Behind the Red Carpet - Streaming Media West Interview with Zadi Diaz

This is a special "Behind the Red Carpet" interview from Streaming Media West 2009 with Zadi Diaz, new media producer, host and co-creator of the award web series EPIC FU. Zadi and her husband and long-time creative partner Steve Woolf are respected pioneers in the web television space. Zadi spoke at Streaming Media West 2009 panel session, Web Television Comes of Age and was interviewed on the Red Carpet by Peter Cervieri.



Zadi had a few minutes to share some advise to producers who are trying to break into the web television space.

"First, think about the story you want to tell. Really know the audience online. Who's the audience online? Who are you going to be talking to? What's the community like? Look at all those things and how you're story fits into that, look at all the niche audiences. "

Zadi said that partnerships are important, and that you should align yourself with passionate people behind the scenes. If you're good at storytelling but not editing, it will show and will bring your quality down. So focus on what you're good at and build your support system to get help with the things you're not good at, like videography, editing or marketing.

This is similar advise Zadi shared in this related post: Epic Fu on How To Make a Kick-Ass Web Show where she runs down all the tools you need to make an awesome web show, from ideas to equipment to distribution.

Zadi also talked about how storytelling is evolving, and how immersive it's going to be through online video and alternate reality gaming (ARG) experiences. She noted XBOX 360 Project Natal, which does away with the game controller for a hands-free gaming experience through motion detection and speech recognition, as an emerging next-generation social and entertainment network.

See Zadi's Streaming Media West 2009 Red Carpet Interview.
Follow Zadi Diaz (Zadi) on Twitter

Streaming Media West Red 2009 Carpet Interview - Jeremy Allaire, Brightcove on the Future of Online Video

In rounding out the Streaming Media West 2009 Red Carpet interviews, Peter Cervieri sits down with the man behind Brightcove, CEO and Chairman, Jeremy Allaire. Earlier that week, Brightcove released a major upgrade to its online video platform with Brightcove 4, and an entry-level version, Brightcove Express, priced for a broad market at $99. Jeremy also delivered the keynote address, Setting the Stage for 2010 and the Future of Online Video, at the Online Video Platform Summit. In addition, Brightcove won a Streaming Media Readers' Choice Award as the best premium online video platform by the readers of Streaming Media magazine.

Peter and Jeremy talk about the state of online video as a business, and how the management and delivery of video has evolved with their platform. I spoke with Jeremy on this subject in a CEO Conversations post from last month, and he described the growth as 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.

Grant Crowell of ReelSEO also caught up with Jeremy at Streaming Media West about his vision that “video would become as ubiquitous and pervasive as text on the web" and he had this to say,

"What we’ve seen happening over the last year is this incredible growth in the number of organizations and corporations, of all types, of all industries, of all sectors of societies, embracing video to enhance what they are doing on the web. I think it really reflects that the fact that end users on the Internet in this broadband age, in the online video era, expect that kind of content and respond really well to it."

See the full post here: Jeremy Allaire of BrightCove – Video will be Ubiquitous

Brightcove thinks about online video as a very horizontal technology, it's an incredibly diverse content type that has to live in many different applications. Brightcove's early development and leadership in the space fostered the Brightcove Alliance, which grew out of that horizontal platform with some 300 technology, distribution and solution providers with plug-ins, adapters and integrations with Brightcove. A recent example from just last week was Brightcove and TubeMogul announced an alliance in which Brightcove will license TubeMogul's InPlay analytics. Brightcove also announced major new customer wins in Japan, noting the accelerated growth in that market was fueled by the rapid adoption of their platform.

Look for part two of my CEO Conversation post with Jeremy in the next few weeks.

Special thanks to Brightcove for sponsoring the Red Carpet interviews and the Online Video Platform Summit.

About Brightcove
Brightcove is an online video platform. Media companies, businesses and organizations worldwide use Brightcove to publish and distribute video on the Web. Founded in 2004, Brightcove is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business with offices across North America, Europe and Asia.

