Twistage Glues the Pieces of Video Publishing Workflow

David Wadler is CEO of Twistage, a framework he says  – that allows companies to build customized video experiences very quickly.  I caught up with Wadler at Streaming Media East 2010, who often pitches Twistage as a glue company – a series of disjointed pieces that they glue together to give publishers a customized video workflow. Most online video platforms, he says, are vertically integrated applications in silos and consumers are generally not given a choice to customize their video workflow. Twistage is built on a core set of open, REST-based APIs, and can seamlessly integrate into any existing workflow as a white-label product. Being a platform for other platforms is its sweet spot.

Wadler jokes that he works 79 hours a day, and runs his company lean and mean – as an agile shop of eleven employees, with a two week development cycle of new features and capabilities. Twistage was acknowledged as Contender in the November 2009 Forrester Research Wave™ report: US Online Video Platforms, Q4 2009, which evaluated six leading online video platform vendors.

The report noted that Twistage, "offers many out-of-the-box competitive capabilities and has focused on developing an API-based tool set that allows it to put together more custom back-end solutions. Even with a small development team, the platform has won business on leading consumer video sites and has built an impressive reporting application."

The New York City-based company was founded in 2004 and officially launched as a SaaS platform in 2006, however Wadler says that they've been marketing the platform only in the last 9 months. As a company that has been in stealth mode for more than four years, they've been getting a lot of inbound leads, which is taking some getting used to – as most leads have been through outsourcing the sales process through the channels.

While Twistage does a lot of the same things as other platforms, Wadler noted that his team has built a different product from other platforms, and are not competing for marketing and sales spend. 

"We really focus on engineering, and one of the nice things about being a platform for platforms is you get phenomenal scale at very very low cost to sales."

Key customers include Jive Software, Mochilla, PerezHilton.com, Mansueto Digital, KIDZ BOP and Drama Fever and a number of partners ranging from content delivery networks to various ad networks to production companies. Wadler pointed out that they've had these customers for a while now, but just didn't tell the world about it.

See this TV Worldwide video from Streaming Media East 2010 for a closer look at a few customer case examples and this Streaming Media West Red Carpet interview by Peter Cervieri, to hear about the early days of Twistage when the technology focused more heavily on distributed transcoding and delivery and how the founders conceived and developed Vlogville.com, a Pre-YouTube UGC video sharing site. Wadler also told Beet.TV that Twistage Plans to Double Staff and Turn Profit in 2010, and described how the company "operates solely on a licensing fee model, earning revenue based on the number of streams delivered for customers."

Wadler also was a guest on Streaming Media TV: @C-Level Grill With Twistage's David Wadler in September 2009 where he discussed "the pros and cons of venture capital on a personal level, as the developer, financier, and the CEO." He was a featured speaker on the Encoding Best Practices and Strategies web event today hosted by Streaming Media that included presenters from Telestream, Sorenson Media, Twistage and ViewCast. According to Dan Rayburn, the session had a record 1,709 people registered for the event.

Beyond its white-label video solutions for content ingestion and management, video delivery, monetization, syndication and reporting, Twistage offers an image management product in addition to the video solution and audio management may be in their development plan for full rich media management.

Wadler said that Twistage is more focused on responding to customer needs than building out a strategic product roadmap:

"We're an agile shop. It's hard for us to look out a year, it's really about taking the temperature of the market, seeing where it's going and seeing if we can beat it there by a little bit."

About Twistage

The highly customizable Twistage SaaS (Software as a Service) platform supports a wide range of video formats, monetization options and business rules, allowing customers to incorporate video into their existing digital infrastructure. Built on a foundation of robust APIs, the platform embraces a “design your own video experience” methodology that helps content owners rapidly deploy and scale online video applications while allowing for greater return on existing investment. For more information, visit http://www.twistage.com. Follow Twistage (twistage) on Twitter


Update 7/1/10 - added new text and links to post.

Encoding.com Sees the Future of Video Encoding in the Cloud

At Streaming Media East 2010, I spoke with Jeff Malkin, President of Encoding.com, to hear about how his company's cloud-based encoding business model works, and how the company and customer base has shaped up over the last year and half. According to Malkin, Encoding.com is the world's largest encoding service, which he says both seriously and facetiously – and described his company as the dominant player in the encoding SaaS (Software as a Service) space, which he admits is a new and emerging space.

