Skype Introduces 10-way Video Calls, But Is It Ready For Prime Time?

Yesterday Skype released an update to its popular video chat and VoIP client with a second beta of Skype 5.0 for Windows, that introduces group video calls with up to 10 people. The update works only on Windows and everyone on a group call now needs to be running this newer version, to join in group video calls. It was only a few months ago that Skype began to offer video calls up to 5 people. At that time, Skype admitted that this new feature was in beta and there might be a few rough edges, and that it might not work perfectly every time. With this new version, Skype says it has increased stability and better quality when making group video calls, along with a new sleeker look and feel to the user interface.

For now, Skype is offering 10-way video calling as a free trial, but it's likely to become a premium feature in the future. Skype competitor, ooVoo, also had multi-party video chat for up to 6 callers as a free service before moving to paid plans with tiered rates from 3 up to 6-way calls, and free a plan for 2-way calls only. Other premium features ooVoo has include video recording, screen sharing and 480p video quality and high quality audio which ooVoo says gives it an edge over Skype. Read this ooVoo review post for more on ooVoo.

While I haven't yet downloaded the Skype 5.0 for Windows update yet, or given it try, I'm still skeptical it could provide a quality user experience with that many video callers, especially through the public Internet where there's no QoS (Quality of Service.) In the videoconferencing world, you need a MCU (Multi-point Control Unit) to bridge all your video connections and dedicated network resources to support IP video calls.

My guess is that for Skype to work for 10-way calls  you need to have at least a 3-5 MBps Internet connection and a PC with a Dual Core processor and at least 4 GB of RAM to handle that amount of live streaming data. Skype has been positioning itself for the enterprise and this new offering is really more of a business play than for consumers. Better to be behind a corporate firewall where you have more control at managing network traffic.

Life hacker recorded this demo and Whitson Gordon who wrote the accompanying blog post said to not expect great things.



Gordon shared the following in his post:

"We took the beta for a test run, to see if we could get more than five people running in a video chat. Once we got past about three of us, most everyone stopped outputting video, and the audio got pretty choppy. Overall, it wasn't the best...if everyone in the group has a powerful computer and a fast connection, you might be able to get it to work—as always, your mileage may vary, and it is still in beta—but it doesn't look like this is going to work very well for everyone. Check out the video above to see how it went for us."

There's still no word on Linux or Mac versions, although when Skype announced the five-way calling it said 'later this year' for a Mac version. But if you want Skype 5.0 for Windows download it now.

Related:

• Skype - Business blog - Hold 10-way video conferences with the new beta version of Skype for Windows
• Skype Introduces 10-Way Video Calling
• Skype Video Calls for 10 Follow Gmail Calling - VOIP and Telephony from eWeek
• Skype 5.0 beta brings 10-way video calling to the world -- Engadget
• Skype 5.0 Windows Beta Has 10-Way Video Calling!
• YouTube - Lifehacker Test Drives the Skype 5.0 Beta
• Skype to Add Five-Way Video Calling
• Skype Targets SMBs With 5.0 Beta - InternetNews.com
• Skype Dials Up Group Video Calling - www.smallbusinesscomputing.com
• Why there's no Internet QoS and likely never will be - Communications

Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's ooVoo!

I was just reading a post on the ooVoo blog by ooVoo CEO, Philippe Schwartz who described his recent experience of conducting an ooVoo video call from an airplane. He called it "a first" saying that he's probably done thousands of ooVoo calls both one-to-one and multi-party but never from an airplane. "I’ve ooVoo’d from cars, trains, cafes, hotels and had calls that connect people from Ohio, New York, Boston, Atlanta, Israel and Florida – all in one session! You would think I would be a little jaded – a little less apt to be wowed and amazed by a technology I work with every day. Frankly, I am still amazed daily by ooVoo, but on April 3, I shocked even myself," said Schwartz. "On a Virgin Air flight from San Francisco to Boston coming back from the Web. 2.0 conference – I logged onto the wireless connection at 30,000 feet, started up ooVoo and had an amazing, multi-point video chat from the plane with our owner and our vice president of marketing."

Here's the video, ooVoo is calling it a communication milestone which marks a first for the airline and video conferencing industries. ooVoo manages the in-air call quite well!



Schwartz was proud of the accomplishment saying that, “When I learned about Virgin America’s new WiFi service I couldn’t wait to put ooVoo to the test. Speaking face-to-face mid-flight with two colleagues on the ground was not only a testament to the quality of the service we’ve built, but to how far we’ve come technologically as a society.”

It's interesting to note is that videoconferencing technology like ooVoo was first developed years ago to save people travel time and keep them out of their cars and off airplanes to reduce the wear and tear from travel and increase their productivity. Today, with company travel budgets being slashed the business case for videoconferencing and virtual meetings have become an easier sell to the IT budget approvers since the ROI can be measured against the hard travel cost data.