Streaming Media West 2009 Red Carpet Interview - Peter Csathy, Sorenson Media on Redefining Monetization

In this Streaming Media West 2009 Red Carpet Interview, Peter Cervieri talks to Peter Csathy, President and CEO of Sorenson Media. Sorenson Media has a long history as an encoding solution that powered the early development of online video in Quicktime and Flash. Peter Csathy took the reins of the 14-year old video encoding and compression company turned video delivery network earlier this year. 2009 saw the successful launch of Sorenson 360, and the release of a major upgrade to Sorenson Squeeze 6 last month, which garnered the 2009 Streaming Media magazine Readers’ Choice Award for Encoding Software under $1,000 for the third year in a row. Peter also spoke at the Online Video Platform Summit on the Redefining Monetization panel session, which I had a lot of fun moderating. I've also spoke with Peter on several occasions this past year and recently featured him in two-part post, CEO Conversations: Peter Csathy, Sorenson Media's Digital Media Mastermind. He blogs regularly on his own personal blog about the digital media industry at Digital Media Update. See my post, Online Video Platform Summit - Sorenson Media to Showcase Squeeze 6 and Sorenson 360 Video Delivery Network for more on their integrated video workflow and delivery solution.

Peter Cervieri also just posted his write up on Sorenson Media in his post, ScribeMedia.Org: Sorenson’s Online Video Platform. As a long-time Squeeze user, he provides a great overview of his production workflow with actual screen shots of the interview while encoding. Peter says that combined workflow of Squeeze with Sorenson 360 might just convert him into a full-time customer of their online video platform. The automated publishing and notification features in particular really help ease the "pain points" for video professionals like him.

The Q&A that follows was conducted with Peter Csathy for the Online Video Platform Summit panel session. He discusses his unique perspective on the topic of monetization of online video.

The title of this panel is Redefining Monetization. What do you think this is referring to?

Peter Csathy: The popularity of Internet video has many businesses searching for ways to monetize this powerful tool. The conventional thinking surrounding this monetization question focuses on serving ads to monetize videos themselves. While this way of thinking works for video destination sites like Hulu and YouTube, it is completely irrelevant to the other 99 percent of businesses on the Internet that are not content destination sites. For the vast majority of businesses, ad serving not only is irrelevant, it is counter-productive. The focus, instead, should be about how to use the extremely powerful medium of Internet video to drive more sales, better showcase products, and more fully engage current and prospective customers.

Peter, you often say that monetization in many senses goes beyond selling ads around videos online, what do you mean by that?

Peter Csathy: What I mean is: Can businesses use video on the Internet to spur sales, engage better (and longer) with customers and potential customers, and otherwise market more effectively? It cannot be doubted that the answer is a resounding “Yes” -- Internet video can be, and has been, effectively “monetized.” Countless businesses today use video on the Internet to drives sales and engage with, and educate, their customers and potential customers. Think showcase videos that are far more descriptive and engaging than textual or pictorial depictions of goods and services. Think engagement videos that hook you into a site to dig deeper and discover more. Think instructional videos. The travel business is one great example of the power of Internet video to monetize -- and monetize in a big, big way.

What role will video play in web development in the future? What kind of timeframe are we looking at (years, months, weeks)?

PeterCsathy: In 2010, expect the business of professionally produced online video (and those services enabling it) to expand dramatically. We will see accelerating use of video by businesses of all sizes to more effectively market and showcase their goods and services; communicate who they are in the marketplace; interact with customers and prospective customers; and ultimately grow their revenues and monetize their business. In other words, businesses will increasingly use video to drive their overall success.

What is the current market for businesses to incorporate video into their Web sites? How will some providers excel in this competitive market?

Peter Csathy: This accelerated realization of -- and dependence on -- the unique power of video will not just result from proactive foresight. Much of it initially also will happen reactively. Many businesses will see their competitors increasingly use video to give themselves significant advantages in the marketplace. In other words, they better jump on the video train before it leaves them behind. Why? Because there is no more effective medium to communicate messaging than video - video is far more powerful than text or mere images. We are visual creatures, and we will be drawn to video over all else...

... So long as that video is done right. “Right” in this context means high video quality and overall process simplicity, in addition to the actual video content itself. This will increasingly separate the winners and losers in the video-enabling world in 2010. Those who enable services that make it easy to publish the highest quality video over the Internet will realize this online video market opportunity. Quality is absolutely essential, because quality is credibility. Video quality reflects on the business’ products, services, and overall brand.

See this related post, Video is an Effective Sales Tool – Interview with Sorenson, on ReelSEO. Grant Crowell interviews Eric Quanstrom, VP, Marketing & Strategy at Sorenson Media.