Since its launch in September 2008, San Francisco-based Encoding.com has delivered over 6 million encoded videos, and encodes an average of 30,000 videos per day for its growing customer base. With more than 700 customers, Encoding.com powers the encoding and transcoding services of many leading video publishers and platforms including Cisco Eos, MTV Networks, WebMD, CarDomain, MySpace, Nokia, Kaltura, Vzaar and Giant Realm. While their roster of customers are impressive, Malkin admits that he's most excited by the various use cases of how their customers are applying the service, for media and publishing, user generated content, online education, news and information – just to name a few.

Before Encoding.com came along, Malkin says that most companies invested a lot capital expense into infrastructure and teams to manage in-house encoding requirements. Encoding.com helps solve the "build vs. buy" conundrum by offering a SaaS model that leverages cloud infrastructure through an XML API.  The company is the only video encoding SaaS provider integrated with both EC2 and Cloud Servers, with storage choices with Rackspace and Amazon.

He maintains that Encoding.com makes it easy at a very high level:

"You tell us where the source file is located – that can be at a CDN, cloud storage, secure FTP –  the one or many ways you want each file to be transcoded, and where do you want us to deliver it to. Which is 9 out of 10 times to your CDN for serving." 

Malkin described Encoding.com's value through cost-savings, quality, and a scalable solution:

"By approaching the market this way, we solve some critical pain points for our customers. Number one is this instant notion of infinite scalability. No longer do you need to worry about making these large investments up front or being able to predict your video encoding requirements. There's this notion of having to manage this in-house – as many of us know in the video encoding space, video encoding is somewhat of a black art, there's lots of errors that occur, it's not really a science yet – and by outsourcing it to an automated platform such as Encoding.com, it's our job to manage that effort for you, and as you know, stay on top of the latest and greatest of the technologies that continue to evolve."

Encoding.com supports all the major and emerging web and mobile media formats, including Apple's HTTP streaming and Google's new open source WebM format. In a guest post for VideoNuze, Malkin offered some insight and advise on how to navigate the video format wars.  With confusion in the online video marketplace with HTML5/H.264 vs. Flash vs. Silverlight vs. WebM, he says it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

According to Malkin:

"While both H.264 and VP8 are good quality codecs, only VP8 is currently royalty-free and therefore, has a great opportunity to emerge as the new leader within the next year or two. However, for web distribution today, we recommend encoding your videos using the H.264 video codec in an .mp4 container. This is a high-quality output format already supported by Flash, and the leading HTML5 browsers including Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer v9."

Malkin says that the mastermind behind Encoding.com is his partner, Greggory Heil, Encoding.com's Founder and CEO, and for him it was born out of necessity. Heil was running a software company focused on building and managing user-generated video sites, and wanted to streamline the incompatibility issues he kept running into with encoding and ingesting of video content. He found only expensive hardware solutions on the market and saw an opportunity to fill a gap in the market using his background in product development and application hosting services. Heil relaunched Encoding.com as a SaaS video encoding platform in September 2008, moving into the cloud and away from the company's roots of the mid-1990s where they hand coded and archived source video content from videotape formats. Encoding.com was named one of seven finalists in Amazon Web Services' 2008 $100,000 Startup Challenge.

Encoding.com also received praise from Streaming Media EVP Dan Rayburn earlier in the year, in a post: Encoding.com Would Be On My List Of Top Companies To Watch In 2010 | The Business Of Online Video.

Rayburn said:

"One of the things I really like about Encoding.com is that they are small, focused and want to be the best at only one thing. Their executives know the market, have spent a great deal of time and effort to create a very good platform and frankly, I think they are really smart. They know what they want to be, where their service fits into the market and what problem they need to solve. In just about every piece of the video ecosystem, be it content delivery or video management, there tends to be many players, but one clear leader. While Encoding.com is not the only SaaS based transcoding service on the market, they are already by far the leader in the space and I expect them to further dominate this segment of the market this year."

In addition, Streaming Media magazine selected Encoding.com as an, “Editors’ Picks 2010 – The Best of the Best”, as one of the top ten hottest companies in the world of online video.

Last week, the company released a new API that allows customers to offer Encoding.com as a white-label solution within their own platforms. In December 2009, Encoding.com closed a $1.25 Million Series A funding from VC and angel investors. Malkin says the company will use the funds to fuel aggressive sales, marketing, and brand awareness initiatives. Encoding.com plans to stay hyper focused on their core business and customers. 