But how much does the technology really need to cost? Looking at the ooVoo video and recognizing that it's a portable solution that can connect people anywhere by using a laptop, camera, microphone, conferencing software and internet connection - is it really necessary for companies to invest in hundred thousand dollar telepresence suites to enable employees and executives to connect? Granted ooVoo, Skype and the many other video chat solutions are either free or low cost and low bandwidth solutions and can't compete with high bandwidth high definition videoconferencing systems like Tandberg, Cisco, Lifesize or any of the others in the telepresence space. But as a collaborative tool, it's all videoconferencing whether it's a "fully immersive experience" or not.

Videoconferencing has gotten a bad wrap for many years because of connection issues, poor audio quality, complicated logistics or lack of support but video quality has not been a deal breaker. Over the years as video encoding standards have improved people have become used to seeing compressed video as long as the motion is fluid. Even though quality continues to increase technology has always been a good scapegoat and that will never change. People just want it to work and have the technology be transparent. That's why telepresence has moved into the mainstream - mainly though successful marketing efforts by Cisco - and has seen an increased adoption in the enterprise.

Interesting to note that in October 2008, Cisco CEO John Chambers predicted that videoconferencing would be available on planes within 18 months.

About ooVoo
ooVoo provides a high-quality webcam video chat and communication service that delivers a meaningful way for people to call and connect over the Internet. ooVoo’s technology enables people to experience a face-to-face conversation and share a full range of emotions as if they are in the same room together, whether they are across the street or across the globe. ooVoo’s superior quality video and audio are available to anyone with a computer, broadband connection and a web camera, for real-time video calls with up to six friends, relatives and colleagues simultaneously. ooVoo offers high-resolution video, video conversation recording, telephony, video messaging, instant message chat and file sharing amongst other capabilities.

ooVoo is privately held and headquartered in New York, NY. You can learn more and download free ooVoo software at http://www.ooVoo.com.

Related:
ooVoo Confirms First Air-to-Ground “Three-Way” Video Chat
Cisco CEO sees videoconferencing on planes within 18 months

Video Chat Gets Updated, New Windows Versions of Skype and ooVoo are Released

New versions of the free videoconferencing clients are available now. The ever-popular and ubiquitous Skype announced an upgrade to its Windows version last week which followed the recent update to the Mac OS client with version 2.8 which introduced cool new features like screening sharing.

PC Magazine said, "As if to celebrate its fifth birthday, IP telephony service provider Skype recently achieved a milestone of 15 million concurrent users, meaning there are now 405 million skype users across the planet. This figure, they say, is growing by 380,000 every day."


Skype 4.0 - it's all yours - Skype Blogs

From the Skype blog, "For those of you who are regular readers of this blog, this should come as no surprise – the gold version of Skype 4.0 for Windows is now ready to download. It’s an exciting day at Skype – and not just because we’ve also just passed the 16 million online user milestone – as it marks the final stage in a process which has lasted over two years, and incorporated feedback from tens of thousands users like you.

I’m going to keep this brief, as much of the story of 4.0 has been covered in Peter’s previous posts, but even if you stop reading now, this is the bit to remember: the gold version of Skype 4.0 for Windows is now ready, so download it now and share it with your friends, family and colleagues. 4.0 also sports a radically overhauled user interface – a slicker, cleaner look with less clutter and easier-to-find core features. We’ve also included Compact View, which retains the structure of the Skype 3.8 interface for those of you who prefer to work that way."

I had both my mom and father-in-law each update their versions of Skype this past week and they saw noticeable improvement in the video quality and bandwidth management. The only issue we ran into was that when Skype installed the update it rewrote some of the audio settings which ended up disabling my mom's microphone. After about an hour of remote diagnosis of walking her through the various windows, tabs and settings we found the fix under Tools>Settings>Audio Settings>USB Camera Mic which had been changed from the previous version.

Here's more from that post with what's new and improved.

• Improved video calling – A new built-in bandwidth manager ensures that you have the very best video calling experience possible, even on a low bandwidth connection. If you have a fast enough connection (recommended 400 Kb/s or higher) and a high quality webcam, Skype delivers up to 30-frames-per-second High Quality Video at full screen.
• Calls and instant messages are easier to manage – video and voice calls, as well as instant messaging, are all easy to reach in a single window. The new Conversations tab makes it easy to hold multiple conversations at once, and to switch quickly between video and voice calls, instant messages and SMS. This is particularly beneficial for the power users among you.
• Call quality is substantially improved thanks to a number of under-the-hood changes. Calls sound richer and clearer than ever thanks to support for Super Wideband Audio with compatible hardware. The bandwidth manager should ensure that you have crystal clear calls even when bandwidth is low.

