of providing web publishers the tools to easily enable their sites with User Generated Content, Social Networking, Premium Video, and Content Syndication capabilities.

Before joining KickApps, Alex was President and COO of JumpTV, a leading Multi-Cultural Internet Protocol Television Network. Prior to JumpTV Alex spent 8 years at AOL most recently as the Vice President of Product Marketing for AOL's Audience business where Alex and his team were responsible for re-launching the AOL Portal and delivering an entire suite of web-based applications including: AOL's Video Player, Video Portal, Streaming Video advertising platform, AIM and AIMpages social networking service. Prior to that, Alex was General Manager of AOLTV, where he established strategic relationships with DirecTV, TiVo, OpenTV and Philips Electronics. Prior to joining AOL, Alex spent ten years in the software industry participating in three successful startup opportunities. Alex has an MBA from the Albers School of Business at Seattle University and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Colorado.

Scott Broomfield
Co-Founder and CEO
Veeple

As CEO and Co-Founder of Veeple, Scott brings more than twenty years experience in leading highly-talented and innovative entrepreneurs in developing cloud-based software products. Scott's first experience with interactive media was over 15 years ago when he was a strategic advisor to Frox, the first true interactive television platform. Before Veeple, Scott was a managing director at Sand Hill Management Partners, a small Venture firm in Palo Alto, CA. During 2004 and 2005, Scott ran CALLIXA, an Enterprise Information Integration (EII) software company that he sold to SAP software in 2005. From 2001 through 2004, Scott led Visuale, a private Business Process Management Software (BPMS) company that he sold to Onyx Software. From 1998 through 2001, he led Centura Software Corporation (formerly Gupta), a $50M public software company, where he was recruited to turn around the business. Scott successfully repositioned Centura in the wireless enterprise computing market and accomplished a ten-fold capital return to its major investors, before selling the business in 2001. From 1989 through 1997, he was a principal with Hickey & Hill, Inc. a business re-engineering and turnaround management firm. In this capacity, Scott held senior operational, financial and advisory positions with Dazix, DEC, Etec, Frox, InVision, Trilogy and Samsung. Scott holds a MBA from Santa Clara University.

Michael Dale
Open Media Developer
Wikimedia Foundation

Michael Dale is an advocate for open video on the web based on free codecs like ogg theora. The past year he has lead development of open source collaborative video for Wikipedia in partnership with Kaltura and in collaboration with Mozilla's html5 video efforts. In 2006 Michael Dale co-founded metavid.org a community video archive of US proceedings.

Rainer Cvillink
Evangelist
Livestream

Rainer is a 20-year Electronic Media veteran with work experience in both US and Europe. As Evangelist for Livestream he creates content, gets the word out and leads people. Rainer replaces Max Haot, Co-founder and CEO, Livestream on this panel.

Follow OVP Summit (ovpsummit) on Twitter
hashtag #ovps09

Online Video Platform Summit Monetization Panel - Redefining Monetization

Different organizations have different goals and business models when it comes to monetization. Some monetize their video content directly with advertising through pre-rolls, post-rolls, overlays and product endorsements or by a pay-per-view or subscription model. But most organizations will benefit by using video as a way to build value by driving sales, highlighting products, expanding brand awareness, and increasing customer engagement. This panel discussion will look at monetization from all the angles, address the different needs of B2B and B2C initiatives, and show examples of successful monetization practices.

Redefining Monetization
Thursday, November 19, 2009 2:00 PM PST

Moderator
Larry Kless
Founder and President,
OnlineVideoPublishing.com

Larry Kless is President and Founder of Online Video Publishing [dot] com a new media resource firm for sharing strategies and best practices for online video publishers. He writes a personal blog and is a contributor on Vator.tv and ReelSEO focusing on streaming media, online video, startups, gadgets, social media, advertising and marketing, videoconferencing and collaboration. He recently was named a 2009 Streaming Media All-Star by StreamingMedia.com, an annual team of the most innovative, influential, and important players in the online video arena.