About Sorenson Media

Sorenson Media offers comprehensive, award-winning solutions that empower businesses and video professionals to easily and affordably publish the highest-quality video to the Internet and other media. Included among its products and services are the Sorenson 360 Video Delivery Network (VDN), Sorenson Media’s re-imagined video publishing platform; Sorenson Squeeze, the gold-standard for video encoding applications; Sorenson Squish and SquishNet, which together create an easy-to-use browser-based video publishing platform for user-generated content; and Sorenson Spark, the industry’s most widely used video codec, which enables mobile devices and other consumer products to playback the largest selection of video on the Internet today. Since its inception in 1995, Sorenson Media has been instrumental in bringing Internet video to mainstream applications and is committed to dramatically improving the online video experience for both content creators and consumers.

Streaming Media 2009 Red Carpet - Tim Siglin, Braintrust Digital on Making Metadata More Meaningful

Tim Siglin admits that drop off rate for readers his very high when you mention metadata. But in his recent Streamingmedia.com article, Metadata: What You Need to Know (And Why You Need to Know It), he pointed out two very important reasons we should care about metadata, that is, money and future growth. In this Streaming Media West 2009 Red Carpet interview, Peter Cervieri helps bring out the inner geek in Tim Siglin, to discuss the current state of metdata and how to make it sexy. 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 integration in the visual communications and digital media fields for over fifteen years. Tim also moderated two Online Video Platform Summit panel sessions, SEO Panel - Optimizing Video Search and Discoverability and the Interactive Video Panel - Building Value With Real Interactivity.

Tim noted that one of the inherent problems that we've had within the video industry, is the loss of metadata throughout the production process. Camera equipment and editing systems create metadata, which is in an "island" unto itself and doesn't transfer to the master tape or DVD. The industry is well aware of this issue but has yet to address it in full, but that's changing slowly. Tim's article does a deep dive into the space to see how the problem is being addressed. Online video offers a greater opportunity to retain rich metadata, which helps with search and discovery. Publishers are seeing the value of metadata because it makes their content more searchable and monetizable.


In this interview, Tim provides an industry snapshot on current end-to-end solutions like Adobe Story, offered as an online service, which Tim says,

"Adobe Story takes a holistic view on script development as one of the keys to production and postproduction, using the act of script creation as a way to mask a powerful underlying metadata repository."

He identified three basic markets for metadata:

1. The overall market for making search more easier - which limited to search companies
2. Entertainment - bringing search capabilities to broadband enabled devices like XBOX 360 and others
3. Corporate training and lectures - long form and highly unscripted content, speech detection and OCR software to detect Powerpoint slides with synchronized presentations

He says that we're on the cusp of innovation with metadata and we should see some big changes within the next few years that will make metadata more meaningful.

Streaming Media West Red 2009 Carpet Interview - Tom Wilde, RAMP on Monetizing Discovery and Engagement Through "Content Optimization"

In this 2009 Streaming Media West 2009 Red Carpet interview Peter Cervieri sits down with Tom Wilde, CEO of RAMP, the company formerly known as EveryZing, and the industry’s leading "Content Optimization" platform for media publishers. Tom also spoke at the Online Video Platform Summit on the SEO Panel - Optimizing Video Search and Discoverability, and is a recognized leader in the field of Internet search and online advertising. His newly rebranded company made the announcement at Streaming Media West with a new name, new and improved tools for video search and discovery, and new focus. The new Software as a Service (SaaS) platform platform is divided into four core solutions: RAMP:workflow, RAMP:discovery, RAMP:engagement, and RAMP:monetize, and is designed to help media publishers expand video search and discovery and ramp up engagement monetization of all types of web content though, "content optimization."

RAMP has an interesting history in that it's portfolio of technologies spun out of a company called BBN Technologies, one of the world’s foremost research organizations with more than $100M government funded research, in speech-to-text and natural language processing technologies and search for the Department of Defense. The technology was developed primarily for monitoring phone calls and broadcast television mediums. When the company was acquired by venture capitalists they decided to spin out some of the technology which was over 30 years of R&D and included 20 patents that his company acquired. Some of the problems that the government was trying to solve was speaker, topic and format independent technology, which has very similar requirements to that of big media companies.