ooVoo also updated their multi-party video char software client this week. On the ooVoo blog, Chief Marketing Officer Marty Walker announced the latest update to the Windows client, "A BIG day at ooVoo today as we just launched our new Version 2.0 which is a big leap forward for our product and the video chat/video conferencing category in general. The release continues our focus on high quality video and includes significant audio improvements. But what we’re all REALLY excited about at ooVoo is our “Call Me” link which lets ooVoo users make video calls with anyone they know, even if their friends/family/colleagues/social media friends haven’t downloaded ooVoo. All you have to do is send someone a link, they click on it, and in moments they can join your call in a web browser. How great is that? And it is the same outstanding ooVoo quality. ooVooer’s have a permanent “Call Me” link (like a phone number). Give it out, put it in your email signature (we’ll help you create a button for this), post it on your blog or personal web page and all anyone has to do is click on the link to ooVoo you.

What else is new? Users can now build their own Video Chat Rooms (very easily) and can embed these into their own social network pages or blog. Users want flexibility and the ability to be creative and we are doing our best to deliver what our users want. Lastly, we have published an API for developers to build their own applications with ooVoo. And as we learn more about what the development community wants in high quality video chats we will continue to rollout more API’s."

As David Pouge noted in his NY Times piece, Video Chats Overcome Clunkiness, it's been 45 years since the demonstration of the first video phone at the World's Fair but now years later it's part of our normal way to communicate with family, friends and business associates. Check out his article for more background on how video chat has grown up.

Related:

• ooVoo Launches Version 2.0 and Video Conferencing Category Gets Attention from The New York Times - ooVoo Blog
• Skype Growing by 380,000 Users a Day - PC World
• Call Skype From Any Phone Through OpenSky
• Jajah adds calling and texting to iPod Touch | Wireless - CNET News
• Skype Journal: Skype for Windows 4.0 Goes Gold; Improved UI, Audio and Video Performance
• Skype 4.0 Promises Improved Call Quality; Will It Deliver?
• New Skype 4.0 software adds full-screen video calls - Telegraph

Social Media and Video at the DNC 08 with Seesmic, ooVoo, Qik, Kyte, Flixwagon (Plus Ralph Nader and Citizen Kate!)

Social media applications have changed the way we experience current events creating new distribution networks that circumvent the corporate owned media networks. The DNC 08 is a great example of how people are connecting, communicating, sharing, reporting and changing the world using real-time and instant video messaging. In 2004 blogging gained influence in the political process but now in 2008 it's completely different with Twitter, Qik, Flixwagon, Seesmic, ooVoo, UStream, Stickam and so many other live and on demand video services. These new communication tools are much more powerful and direct and enable us to broadcast our feeds across the globe instantaneously. Who knows what it will be like in 2012? Chris Albrecht posted The Ultimate Web Video Guide to the Democratic Convention on NewTeeVee and here are a few examples of the "New Media Press" that I saw today.

Seesmic has a created Public Conventions account giving people access to post their messages from and to the conventions. From the Seesmic blog, "... Dan Patterson and the crew from TalkRadioNews are rocking the DNC.Also continue to participate in the video conversation at LinkTV powered by Seesmic. Below is the latest update from Dan in a long thread that has been the center of conversation. Please check it out, but also be warned, there is some harsh language.
Re: Convention Coverage PUBLIC Accounthttp://talkradionews.com


Eileen Smith from the Texas Monthly, who I met earlier this month for the My ooVoo Day With.. Political Edition, is using ooVoo for exclusive videos and round table discussions. She and Paul Burka will be "Crashing the Conventions" and recording daily reports from both Denver and Minneapolis at the two major party conventions. Videos are available at Texas Monthly: Multimedia.

The Uptake is a small using Qik and captured the Ralph Nader News Conference. This may be one of the only venues you'll actually be able to hear from this staunch 3rd party candidate. At the end of the clip there's a fun exchange between Ralph and Citizen Kate.


Citizen Kate featured again in another The Uptake Qik video covering the political events the one hug at a time.



The Huffington Post created a branded player using Kyte to post its Media Shows.