Speakers
Peter Csathy
President & CEO
Sorenson Media

A 20-year digital media veteran, Peter Csathy's expertise encompasses all major facets of managerial leadership - including high-level business development, strategy, product development, marketing, finance and legal affairs. Csathy has held C-level roles at several high-growth companies, including CEO of SightSpeed, president and COO of Musicmatch, and COO of eNow, all of which achieved successful exits.

Teg Grenager
VP of Product and Marketing & Co-Founder
Adap.tv Inc.
An innovative leader in emerging technology and the co-founder of Adap.tv, Teg guides the product vision, roadmap, architecture, and user experience for OneSource, a best-in-class unified video ad monetization platform that empowers more than 300 publishers globally. This popular platform has helped many publishers increase video ad revenue, simultaneously boosting views without compromising viewer experience. Teg brings a unique blend of theory and practice from his academic work in the Ph.D. program in computer science at Stanford and his current role managing engineering, product and marketing at Adap.tv.

Teg has also provided strategic consulting services to many Fortune 100 companies as well as Travelocity.com with global management consulting firm Arthur D. Little. Teg holds a MS in Computer Science from Stanford University and a BA from Brown University. He has published extensively on machine learning and natural language processing in the academic literature arena. Past speaking engagements include instructing several classes at Stanford University and the IT Forum lecture series in Japan to consumer electronics executives.

Kevin Nalty
Blogger, WillVideoForFood.com, and Consultant
Nalts Consulting

Kevin Nalty - founder of Nalts Consulting, is the only career marketer who also is one of the most prolific online-video creators. Kevin has created nearly 800 videos that have been viewed throughout the world more than 105 million times. Kevin is also a highly experienced marketer with inline brand and agency experience. In addition to his Johnson & Johnson, KPMG Consulting and Qwest Internet Solutions experience, Kevin was most recently the Product Director of a top Merck consumer brand. Kevin is in a unique position to help translate social-media and video marketing into business impact.

Kevin's unique "inside out” and “outside in" perspective helps clients add value to both their company and their "target" market (customers, prospects, brand evangelists or large audiences). The sustainable programs are a win for both the company and the people with whom they engage. Nalts Consulting helps brands engage with lower risk, greater agility and speed, and defined success metrics. By drawing from his own experience and taping into experts in a variety of other "conversational" mediums such as Facebook and Twitter, Nalts Consulting helps to provide a return on the investment in social medias. Dozens of trusted brands -- Fox, Mentos, MTV and Crowne Plaza -- have benefited from Kevin's experience and skills.

Benjamin Wayne
CEO
Fliqz

Prior to Fliqz, Benjamin was President & CEO of Collabrys, a leading provider of outsourced customer acquisition and retention solutions for Global 1000 corporations, including Bank of America, Capital One, Visa, Estee Lauder, Clorox, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Target, New York Life Insurance, and Prudential. Collabrys was acquired by E-Centives in 2004.

Prior to Collabrys, Benjamin was the founder, president, and CEO of Smartshop.com, an online comparison shopping portal that was acquired by CNET in 2000. Prior to Smartshop, Benjamin was president of BG&W Consulting, a South Korea-based market-entry consultancy whose clients included Coca-Cola, Disney, Benetton, Cathay Pacific Airways, Samsung, and the U.S. government. Benjamin holds an undergraduate degree from Princeton and an MBA from the Harvard Business School, and he was a Fulbright Research Scholar to South Korea.

Follow OVP Summit (ovpsummit) on Twitter
hashtag #ovps09

Online Video Platform Summit to Feature Viral Video Genius Kevin "Nalts" Nalty

As we move into the final day of Streaming Media West and the Online Video Platform the buzz of TV Everywhere, mobile, HD video on the web, adaptive bitrate technology, social video, advertising formats and, the all important question on how to monetize it all echoes through the conference and exhibit halls. The last sessions today wrap up the week long events and later this afternoon, I'm moderating an Online Video Platform Summit panel session on monetization that will feature Benjamin Wayne of Fliqz, Peter Csathy of Sorenson Media, Teg Grenager of Adap.tv and the one and only viral video genius Kevin "Nalts" Nalty.