Malkin also spoke at Streaming Media East panel session: B203: Automation and Workflow Solutions for Transcoding Your Video Content and you can view the archive of that session here: Conference Videos - StreamingMedia.com


About Encoding.com
Encoding.com, the world's largest video encoding service, makes video transcoding into all popular formats easy, cost-effective and instantly scalable for global enterprises and SMBs including video sites, agencies, and website development platforms. As the first and only encoding service offering service level agreements, Encoding.com removes the necessity for its customers and partners to make heavy investments in expensive hardware/software solutions and overhead required to manage high-volume video transcoding needs and backs it with a wait-time service level guarantee. Encoding.com received Series A funding in 2010 from Metamorphic Ventures and angel investors: Patrick Condon, Fred Hamilton, Zelkova Ventures, Dave Morgan and Allen Morgan. It was selected as an Editors’ Pick for 2010 by StreamingMedia. This Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business is based in Denver, Colorado and San Francisco, California. For more information about Encoding.com, visit http://www.Encoding.com.

Ooyala Adds YouTube Video Management Tool to Backlot (Demo from Streaming Media East #smeast10)

A few weeks ago, at Streaming Media East in New York City, Bismarck Lepe, Ooyala Co-Founder and President of Products, demonstrated the new YouTube video management functionality within their Backlot video platform. Ooyala tapped into the YouTube APIs to give publishers the ability to search and discover YouTube video directly from Ooyala's Backlot interface and deliver them within the Ooyala player. This feature was unveiled in April 2010, free to all publishers until today (5/31/10).

What that means is that any publisher can now easily manage and publish any content from YouTube within an Ooyala player. It's easy to add content from YouTube, from the "Add New Content" menu within Backlot. You can either enter the URL for a single YouTube video or import multiple YouTube videos. The YouTube videos have access to the same Backlot functionality as videos uploaded directly to your account, including analytics, player branding, and set syndication rules.

Ooyala is targeting the video bloggers and newpapers sites that are creating a lot of text-based content but may not have a lot of video content. They noticed that a lot of their publishers were using YouTube videos to complement their content, which was no surprise to Ooyala as Lepe noted, "We all know video increases overall engagement."



In a blog post announcing the new feature, "The World's Videos at Your Fingertips" Lepe said:

"This will be great for any publisher looking to add rich media to a primarily text-based article. For example, if you're writing a story on electric cars and you'd like to include images or videos on the EV-1, GM's early 90s foray into the electric car business, you will easily be able to search, find and embed the video directly from Backlot."

Lepe further explained:

"We had noticed this behavior, but it wasn't until one of our publishers asked us to help them with their YouTube workflow that we decided to do something about it. By leveraging the YouTube APIs, we've added the ability to search and discover YouTube videos directly from Backlot and then deliver the videos in the Ooyala player. Because the video is hosted and delivered by YouTube, but in our player, videos are added to Backlot in seconds and the sophisticated management, syndication and analytics tools that you use every single day are supported for the YouTube videos."

He illustrated this by showing how Business Insider used Lady Gaga's video "Bad Romance" within the Ooyala player for their article,  Lady Gaga's Bad Romance Will Be YouTube's First Video To 200 Million Views.

As you can see below, I actually tried Ooyala's YouTube Video Management Tool myself using my Backlot account. It was easy to find my own YouTube video of Bismarck using the URL and display it within the Ooyala player:



The YouTube Management tool is one of 10 new products enhancements that Ooyala has launched in the last month, which are outlined by in an Ooyala blog post by Alex Holub: Product Enhancements 2019-05-29.

About Ooyala
Ooyala is the leader in online video technology, analytics and monetization. Ooyala's comprehensive online video platform gives content owners the deep insights that drive stronger viewer engagement and greater revenue from video content. Ooyala serves hundreds of global media companies and marketers including Telegraph Media Group, Fremantle Media, Dell, General Mills, Vans, Endemol, Vice Magazine, The Glam Network and Electronic Arts.

Veeple Introduces interPlay, New Interactivity and Analytics API

Veeple has announced interPlay, their new interactive API and plug-in that adds interactivity and analytics to 3rd-party online video players. This is a shift in Veeple's business model as an all-in-one solution, in a move to a modular structure to offer their interactivity and analytics modules to customers who already have an existing video solution. Many potential customers were interested in interactivity, metrics and increasing user engagement but wanted them to work with other platforms. By opening up the platform, Veeple sees a greater opportunity to provide a solution to online marketers and content owners that dramatically increases viewer engagement and improve conversions.