Trevor F Martin is a Think MTV Street Team Reporter using Flixwagon and caught the Tent State Music Festival today. On his blog he says, "Today at the Tent State Music Festival, Rage Against the Machine headlined a star studded line-up including the Flobots, Wayne Kramer from the MC5s, the Coup and State Radio. Check out interviews with Wayne Kramer, Andy ROK and Johnny 5 of the Flobots and Boots from the Coup at http://think.mtv.com/profile/trevorFmartin"

Related:

• The Talk Radio News Service » Blog Archive » TRNS Social Media Coverage of the Conventions
• DNC 08: Live From Main Street - Denver Clip 4 - The UpTake on blip.tv
• YouTube - DemConvention's Channel
• The Official Citizen Kate Web Site
• Think MTV | trevorFmartin
• The Ultimate Web Video Guide to the Democratic Convention « NewTeeVee

My ooVoo Day With... Political Edition: Queen of Spain

I had the pleasure of meeting Queen of Spain Blog political blogger Erin Kotecki Vest on my last My ooVoo Day With... Political Edition. She only had 30 minutes to share since she was going live with her weekly show The Sunday Inquisition w/ the Queen of Spain from 7-9 pm pacific time. I'll talk more about that following my summary of our ooVoo chat. Erin was connecting from Detroit where she was visiting with family and also joining the call was Digitalsista Shireen who I had met earlier in the day and Jill Foster. This was my third ooVoo call of the day and I was back at home by then and eager to meet the Queen of Spain.

"Erin Kotecki Vest spent ten years as a broadcast journalist in Los Angeles, Orlando and Detroit winning six Golden Mic Awards with LA news institution KFWB. She now serves as Political Director and Election 08 Producer for BlogHer.com as well as contributing regularly to the Huffington Post, MOMocrats.com, and her own site Queen of Spain Blog."

Since we only had a short time with Erin we mainly talked about her life changing Blogher interview with Obama. She wrote about it in a two part series on her blog here and here where she gives behind the scenes details of the experience, her emotional state and how she prepared for the interview that changed her life.

On her blog she said,

"I wasn’t supposed to be doing the interview."
"I shopped at the Eugene, Oregon Target at 8pm Friday night for camera-ready clothes, notecards, and hairspray."
"I met the Senator from Illinois in the hallway of Roseburg High School while he was on his way to use the rest room. I know this. He told me so."

Our ooVoo conversation started with Jill asking the Erin how she prepared. Erin said the Blogher community drafted collected the 12 questions which were not secret so there was no fear of being ambushed. Each candidate would have time to prepare and this made it easy for to do interview. She counted her blessings and didn't have to go crazy. The on-camera interview was conducted in Roseburg, Oregon, by Erin with input from Contributing Editor Kim Pearson. She got through 7 of the 12 questions in the 10 minutes and on her blog she said, "This interview was not a surprise investigation by us. We’ve had these questions on the record since the BlogHer conference last July. So I knew this was not going to be a ‘follow up question’ or ‘on the spot attack’ type of interview. That helped. Back in the day I would have been plotting 40 follow ups and 40 different takes on those follow ups depending on his answers."

I asked Erin of the politicians she's interview who seemed the most sincere. She said Obama was the most genuine she ever met, he's charismatic, he had no handlers, was not so scripted or protected with every word out of his mouth and that was a relief for her. Momocrats said when Obama speaks and does his "ums" he reminds you of that college professor that was a little absent minded, but you saw the wheels spinning, watched the gears go and you see how brilliant he is.

The blogging community is growing she said and high profile people like Michelle Obama are now blogging on Blogher. When asked how could McCain supporters could be engaged she said she's not sure how to get them to support Obama and she's not trying to change their minds. Her biggest worry is the undecided voters and independents.

On her blog she said, "I love being a blogger. I love being a blogher. I love that after I interviewed the man who very well could make history I could tell you this story, and scream and cry. Years ago I could never have done that." Now they call her for interviews and she doesn't wait their call. Although she said she's still hasn't heard from McCain's people.

Once again our ooVoo time was up and Erin had to go. Her humor, fun spirit and passion for the political process and citizen activism was a real inspiration and 30 minutes of conversation was not enough. So after our ooVoo chat ended I logged onto Erin's Sunday Inquisition show and couldn't help but notice that Jill and Digitalsista were there too.


The main topic of that broadcast was about Lee Stranahan and how he's been banned from posting at Daily Kos, a liberal political blog after he started talking about the John Edwards scandal which finally broke on mainstream news yesterday. There was a lively and energetic discussion and Stranahan joined to share his side of the story. He said has been doing short video parodies on YouTube since December and cross posting on Kos 2-3 months ago starting posting on Huffington post doing comedy. He's been looking at Edwards scandal and his post, Say It Ain't So, John -- Why Progressives Need To Get Out In Front Of The John Edwards Affair Rumors 180,000 views, went viral, hugely viral. He thought he made his point clear that he was a progressive democrat and wasn't prepared for all the harshness and extreme backlash.



Related links:

• BlogHer EXCLUSIVE: Barack Obama answers policy questions from women who blog (Video) | BlogHer
• Erin Kotecki Vest Meets Senator Barack Obama, Part One
• Erin Kotecki Vest Meets Senator Barack Obama, Part Two
• Erin Kotecki Vest - The Huffington Post
• Erin Kotecki Vest: Banning Bloggers -- I've Heard Enough Singing From the NetRoots
• My Left Wing:: Irrefutable Proof Of The John Edwards Scandal
• Lee Stranahan: John Edwards Needs To Stop Taking The Fall!