In this special Online Video Platform edition, I'm presenting Daisy Whitney's New Media Minute that my good friend Mark Robertson calls, "Nalts’ Cuddly Tips & Strategies for YouTube Video Success."



As Daisy says,
"Viral video is dead. Long live low production values. The cheaper the better. Don’t cuddle it to death, let go of your brand persona. Those are the sage words of Kevin Nalty, who is an online video strategist, a career marketer, and a YouTube star with more than 100 million views of his videos. In this episode of the New Media Minute, shot on location at the recent iMedia Summit in Las Vegas, he shared his tips for brands that want to play in the YouTube sandbox with New Media Minute host Daisy Whitney."

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Online Video Platform Summit SEO Panel - Optimizing Video Search and Discoverability

Video discovery via search has seen rapid growth over the past few years with the explosive increase in the online video market. But it's not enough to achieve a high Google ranking; making video more discoverable through video search engine optimization (SEO) is key for businesses to maximize visibility, drive traffic to their sites, and reach a targeted audience. Panelists in this session will discuss the importance of increasing user engagement with video SEO-using keywords, metadata, relevant content, media RSS, and video syndication-and social media marketing through demonstration of use-case scenarios.

Optimizing Video Search and Discoverability
Thursday, November 19, 2009 10:30 AM PST

Moderator
Tim Siglin
Chairman
Braintrust Digital

Tim Siglin is a contributing editor for StreamingMedia.com. He serves as Chairman of Braintrust Digital, a digital media production company, and is a co-founder of the go-to-market consulting firm, Transitions, Inc. He has been involved full-time with strategic consulting and digital media integrations fields for almost 20 years. Besides writing as a contributing editor for StreamingMedia.com, Siglin has also recently created a new blog, covering digital media workflows, with emphasis on metadata and online video in the corporate, higher education, web development production industries. The blog can be accessed at www.workflowed.com

Braintrust Digital is a media production and design company specializing in creation and delivery of content through traditional and new media. Braintrust also provides AV integration services for select clients that require high-quality viewing experiences on corporate, religious and educational campuses.

Transitions, Inc. - a business and technology development firm - assists startups and hypergrowth businesses in the financial services, digital media and advertising / marketing industries.

Speakers
Dr. Pete Kocks
President
Truveo

Pete Kocks oversees the ongoing development, growth and operation for Truveo, the leading video search engine. He joined Truveo shortly after the company's founding in 2004. Prior to Truveo, Pete helped launch three software startups in the fields of video surveillance, database monitoring, and application hosting.

At Presidio Technology, he led the development of a distributed video surveillance system with a unique approach to indexing video streams. As CEO and co-founder of BayGate, he led the development of a database monitoring system from inception to deployment in the mission-critical datacenters of dozens of large corporate customers. BayGate was acquired by Portal Software in 2001. As one of the first employees of Digitivity, a startup that developed and brought to market a Java application server, he guided the technical and business relationship with Citrix systems that ultimately led to its acquisition by Citrix in 1998.

Pete holds a doctoral degree from Stanford University where his research focused on systems modeling and computation. He received his undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa.


Mark Robertson
Founder
ReelSEO

Mark Robertson is the Founder and Creator of ReelSEO.com, The Online Video Marketer's Guide, which provides news, tips and trends on the online video industry and video marketing. Mark speaks regularly at conferences, webinars and industry events sharing his extensive experience in online marketing, particularly in Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Mark was previously the Director of Search for Freedom Communications and has worked with many newspaper and broadcast stations for optimization online content.

Lou Schwartz
Chairman and CEO
Multicast Media Technologies, Inc.

Lou Schwartz's vision and leadership have been the driving force behind the growth and success of Multicast, a company that has not only pioneered the way video content is managed, distributed and consumed over the Internet, but has also helped many satisfied clients define winning business models. Since co-founding the company in 2000, Mr. Schwartz has led the organization and its strategic direction.