RAMP began as PodZinger, a podcast search engine, and started trying to figure out how to create rich metadata from audio files to make audio podcasts more discoverable. PodZinger used speech-to-text technology to create a text index of the audio, which enabled users to find content anywhere within podcasts and jump directly to the point of their keyword. They moved to a B2B media merchandising platform solution soon after rebranding as EveryZing, and opened up their platform to include all forms of online multimedia content. Tom identified the challenge of video discoverability as one of the key emerging problems of the web, and that rich media content misses out on monetization opportunities when it can't be discovered through search engines.

RAMP Content Optimization and RAMP Platform Solutions suite is more of big media company play with startup fees roughly in the low tens of thousands, with monthly fees usually between $5,000 and $15,000. Licensing costs can be paid either on a monthly or annual cycle, based on the amount of content that is processed. Many media companies use RAMP's speech-to-text algorithms to auto-generate transcripts and tags for third-party content. Customers in specific market verticals include news, sports, local, infotainment, print publishing and web.

On Vator News, Tom said that the re-branding was,

"largely driven by the completion of our solution to a business-to-business SaaS provider to media companies. Everyzing was an older consumer destination name and we didn't feel it was reflective of what we do now and what we're doing going forward. RAMP has a nice set of meanings; ramp up your traffic, ramp up your sales, it's easier to remember."

According to Tom, 2010 will bring more focus on social media, mobile and managed services and he noted that the pervasiveness of video across all verticals will continue to grow.

In his Red Carpet interview he said,

"In the end, virtually every company of significant size out there has to begin to think like a media company. They have to produce media because that's how the marketing conversation will happen through video and through social. So I think all of this converges in the future, where there won't be any major company that isn't behaving like a media company."

See Mark Robertson's post on ReelSEO for more on RAMP's Content Optimzation Platform. Also see Andy Plesser's interview with Tom on Beet.TV where he talk about how companies like CNBC, Thomson Reuters, FOX have implemented the service and OVPs like thePlatform, Brightcove, and YuMe have partnered with hosted solutions.

About RAMP
RAMP is an advanced Content Optimization SaaS platform providing publishers’ workflow, discovery and engagement solutions to drive monetization of online content to users’ search and browsing behavior. RAMP offers publishers an open, flexible and modular capability to optimize large amounts of content, including text, audio, video and images, within dynamic publishing environments. As a result, publishers’ content becomes positioned for discovery and precise targeting, both on search engines and within publishers’ own websites. Users rely on such precision to discover and engage with content, thereby increasing the commercial viability of content for publishers while curtailing publishing costs.
Leading publishers using RAMP include – FOXNews, NBC, DowJones, Meredith, and others. For more information visit: www.RAMP.com, or contact us at info@RAMP.com.

Related:

• EVERYZING IS NOW RAMP: COMPANY ANNOUNCES NEW CONTENT OPTIMIZATION PLATFORM FOR MEDIA PUBLISHING · Ramp.com
• RAMP RECEIVES STREAMING MEDIA’S 2009 READERS’ CHOICE AWARDS FOR VIDEO SEARCH AND INDEXING PLATFORM CATEGORY · Ramp.com
• Beet.TV: RAMP Powers Video Discovery for CNBC, Thomson Reuters, FOX, others
• VatorNews - EveryZing RAMPS up
• EveryZing Moves to RAMP Focus on Content Optimization
• Streaming Media - Under New Name, EveryZing Ramps up Video Automation

Streaming Media West 2009 Red Carpet Interview - Teg Grenager, Adap.tv on Online Video Advertising and Monetization

In this Streaming Media West 2009 Red Carpet Interview, Peter Cervieri talks with Teg Grenager, Vice President of Product & Marketing, and Co-Founder of Adap.tv about online video advertising and monetization. Teg guides the product vision, roadmap, architecture, and user experience for their flagship product, OneSource, a comprehensive video ad monetization platform. OneSource helps more than 300 publishers globally manage and serve their own ads, or tap into premium global ad networks.

Just last month, OneSource became the first dedicated video ad serving platform to earn ad measurement certification by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). What that means is that OneSource accurately captures impressions and clicks as defined by the IAB. The IAB is comprised of more than 375 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. Compliance with the strict IAB ad measurement guidelines enables brand advertisers, agencies, and publishers to fully trust the accuracy of the reports they receive when trafficking their ads through OneSource. With the IAB accreditation, Adap.tv's OneSource joins the ranks of other leading display ad servers such as DoubleClick’s DART, Atlas AdManager, and Yahoo! APT.