My ooVoo Day With... Political Edition: In The Pink Texas & Every Dot Connects

As I mentioned in my last post, I participated in three separate My ooVoo Day With... Political Edition videoconferences last Sunday. For my second session I found myself back at the Starbucks in San Francisco using the T-Mobile Wifi and my trusty Macbook. I didn't mentioned earlier that I actually don't live in San Francisco but I was there early Sunday morning because my son and his band, Shatterfish, were playing at the San Francisco Marathon (view their Qik video here) and I was roadie, tour manager, tech support, driver and video broadcaster. But I found a local wireless hotspot close to where they were playing and was able to join the previous session with Matt Parker and this one hosted Eileen Smith and Mike Chapman. Also joining the conversation was Digitalsista Shireen Mitchell, founder and Executive Director of Digital Sisters/Sistas, Inc and author of the blog Women Wired In. Phillip Robertson from ooVoo joined briefly to assist with connectivity issues.

"Eileen Smith is the editor of texasmonthly.com and also the editor of a satirical political blog named In the Pink Texas." In the Pink Texas says, "She has an affinity for pinot and an irrational fear of breeders, orphans, Catholic nuns, sobriety, lactivists, miniskirts and speaking on panels. She tries to respond to all comments, especially the ones that refer to her as a sociopath."

Needless to day she offered great conversation and insights on the 2008 Presidential Campaign. On her blog, Eileen had this to say about participating on the ooVoo panel,"When my blog friend and yours, The Other Guy, started telling me about some new, exciting platform for online communications and digital media, I quickly said “unsubscribe” and hung up the phone. But then he told me it had something to do with a live video chat and I’m like, sign me up. Who am I to pass up yet another opportunity to embarrass myself and the entire staff of Texas Monthly?"

Joining Eileen as co-host was Mike Chapman who "has over two decades of experience in public relations and public affairs. Joining the Capitol Hill staff of Congressman J.J. "Jake" Pickle after college, he was mentored by one of the nation's most successful statesmen... He is a founding member of the Austin Social Media Club, the international Social Media Club, and a number of organizations with interests in online communications strategies and technologies."

On his blog Every Dot Connects, Mike wrote about the upcoming My ooVoo Day In The Pink by saying. "The Pink Lady and I don’t always agree and when we don’t, she’s always right. Well, except on a few issues and I won’t mention what they are... Here’s a hint, I supported Barack Obama and she still wants Hillary to take it to the convention. Other than that, we agree on everything. Politics can get really boring for normal people. Eileen gets that and makes the issues of the day fun. She isn’t Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert…she’s better. Recently, she posted about our upcoming panel, which just happens to be on Obama’s birthday (I thought you’d like that Eileen) and, once again, she cracked me up."

Once we all got connected, Mike started by talking about the power of the social media world and political activism. Instead of just telling our friends we can now tell the word through our blogs and that things news reporters wouldn't write about bloggers and commenters would. He went to Netroots Nation and said they were a very fervent group. Eileen added that there was no middle ground in Netroots Nation. Shireen said she went to Blogher and that Netroots has the view of being extermists but you also get a sense that they are bringing up things that people don't want to touch.

I admitted that I felt out of touch with the issues and that it had been several months since I sat down and read the paper. Most of time is spent in the tech blogosphere but joining these conversations helped me connect back to the political dialogue. We all agreed that the media distracts and that with the overall media coverage the extremes get media attention. Eileen pointed out that nobody is talking a economic plan.

We went on to talk about the Presidential campaign strategies. Mike thought that Obama is taking a risk by not committing to specifics and waiting for opponent to make a mistake. Reagan was the best at this. Not saying anything and looking presidential. Clinton tried but was not as successful. Shireen also thought that it's dangerous too and when you use surrogates you get caught in a bind. You're guilty by association and the media pounces on you. Which is what happened to Obama earlier in his campaign when sermons by his longtime Chicago pastor, Jeremiah Wright produced an explosion of controversy. (More on Huffington Post...)

Eileen said that candidates don't really control their campaigns anymore and the media is looking for candidates to slip up. Every politician need to be aware of the viral quality of negative stories and get into talking about real policies. They're trying to use old school public relations messaging but we're not putting up with it anymore. It will be history making on who handles it best.

Overall, it was a great conversation that ended too soon. I had to leave early to pick up my son and his band mates since the SF Marathon finished up early. Eileen and Mike had one more ooVoo chat scheduled the next day and I had one more myself later in the day with Queen of Spain. More on that in my next post.