Prior to launching Multicast, from 1993 to 2000, Mr. Schwartz practiced corporate and securities law guiding numerous companies from the earliest stages of private seed financing through the public offering of securities. While practicing law, Mr. Schwartz completed mergers and acquisitions aggregating in excess of $3 billion. Mr. Schwartz received his bachelor's degree from Pennsylvania State University and law degree from Mississippi College School of Law.

Tom Wilde
CEO
RAMP (formerly EveryZing, Inc.)

Tom Wilde is a widely recognized leader in the field of Internet search and online advertising, and prior to becoming EveryZing’s CEO has held numerous leadership roles in the field including SVP/GM of the Consumer Division at domain portfolio company NameMedia, senior vice president and general manager of MIVA Inc.’s North American division, responsible for both MIVA’s U.S. online advertising network as well as the company’s consumer business, and senior operating roles managing Terra Lycos’ global search & publishing divisions. Tom has also served on the IAB Search Engine Committee and holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Live from Streaming Media West 2009 and the Online Video Platform Summit

Streaming Media West will be delivering live coverage, keynotes and Red Carpet interviews starting this morning. Keynotes from Bill Stone, president of FLO TV at 12 p.m. EST/9 a.m. PST on Tuesday, Nov. 17, Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire on "Setting the Stage for 2010 and the Future of Online Video" from the Online Video Platform Summit at 4:45 p.m. EST/1:45 p.m. PST, and Emil Rensing, chief digital officer of Studio 3 Partners/EPIX at 12 p.m. EST/9 a.m. PST on Thursday, Nov. 19. The Red Carpet interviews will be throughout the day and through the week, sponsored by Brightcove, with dozens of prominent online video industry leaders on the Streaming Media TV page

Then, Wednesday night at 10:30 p.m. EST/7:30 p.m. PST, the presentation of the 2009 Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards, followed by a performance from video remixers Eclectic Method will be streamed live. Watch it here or on the StreamingMedia.com home page as well as in larger-screen format here.

Stay tuned for more ongoing coverage of the events!




Update: Deleted "For the first time," at the lead since Streaming Media has been doing live web casts for years. Specifically, for the first time Streaming Media West be delivering live coverage of some of the events taking place in San Jose! ;-)

Monday, November 16, 2009

CEO Conversations: Jeremy Allaire, Brightcove's Video Visionary

Brightcove Chairman and CEO, Jeremy Allaire, has a vision to connect the world through online video. As leader of the top global online video platform he has fostered the growth of the online video industry. From his early days as CTO of Macromedia he envisioned that video would become as ubiquitous as text on the web. Today, his company which has offices around the world and customers in almost 30 countries, has introduced Brightcove 4, the first major release to the video platform in more than a year. Brightcove 4 is an extensible suite of tools with a host of new features, including support for native iPhone video application development, Google Analytics, live streaming and many other new capabilities. In addition, Brightcove Express was also released as an entry-level version of Brightcove 4 to help publishers of any size monetize their business with online video. Jeremy noted that this new scalable offering would would make it easy for companies to execute a three-screen strategies and be able to really measure the value through new distribution and monetization opportunities.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Jeremy recently about the growth of his company and the online video platform category, and his vision for video on the web. Since our conversation Brightcove has made several announcements around the Brightcove Alliance, a global ecosystem of some 200 technology companies that have integrated with their platform. Just last week Brightcove was recognized by Forrester Research as a leader in the online video platform industry in its new report, The Forrester WaveTM: US Online Video Platforms, Q4 2009.

Earlier this year, Jeremy was named to the 2009 Streaming Media All-Star team. This year's team was chosen based not only on their personal successes, which speak for themselves, but also for their commitment to streaming media at large, whether in advancing it via technical innovation and business strategies or via their efforts to help the entire industry through education and evangelism in ways that go beyond an "inside baseball" approach. I'm proud to say I'm on Jeremy's team. ;-)

The following is part one my conversation with Jeremy presented as a special Online Video Platform Summit post. Look for part two in the next few weeks, as I will be busy this next week at Streaming Media West and the Online Video Platform Summit. Brightcove will be at Streaming Media West in booth #705, and Jeremy is keynoting the Online Video Platform Summit on Wednesday at 1:45 which will be streamed live.