According to the IAB, in the first half of 2009, online video ad spending increased by 38% to hit $477 Million. While forecasts vary, the industry is slowly maturing and eMarketer predicts that online video ad spending will continue to increase by 40.4% in 2010. More standardization of ad unit display and measurement should also be expected.

Earlier in the year Adap.tv announced a partnership program with a number of the leading online video platforms Brightcove, thePlatform™, Livestream, VMIX, Twistage, Kaltura and others. Teg says that while all the OVPs have some form of ad serving capability, it's enough to run a business, but in combination with OneSource it makes it extremely easy for their customers to deploy video advertising and monetization with their full range of video capabilities and added-value services.

Teg and Peter talk about optimizing online video advertising from both the publishers, brand marketers, the need for standardization and compatibility between video player and interactivity with ad server networks, the facing the industry and other topics which Peter highlights in his post on: ScribeMedia.Org | Teg Grenager - Adap.tv.

Teg also spoke the Online Video Platform Summit on the Redefining Monetization panel session, and had this to say about participating in the conference,

"As video viewership starts to move online in large numbers, publishers stand to gain from sharing their ideas and success stories in addressing the challenges of this rapidly changing industry. Adap.tv is excited to participate in the Online Video Platform Summit, and contribute to publishers' understanding of tools and best practices for one of online video's biggest challenges: effective monetization."

Look for a Q&A with Teg in an upcoming post and the video of the panel session in the next few weeks.

How One Source works

Their online video ad management platform OneSource helps more than 350 web publishers to monetize hundreds of millions of video streams each month in 71 countries. OneSource has developed robust ad serving, ad management capabilities and dynamic analytics all within a central platform.

About Adap.tv Inc.
Adap.tv is the creator of OneSource, the first online video advertising platform that empowers publishers with comprehensive tools to monetize and grow their online video business. Adap.tv gives publishers the power and flexibility to intelligently manage and serve their own ads, or tap into premium global ad networks. Through OneSource, more than 300 web publishers monetize hundreds of millions of video streams per month in 71 countries, while providing their viewers a rich and engaging experience. Based in San Mateo, CA, the company is privately held and is backed by Spark Capital, Redpoint Ventures and the Gemini Israeli Fund. For more information please visit http://adap.tv/.

Related:

• Adap.tv to Showcase the First IAB Certified Dedicated Video Ad Server Platform, OneSource for Publishers, at the New Online Video Platform Summit
• Adap.tv Extends Ad Management Platform with Player Partner Program
• Adap.tv Announces Transformative Platform for Managing and Monetizing Online Video
• ScribeMedia.Org: The Business, Technology and Culture of Digital Media | Teg Grenager - Adap.tv

Streaming Media West 2009 Red Carpet Interview - Brian Shin, Visible Measures on True Reach and Video Engagement

In this Streaming Media West 2009 Red Carpet interview Peter Cervieri talks with Brian Shin, Founder and CEO of Visible Measures, a media measurement firm that provides independent third party measurement solutions for Internet video publishers and advertisers. Visible Measures specializes in measuring the consumption and viral distribution of Internet video. According to Brian, their patented technology platform integrates within existing video players to measure audience video engagement through a combination of how users interact with Internet content; the amount of interaction they have; and the viewing time independent of where that video content is, either on your sites, partners or blogger sites. Every interaction with the video content from each play, pause, rewind, fast-forward, share, embed and true reach is exposed for analysis. This helps online video publishers know if they're growing their audiences and helps video advertisers understand whether or not their brand messages are actually being delivered to their target audiences.

Brian also spoke at the Online Video Platform Summit on the Analytics Panel - Measuring Success and discussed the importance of true reach and video engagement.

In a recent post on ScribeMedia.Org, Peter Cervieri summarized some of Ben's key points on video monetization through advertising, audience engagement and reach.

Peter says,

"Reach is a metric that makes sense to advertisers.

In this respect, Visible Measures tries to give brands a sense of what they call True Reach™. For example, when a movie studio is building up to a movie launch, there are multiple types of video that connect the brand to consumers that affect reach, frequency and impact.