My ooVoo Day With... Political Edition: Matt Parker Political-Buzz.com

I had a busy day last Sunday talking politics with a number of different people across the political spectrum during three separate My ooVoo Day With... Political Edition videoconference sessions. The day started early Sunday morning when I found myself connecting from a Starbucks in San Francisco for a 9:00 AM PDT session scheduled with Matt Parker, editor for Political-Buzz.com. Matt started Political-Buzz.com in 2006 and has both founded and worked on several political blogs and web sites in the past five years. He connected from Florida and we were joined by Mr. Spike, Joe Giglio and Mark Impomeni who were all connecting from different locations around the country.

The topic was: General Q&A on the latest news and some predictions about the Presidential Campaign and it turned out to be a lively discussion about the hot topics/hot button issues in campaign.

We first discussed race issues and Obama's recent comment:

"Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. What they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know: 'He's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

The questions raised were should McCain have taken a stand? Is Obama culpable? Why does it have to be race? An interesting conversation ensued and it came back to the fact that old habits are hard to break when it comes to politics (in reference to the Willie Horton incident) and the race card tends to get played.

We moved on to our support of the candidates. Joe was a Hillary supporter who has gotten over it and said the "dream team" ticket less likely as people get behind Obama. He added that you need to think one thing - January 2009 ends the era and McCain is more of the same. Mr. Spike likes McCain and his policies on immigration, global warming and the economy. He said Republicans are about spending less and taxing less and that McCain is the best choice. I support Obama and agreed with Joe on the goal to clean house and the mess created by "W" and get Obama into the White House. Mark dropped off early in the call so we didn't hear much from him.

We went on to other issues like the economy, the environment, offshore drilling, media coverage and several themes emerged.

• The economy is in poor shape
• Change is operative word in this campaign
  
• There's a lack of substance and credibility in the media coverage
• It's incredible that Iraq seems to be off the table
• Not a lot of discussion of the issues like what were doing in our ooVoo chat
  

For me, it was refreshing to feel challenged in my knowldege of the issues, my political beliefs and this session ultimately raised my awareness of the political process.

Check out Matt's weekly podcast available on iTunes politicalbuzz.com or follow him on Twitter @politicalbuzz.

UPDATE: I'll discuss the two other My ooVoo Day With... Political Edition video chats I had with In The Pink Texas & Every Dots Connects and Queen of Spain in later posts.

UPDATE 2: It's interesting to note that the mainstream media finally broke the John Edwards Sex Scandal today I recalled when we all signed off for this session Mr. Spike held up a handwritten sign saying, "Free John Edwards Love Baby." This story had already made the rounds in the political blogosphere and I cover it more on my Queen of Spain post.

My ooVoo Day With... Political Edition: The Bivings Report

I spent an hour on Thursday talking with Todd Zeigler and JW Crump of The Bivings Group, a Washington, DC-based Internet communications firm, along with three others (Steve Peterson, Alex Clover and BestSellingShow) who joined an ooVoo video conversation as part of My ooVoo Day With: Political Edition. Todd Zeigler, Senior Vice President of Client Services for The Bivings Group, led the videoconference which focused on a new report they just published on their blog, The Use of the Internet by 2008 Senate Campaigns. We didn't really talk political issues but discussed the key findings of their report on how politicians use the internet in their senatorial campaigns.

This is an excerpt from the introduction of the report:

"As the Internet changes and grows, so should the efforts of Senatorial candidates to use this technology to strengthen their campaigns. It is an excellent medium to reinforce their platforms, find new voters, and reach as many people as possible. In addition, new Web 2.0 technologies give candidates the ability to interact fully with their constituents."

You can download the the full report outlining their methodology here.

They looked at 68 candidates "26 Senate incumbents and 41 Senate challengers, including 36 Democrats and 31 Republicans" and shared these "intriguing findings" from the report:

Incumbents are using the web more aggressively than they have in past cycles.


There is no real difference in the way Republicans and Democrats are using their campaign websites


Many of the features being used to great effect by Presidential campaigns are not being used by Senate candidates


Many candidates are advertising their presences on third-party social networks on their campaign websites.


The number of campaign websites with blogs has increased greatly, from 23 percent of campaigns in 2006 to 40 percent in 2008.


Candidates this election cycle are utilizing multimedia (audio and video files) more than in previous years.


Some basic features were present on virtually every campaign website
(more detail on their blog...)

This graph shows the percentage of candidates using each of the web site features they looked at:

As part of our ooVoo video conversation, we discussed the use of blogs and how influential bloggers had become in the 2006 elections with the example of Joe Leiberman's defeat in the Democratic primary to Ned Lamont. The Washington Post noted that "Lamont built his campaign initially with the enthusiastic support of the "Net roots" -- bloggers and other Internet-based activists -- and then expanded with a grass-roots campaign that attracted rank-and-file Democrats who opposed the war and who complained that Lieberman had neglected the interests of his home state."