Larry Kless: I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me and I should also say it's an honor to be on the same team with you in terms of a being a Streaming Media All-Star.

Jeremy Allaire: Yes, that very is cool. And you're also involved in the Online Video Platform Summit.

LK: Yes, I'm Co-chair of the event with Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen.

JA: We're super excited that there is an online video platform summit. We've been promoting space for years and now. It's really emerging and we'll be doing a lot activities around the event and have some important announcements too. We're definitely trying to crank up the level of market education activity. As this becomes a category that people are looking at, there's an opportunity to get leaders together to help promote the category.

LK: Brightcove does so much education around the space with the webinars, blogs and white papers so it will be great to see what you have planned for the Online Video Platform Summit. It's also a great segue into our conversation. So, could you tell me about Brightcove's vision at the inception of the company, how it's evolved since you launched it in 2004?

JA: That's a great question, and I'd like to go back even further before Brightcove was even started. I think the most immediate thing was that prior to Brightcove, I was the head of technology and CTO at Macromedia and we launched the MX platform. In March of 2002 we introduced video into Flash player as part of a broader initiative to transform Flash into the next generation rich client of choice for the broadband Internet. And that overall initiative has been very successful but video specifically when we put it in, it was very exciting and not a lot of people were really paying attention to the fact that Flash had video at that time. But it became very clear to me that within several years there would be a ubiquitous run-time for video on the Internet and a lot of other convergent trends - Wifi, broadband adoption, the improvement of media capabilities of all PC devices - all these other converging trends would come together and drive exponential growth in video publishing.

At the time, I really thought to myself that video would become as ubiquitous as text on the web. I looked at pursuing that idea inside Macromedia by building an online service to help with that, but it wasn't really something the company wanted to pursue. So I left and spent a little bit of time at a venture capital firm looking broadly at the market and also incubating this company in 2004. So really at the inception when I incorporated and started to talk to people about joining, the vision was very much that - that video would become as ubiquitous as text on the web - and if you have a professional Web site of some sort, and it was important for us very early on that we focus on professional side of things we really weren't thinking about user generated content at all. But if you were if you are using the Web as a professional organization, whether you were a media company or a corporation or a university or a nonprofit, that video was going to become central to what you do.

When the company really got started in January 2005, when I first started hiring people we made a decision - this is the broad vision of ultimately the democratization of video as a medium and a format - let's start by focusing on that part of the world which benefit most from this, which was the media industry, specifically. Companies whose business was focused on media where video was going to become a central part of the mix of what they used, whether it was traditional TV companies or non-TV companies, and there was an immense amount of pressure for them to build out their digital media businesses specifically. So we focused very very aggressively on that particular vertical. We went very deep on that for our first in a couple of years and did a very good job of designing an online platform, that really was the first I think, on an end-to-end basis to make it relatively easy for a media publisher operate on an online video business.

We learned an immense amount through that and also really battle tested our technology, which allowed us to really expand the scope of what we do in some interesting ways. But what's really happened in how the business has evolved, which really gets to the core of your question, is that original vision is now starting to play out I think much more fully. Over the last year and a half we've seen online video within the professional media certainly continue to have robust adoption and that's in every corner of the world wherever there's really broadband. But with all other types of organizations like corporations, enterprises, government agencies, universities all these other types of our organizations are really now starting to embrace video as a key part of how they market and communicate over the web.

We're seeing quite a bit of activity now coming from those arenas and we really can see a world where within a few years, every single professional web site on the planet is both producing and distributing video. We certainly want to be the software subscription platform that all the organizations take advantage of.

LK: That's a great overview. I have couple ideas questions I have in regards to Brightcove's origin and how you got started in video from your work at Macromedia. It seems like such a passion of yours.

JA: I should say at this time the way I like to describe it is that video is really sort of an evolution of the broader deeper theme that I've been pursuing since 1990 or so. In 1990-91 got exposed to the Internet in college and I won't go through all the details of that but what really captured my imagination was here's was this open technology network that went all around the world and where really anyone could publish information and interact through this medium in a highly decentralized system.