• paid media (buying an ad on a site such as Yahoo, ESPN, NBC, CNN.com)
• owned media (promotional video content uploaded by a brand or its agency to drive traffic and audiences to some destination controlled by the brand)
• earned media (social video and viral video - consumers embedding, emailing or remixing a brand video, or creating their own videos inspired by the brand)
• benchmark against relevant competitors"

Continue reading Peter's post on ScribeMedia.Org.

As part of a service to the industry, Visible Measures publishes a series of weekly and monthly Top 10 charts on the viral success and reach of the most watched video ads, film trailers, webisodes and viral videos. The Top 10 Viral Video Ads Chart, is updated Thursday mornings and published with Advertising Age reveals the Web's top-performing brand-driven ad campaigns. The Top 10 Film Trailers, updated Friday mornings and published with Variety showcases the Web's best-performing movie trailers. The Top 10 Webisode Series of the Month is updated at the beginning of each month and published with Mashable, highlights the Web's most-watched episodic video series. The 100 Million Club is the Web's only list of the most-watched viral videos of all time.

Just this past week Visible Measures announced that it has collaborated with BETC Euro RSCG to measure the Evian Roller Babies advertisement and compare it against the top-performing ads in online video. Visible Measures was able to accurately measure the total online viewership for Roller Babies and confirm that it has become the most-viewed online video advertisement in history. The video generated a True Reach of over 45 million views across more than 1,200 unique video placements and over 30 video destination sites.

Visible Measures' Enabling Technologies

Visible Measures' Internet video measurement solutions are powered by three core technologies, our Video Placement Multiplier, Viral Reach Database, and Video Metrics Engine. Their Video Placement Multiplier uploads videos to more than 40 video sharing sites in a single step while providing you with control over brand placement. Their Viral Reach Database gives you complete visibility into viral video placements and audience growth by tracking more than 200 million videos across 150+ video-sharing destinations. Their Video Metrics Engine processes viewer engagement with millions of video streams everyday in real-time, recording every interaction by every viewer from every video on your network.

Related

• The Viral Video Research Blog | Visible Measures
• About Visible Measures
• Brian's blog Hungry Yet Humble - A blog about entrepreneurship from the front lines of a growing startup
• ScribeMedia.Org: The Business, Technology and Culture of Digital Media | Brian Shin - Visible Measures
• Visible Measures Partners with BETC Euro RSCG to Measure Record-Breaking Evian Roller Babies Internet Video Advertisement
• Beet.TV: Going Deep on Video Viewing Metrics: Visible Measures Tracks Audience Engagement

Streaming Media West 2009 Red Carpet Interview - Ben Weinberger, Digitalsmiths on the Importance of Metadata

In this Streaming Media West 2009 Red Carpet interview Peter Cervieri talks with Ben Weinberger, CEO and Co-founder of Digitalsmiths, the leading indexing and analysis company that creates advanced time-based metadata and publishing solutions for clients like Warner Bros., Telepictures and TMZ.com. Ben also spoke at the Online Video Platform Summit on the Analytics Panel - Measuring Success about how do you collect all of your audience data and metrics, what do you with it and how do you effectively monetize your video.

Digitalsmiths just announced yesterday, the newest version of its flagship product, VideoSense® 2.5. The new version adds enhanced video intelligence and monetization tools including: direct asset upload, advanced clip creation, YouTube integration and a new reporting dashboard for analytics. Digitalsmiths focuses exclusively on Tier 1 content (TV Shows, movies and sports for Hollywood studios, broadcasters, distributors and publishers) using a variety of computer vision, speech algorithm, facial recognition, scene classification and object identification to build a unique and deep metadata framework.

Digitalsmiths was founded while Ben was still in college at Southern Illinois University and was originally a Web design company. In 2002, they began indexing TV show content for TV studio clients, for example, reporting on how things like how many times Kramer mentioned Cuban cigars on "Seinfeld" or where certain scenes took place, at Jerry's apartment or the diner. In 2005, the company began developing a system for automated analysis of time-based metadata which became VideoSense. Their technology was developed by a team that Co-founder and CTO Matt Berry assembled comprising of computer vision scientists out of places like NASA, the FBI, academia and Fortune 500 companies.