The Bivings Report didn't identify any similar grass-roots campaigns in 2008 but did notice a difference between Republican and Democratic web sites. Republicans were more likely to have blogs, multimedia elements and video while Democrats had more team building tools. The blogs they saw were very dry, no comments and not up-to-date. None of the candidates were video blogging and had not integrated any real social networking. Most of the web sites focused on funderasing and had either welcome messages, video clips syndicated from news sites and no real compelling content. Todd Zeigler said he was following several candidates on Twitter and noted some of them did have a "cluster of icons" on their web sites representing their social networks but mostly recycled content between Facebook and their websites. He said most of them probably know the secret to video, that it's a lot of work.

Here are of a few the web sites they liked:

• Saxby Chamblis 08 - Issues, Facts, Events - Saxby.org (Georgia) His welcome message starts right away so turn down your audio
  
• GordonSmith.com - Re-elect Senator Gordon Smith (Oregon) Made Todd Zeiger want to go to Oregon
  
• ScottKleeb.com (Nebraska)
  
• Al Franken for Senate (Minnesota) They thought this one was the best

Everyone who joined this video conversation were first time ooVooers and said that it worked well and that they would ooVoo again. I have three more My ooVoo Day With: Political Edition video chats scheduled this Sunday which I'm looking forward to with Matt Parker on General Q&A on the latest news and some predictions about the Presidential Campaign, with Eileen Smith and Mike Chapman on Presidential Campaign 2008 and with Erin Kotecki Vest on Obama.

Thanks again to the people at Crayon and ooVoo for hostings these great events!

About Todd Zeigler:

"In his time at The Bivings Group, Todd has helped manage online campaigns for the firm's biggest political clients, including Friends of Fred Thompson, Governor Bobby Jindal, the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. In working with these clients and others, Todd has developed ambitious e-advocacy programs and custom Internet applications, helped manage crisis, and created and implemented online marketing strategies."

About The Bivings Group:

"In the name of full disclosure, The Bivings Group currently does work for a variety of Republican organizations and a few Republican candidates for office."

About My ooVoo Day Political:

"My ooVoo Day Political is an eight day online video chat event joining leading political bloggers covering the entire spectrum of belief and persuasion with their communities, fans and friends - enabled by ooVoo, the leader in face-to-face multi-person video communications"

ooVoo Says "Let's Caucus" My ooVoo Day With... Political Edition Launches July 28

Following the success of the "My ooVoo Day With..." event earlier this year "which brought together 25 technology bloggers and their communities for dynamic sessions focusing on social media and the changing face of communications", ooVoo the multi-party video conversation platform is launching another event next week called, "My ooVoo Day With... Political edition." If you read this blog regularly you may know that I'm a big fan of ooVoo and I'm pleased to announce this event.

The video below is ooVoo's CEO, Phillipe Schwartz, and Director of Marketing Communications, Philip Robertson, introducing My ooVoo Day... Political Edition.

"My ooVoo Day Political is an eight day online video conferencing event (starting July 28, 2008) joining leading political bloggers covering the entire spectrum of belief and persuasion with their communities, fans and friends - enabled by ooVoo, the leader in face-to-face multi-person video chat." - Video description - My ooVoo Day Political - Let's Caucus!

Greg Verdino from Crayon says this about the event:

"Whether you're a political junkie or not, it's difficult to deny that the 2008 Presidential Election will be one for the history books. OK -- I suppose all presidential races make their way into the history books, but Obama vs McCain will be one of the hottest races that we've seen in a long time.

Tapping into the political zeitgeist, and springboarding off the success our first My ooVoo Day program, we're proud to announce My ooVoo Day With... Political Edition. (Y'all know that ooVoo is a crayon client, but in the interest of full disclosure I figured I'd mention it anyway.)

Beginning next week -- and running through early August -- ooVoo will enable a series of multi-person video chats, hosted by 25 or so political pundits, bloggers and online commentators..." (more....)

Jane Quigley gives more details of the event in this Facebook note:

"My ooVoo Day Event starting July, 28th - it's the Political Edition!

My ooVoo Day Political is an eight day online video conferencing event joining leading political bloggers covering the entire spectrum of belief and persuasion with their communities, fans and friends. All inclusive, all viewpoints welcome and respected!

So come to the My ooVoo Day Political's FB page (http://www.new.facebook.com/pages/My-ooVoo-Day-Political/21257538542) and sign-up for the event!

This is really a historic election year and the online community is becoming more and more important and focused on the issues, both national and local. Be a part of My ooVoo Day Political and be a part of those important conversations!"