And it was really really transformative for me personally and it really became the center of focus and investment of my time and energy at that point. So really when I graduated college the only thing that I was really passionate about was - how can the Internet be applied to transform media and communications. That was really at the end of the day was driving my energy at the time. This was before the web was really available, before Mosiac, and as the web emerged it was immediately apparent that now there was a user experience that you can put on top of the global decentralized network benchmark that could really enable this distributed publishing world to emerge. To enable a global medium in communication and interactive services around those to emerge and that ended up leading to projects that were really envisioned as ways to build interactive media experience that brought together dynamic content time and end user interaction and communications. At the time, I was in Minnesota at relatively small magazines and newspapers, and that work actually led to a collaboration with my brother and in turn, the creation of Coldfusion, a product really from its inception was was designed to make it easy for really anyone with an idea and $1,000 to build a global online dynamic content service.

That ended up being a business that had a great deal of success and grew to a lot of scale. So my path really was, let's go build this mass market software platform for building web sites and web content content and interactive experiences on the web. I had a passion for the deeper possibilities of media and communications but really during that phase of Internet it was really constrained in terms of what you can do, the kind of media you can use was just images and text and it was really limited but still really powerful especially when combined with the openness and global reach the web.

Over that time, I started to collaborate with more with Macromedia and we started doing work together with our products and we found that we were really complimentary in terms of the business we were in. So in late 2000, we got together and we saw that we could pursue a joint vision for the next generation of the Internet that would be really centered on these richer applications that really brought together all forms of media, including multimedia, as well as interactive applications and back-end services and all the stuff you need to make really rich applications. We could do that as a business.

For me personally, I was very excited about... if you want to call it moving up the stack towards the the rich client towards the real advanced media format... because I saw that those were going to be the transformative format in the next phase in the Internet. So putting those companies together was really an opportunity for me that furthered a passion that I had early on, and to work on the MX platform and in transforming Flash and introducing a whole new stack of software for how you build locations on the Internet.

Video had been on the web a long time and my first company collaborated a lot with companies like RealNetworks and so on. But it was really when we put video in Flash specifically in early 2002, that was really when you saw that it could put in a ubiquitous runtime and you could build really interesting interactions around it. For me, it was the big "aha" and it was almost like when I first saw a web browser and I thought, "This was really going to be everywhere." That really became a focal point in my work and obviously and ultimately led to creating Brightcove.

LK: So where did the name Brightcove come from?

JA: Names in the age of Web 2.0 Internet are really hard to come by because there are so many registered trademarks and domains encumbrances and so on. We had a hard time coming up with the name. We knew we didn't want the name to have a "v" in it, and that we didn't want to be one of the video companies because there are a lot of those. The most important criteria was when you typed the string into Google that it would produce zero results. That was the case at the time. So we could own the Internet name space for it and we had a lot of different names we came up with.

One of the other criteria was that it be composed of actual words as opposed to making up a word. There are so many of these companies with the names that don't really mean anything or they're incredibly obtuse or difficult to understand - and I think just in general, customers want words that whether they mean something to them or not - that you can read and you can pronounce that they're normal words. It needed to be internationally friendly so in different parts of the world it wouldn't man "dead man" or something like that or whatever it was. So it met all the criteria and the domains were available. But in actuality though, there's a small village with a similar name on Cape Cod which is near where we are and that's how it got on the list

LK: I thought it came from a place because it reminds me of a place that you'd go to for inspiration. So moving forward to today into Brightcove's open platform what's exciting for the Brightcove platform which integrates web sites, iPhone apps, set tops and many other rich applications?

JA: In general, I think we made a lot of progress with the launch of Brightcove 3.0 last October and as you noted, one of the major underlying themes was really opening it up as a platform that other people can build on top of. So developers can build on top of it whether they were inside of our customers or independent developers or third parties. But also that we could really build a broad ecosystem around what we're doing and we made a huge amount of progress with that with hundreds of companies now that are technology companies and professional services companies and others that have joined an alliance with us and have begun to build add-ons and other applications .