Ben offers this advise to media companies and publishers to better measure success:

"You need to come at the publishing process from a holistic approach of, it's not just broadband and it's broadband as a separate business, it's an integrated digital media workflow that you absolutely have to have data. If you don't have data, you're publishing a dumb asset. Your asset is at a a disadvantage compared to every other asset that we're involved with. So put all the data around it, look at ways to generate revenue today and tomorrow that you're going to usethat asset. And once you make a blue print of that asset you can use it over and over again. You don't have to reinvent the wheel."

How VideoSense® 2.5 works

Digitalsmiths’ suite of visual interpretation tools processes each frame of video using proprietary algorithms such as facial recognition, scene classification and object identification to build a unique metadata framework – or MetaFrame – of informed video tags. Specific time-based metatags are assigned across a rich set of variables that go beyond common descriptors like name and date with criteria related to each frame (people, places, objects, dialogue, subject matter) or critical commercial matters such as rights management (geography, music issues, content sharing permissions, licensing concerns). This provides content owners powerful analytics, reporting and search capabilities bundled with publishing tools for direct revenue through syndication and ad targeting and audience building.

Related:

• Read Ben's ReelSEO interview on Image and Speech Recognition in Video SEO: The Digitalsmith interview
• See Ben's Beet.TV interview Beet.TV: A New Frontier in Video Search: Facial and Scene Recognition Converted to Metadata
• Read FierceOnlineVideo Leaders - Ben Weinberger, CEO Digitalsmiths - FierceOnlineVideo
• Read Ben's post-Online Video Platform Summit thoughts on the OVP market, Mapping the Wild West | www.digitalsmiths.com

Streaming Media West Red 2009 Carpet Interview - Linda Crowe, Sun Microsystems Inc.

In this Streaming Media West 2009 Red Carpet interview, Peter Cervieri talks with Linda Crowe of Sun Microsystems Inc. Linda manages Digital Multimedia Communications at Sun Microsystems Inc., and leads her team in managing Channel Sun, a leading-edge web platform for multimedia, video, and audio. In her role as Group Manager, she is also responsible for all aspects of multimedia strategy and digital multimedia production. Linda spoke at the Online Video Platform Summit on the Best Practices Round Table - Online Video Publishing Strategies and Tools.

According to Linda, Sun uses video for a variety of different applications but mainly for internal communications which ranges from executive communications and announcements from top leaders, state of the unions to staff, town halls and all hands meetings. She noted that one of the good things about working for a big technology company like Sun, is that they have a lot of bandwidth provisioned for a variety of video deployments. Her group helps conserve network resources by producing high quality HD video and then reducing the bit rate while maintaining high a resolution. Sun has been using Ustream for a lot of their live video and have been very happy with the service which is free too. Not all webcasts are available on demand but some are and they've also deployed Edge technology which allows employees outside the firewall to authenticate and get access to videos behind the firewall.

Sun uses Brightcove to power their Channel Sun video presentation platform for external communications. They syndicate content across the web including YouTube to reach their audience. It all feeds out from Brightcove which provides a central platform for metrics. Linda says that overall engagement with the content and CTA (call-to-action) conversions are the meaningful metrics.

She pointed out that,

"What we realized early on is that it's not just about clicks but it's about how far through that video people have seen. What kind of action did they take as a result of viewing that video and was that the action we had hoped they would take."

He group found that while the video views paled in comparison to text only web pages, the videos did have a much higher conversion rate and in some cases as high as 30%. For videos that were in a sales funnel it really proved the ROI on those videos through the higher CTA conversions.

Looking ahead in 2010, Linda is excited about the capabilities within Channel Sun that allow for employee generated video. Sun has already had "upload and share video" capabilities for over a year, but now users have a much richer experience to manage their own content.

Linda also taked with Beet.TV earlier this year, and you can see her video here.

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

• | Afterworld |
• YouTube - Gemini Division
• YouTube - ElectricFarm's Channel
• Woke Up Dead starring Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite) - Crackle and Woke Up Dead (Matt's Vlog)
• Valemont | Full Episodes, Photos, Episode Synopsis and Recaps | MTV
• Valemont University

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:

• Class Act: Form to Enhance Function
  
• Class Act: On Production Values and Flipping Burgers
  
• Class Act: Making Educational Video More Accessible
  
• Class Act: Preserving Your Video Legacy
  
• Advanced Learning: Education Year in Review
  
• Futurewatch: Education—Critical Decisions

Update 11/26/09: Text edits and additions.

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.

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!