Veeple CEO and Co-founder Scott Broomfield said that interPlay is based on customer demand:

"We know that Veeple customers are experiencing the power of interactivity in their videos and are seeing phenomenal engagement rates, at some points, up to 63%, well above the industry average. Due to numerous requests by potential customers who have already invested in their own video environments but need interactivity to give a boost to their video content, we have decided to provide access to our entire interactive library via our interPlay API. Now, people have the ability to add interactivity and enhance conversions, without overhauling their existing online video infrastructure."

interPlay is free and will be bundled with a 30-day free trial of Veeple's Intelligent Video Analytics Suite. The interactive capabilities consist of:

• Actionable objects including image & Flash animations
• Documents including PDF’s, Word & PowerPoint
• Transparent actionable overlays
• Popular social networking sites
• Textual overlays

The analytical suite includes:

• Videos views over a time span.
• Videos views in a geographic region.
• Interactions over a time span.
• Views at time intervals over video duration.
• Interactions against views over video duration.
• Real-time video ratings wave.

Scott recorded this interview for Kris Drey at VidCompare to answer a few questions about the new service.

• How will it integrate with other online video platforms?
• Do you see the Interactive API as a new feature of Veeple’s or a new business model in and of itself?
• How does the Interactive API position you as a business today as it relates to your core competency as an OVP?
• How will you address the competitive nature of the business as it relates other OVPs who are, to a large extent, your potential new business partners?

Unlike other companies that raise funds through investment groups, Veeple is a self-funded private company. This has allowed the company to grow organically into the space as an intelligent interactive video platform.

Veeple InterPlay will be bundled The beta program will be available beginning November 3rd, 2009 and anyone interested can pre-register here. They plan to roll out three plug-ins by the end of November for the JW Player and thePlatform and BrightCove.

Scott Broomfield will be a featured speaker at the Online Video Platform Summit in November speaking on the panel session, Building Value With Real Interactivity.

About Veeple
Veeple is the leader in simple, interactive online video solutions for marketers and content creators looking to deepen customer engagement and conversions. With Veeple's cloud-computing solution people have easy access to use interactivity, full content management for multiple clients, branded player video delivery and full clickable analytics. Veeple has the solution for successful online video campaigns. Veeple is a private company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. For additional information go to www.veeple.com/solutions.php

YouTube Über Alles

It was a big week for the world's largest online video distribution network. By now you've probably heard the three major stories that dominated the tech news blogs. These developments have helped further cement YouTube as the video platform on the internet. I've listed several links associated with each of these news items.

1. Expanding their API Set (explained the YouTube team below)
   
   • YouTube Everywhere - March 11, 2008 by the YouTube Team from The YouTube Blog
   • Something to Write Home About - March 11, 2008 from the YouTube Developer API Blog
   • YouTube's Could Be the Best New Platform Yet - March 12, 2008 from ReadWriteWeb by Marshall Kirkpatrick
   • YouTube: The Platform - March 12, 2008 from TechCrunch by Erick Schonfeld
   • YouTube API Case Studies - from Google Docs
     
     
   
   
   
   
2. Tivo Integrates with YouTube (part of the new API set)
   
   
   • TiVo to Provide YouTube Videos Directly to the Television (Tivo Press Release)
   • TiVo Bites Back At Apple TV With YouTube Deal - March 12, 2008 from Silicon Alley Insider by Dan Frommer
   
   
   
   
   
3. High Quality Video Available by Default (no extra code required)
   
   • Watch YouTube High Quality Videos by Default - March 12, 2008 from CyberNet News by Ashley
     
   • YouTube Rolling Out Higher Quality Video Tomorrow? - March 11, 2008 from ReadWriteWeb by Marshall Kirkpatrick
     
     
     

Related:

• Where Have the YouTube Watermarks Gone? - March 13, 2008 from NewTeeVee by Liz Gannes

UPDATE:

• YouTube Videos in High Quality - March 14, 2008 by the YouTube Team from The YouTube Blog
• Comscore: YouTube Dominance Grows - March 14, 2008 by Anthony Ha from VentureBeat