In general, I think it's been a very well received product and it's helped drive a lot of financial success for the company. And it's really that openness and getting that ecosystem around it that has also been incredibly exciting. As a service company, we're constantly putting out new features and technology. We've got some very very exciting things in the pipeline that we'll talk more about later this year as well.

LK: Could you talk about growth you've see with your company with a 300% growth, global expansion, strong balance sheet, hiring of new positions and its place as leader market and the first online video platform?

JA: It's been exciting, and our growth just really mirrors the growth of the market in some respects. I think we're pacing it nicely and I can give you some of the key metrics that I think would be helpful. We've only been really commercial for just about three and half years. We didn't launch our first 1.0 commercial product really until the end of Q1 2006, barely three and half years ago. Everything single year we've seen really robust growth and adoption including the first several years being meaningful triple digit growth every year.

This year, which is during "The Great Recession" as people like to call it, we're going to grow top-line revenue year-over-year about 50%, which is good growth this year in high tech if you're a public company where it's been 0%. So we feel really good about that, and that growth is attributed to as well, overall just a strong financial performance. We've actually been profitable the prior year. We've been cash flow positive now, so we've built a business that really is a sustainable, predictable business and with that it's allowed us to continue to invest. We walked into this year looking through Q4, where everything was falling off a cliff, with a very conservative posture in terms of managing expenses and tightening the belt to make sure that we protected our balance sheet. Fortunately, I think Brightcove 3 has been very successful and that's contributed to the growth and the financial performance that we're seeing and has allowed us to keep investing.

So now we're in the process of adding 30 or 40 people the company. That's itself a 25-30% growth just in that head count investment and that's across every geography we're in and every major function. So it's just overall expansion, and we think that that's going to set us up for a very strong 2010. So we think we can continue to grow that. Our service is very widely deployed with over 700 corporations and organizations that work with us and that really is spanning thousands of different properties and web sites across these corporations and media companies, universities and government agencies and so forth. It really is multiple thousands of accounts that use Brightcove so that's been very very encouraging. So we're very pleased with that growth. We're starting to really try and get a handle on how big is this market and how do we ensure that our product or service is something that is accessible to any professional organization that's looking at online video. That's what we're doing going forward.

LK: I spoke with Bismarck from Ooyala recently and one of things he noted that just within the space, which everybody uses the term it's a very nascent space, he seemed to think that there was some 300,000 customers at play that would be looking to sign up with an online video platform whether they're self-service publishers for large media companies. What's your thoughts on that?

JA: I think that that may be a conservative estimate, in fact. I think that when you look at the web as a whole, virtually every professional organizations whether you're a small business, a college, a government agency, a major corporation or media publisher, every organization is investing in their web sites. And in fact, most organizations whether you're a small medium-sized business or Procter and Gamble, you're pouring more of your overall marketing dollars into the web. It's because it is the most effective medium for interacting with customers in the history of the world and so that's a meta-shift that is taking place. So what's happening, is all of these organizations are starting to realize that video is one of the most effective mediums for their marketing and communication and education objectives.

So that's just going to drive more and more demand for easy to adopt software applications to run and manage all of that. That's in parallel with this trend toward cloud computing where people don't want to run a lot of technology, they just want to license it as a subscription and pay based on the capacity they're using. That model is enabling companies of all sizes to use this kind of technology. You know Salesforce.com is really the pinnacle of this model. They've figured out a way to make a very powerful technology accessible to types of organizations and we think that opportunity exists in the online video world. So the total addressable market here we think is all the millions of web sites and that's going to take time and take years and years for that to happen.

I think, yes it is a nascent space, but at the same time as we talked about earlier, OVPs are becoming a category that technology buyers and digital marketing buyers identify with and understand. So I think it's emerging to be a mainstream category and as that happens that will just fuel faster adoption and that's what we're targeting and looking forward to.

End of CEO Conversations: Jeremy Allaire, Part One. Stay tuned for Part Two.

Update 11/20/09: Fixed many of the problems in the interview text that was created from Adobe Premiere CS4 Speech-to-Text transcription.