Bloggers from all over the political spectrum from liberals to conservatives will be hosting sessions and you can see the full list of who's participating here. I've already signed up for several sessions and if you want to talk politics go sign up for your 6-person video chat, download ooVoo and let's caucus!

How Do You ooVoo? Getting to Know The People Behind ooVoo

Last week, following my video conversation with ooVoo CEO Phillipe Schwartz, I met with several others who work behind the scenes at ooVoo as part of their How Do You ooVoo? event. I learned more about their marketing efforts, upcoming events and product enhancements. I'd like to thank them all for their time to meet with me (Marty, Greg, Phillip and Lisa) and I look forward to more ongoing conversations.

My video conversations last week started with Chief Operating Officer Marty Walker on the business side of ooVoo. Marty joined ooVoo a few years ago from the Iams pet food brand for Procter & Gamble where he was vice president & general manager. Iams marketing strategy was was more "word of mouth" and they didn't spend millons of dollars on focus groups which he said is similar to ooVoo's current efforts. They started working with Joe Jaffee and his team at Crayon, who include Scott Monty, Greg Verdino and Deb Wiseman, on outreach and connection with social media influencers. The successful My ooVoo Day With... event is a product of that relationship.


Later in the video chat we were joined by Mansur from Saudi Arabia. It proved to be a challenge though to communicate with him since Mansur was 60% deaf and couldn't see us but we could see him. We both appeared as icons on his screen and he was only able to text chat with us. After a few minutes of attempting to troubleshoot the issue he signed off saying, "I love oovoo."

The next day I met with Greg Sobiech and Philip Robertson. Greg is responsible for marketing programs to attract and retain customers and Phillip is Director of Marketing Communications. We had a great discussion which included the upcoming My ooVoo Day With: Political Edition that's planned for late July. That event will be represented by 23 bloggers from all over the political spectrum (liberals, conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, Independents) talking about politics. Stay tuned for more information.

I asked if was possible to do an "ooVoocast" where a multi-party ooVoo chat could be broadcast to many and be interactive through chat. Phillip said yes it was by using SplitCam to broadcast your desktop to uStream.TV or any other broadcast solution. Tom Herman, Vice President of Product Development, has a detailed post on the ooVoo blog that describes how to Stream ooVoo Live.


My last ooVoo conversation of the week was with Lisa Abourezk Vice President of Marketing. We talked about what ooVoo is doing to get their message out how ooVoo is "an enabler of conversation." She said words really don't describe that "wow moment" of a multi-party ooVoo call and I have to agree, it really is a cool experience. (I recommend headphones though to avoid the echo.)

As part of their outreach efforts ooVoo is sponsoring 20 PodCamp 'scholarships' to college students interested in attending the PodCamp Boston 3 unConference scheduled July 18-20. Details are on the ooVoo blog. ooVoo also enables conversation by "ooVooing in" remote presenters at conferences like the annual BlogHer Conference in San Francisco which is actually scheduled this weekend as well. ooVoo also donated $20,000 to the US Air Force in a similar outreach as Cisco has done with their Telepresence suite.

Lisa emphasized that ooVoo's value is far beyond what you see. The more you use it the more valuable you find it. I plan to use ooVoo more often and I'm looking forward to the new features. In an upcoming ooVoo update it will include Java applet 1.7 version which will let you send a url to a friend who doesn't have the ooVoo client but does have a web cam to join the video chat through a web browser interface.

Thanks again to all my new friends at ooVoo for your time and conversation. I look forward to another ooVoo with you again soon.

UPDATE: From the ooVoo blog Phillip Robertson wrote this about PodCamp 3:

"While I'm at PodCamp, I'll also be joining crayon's Greg Verdino, SHIFT Communications' Doug Haslam and Morpheus Media's Adam Broitman in a session about "Smart Social Media Marketing." We'll chat about how ooVoo has been using social media channels to promote and implement programs like My ooVoo Day With... and the forthcoming My ooVoo Day: Political Edition, and to engage directly with both influencers and customers on a day-to-day basis in addition to social media and marketing with Greg, Doug and Adam – they are the experts and worth coming to listen to. I hope to meet some of you at PodCamp - so be sure to join us for our session. We'll be in the HIM Room from 11:15am to noon on Saturday, July 19. You can get all of the event details at the PodCamp Boston site."

How Do You ooVoo? My Video Chat with ooVoo CEO Philippe Schwartz

It's not everyday that I get the opportunity to have an in-depth conversation with the CEO of an online video platform, but I did just that the other day. I spoke with Philippe Schwartz, Chief Executive Officer of ooVoo, who hosted the first of a series of video chat sessions featuring ooVoo employees called "How Do You ooVoo?" It's a chance for the ooVoo community to talk with the people behind the scenes to share how they feel about the product and how they use it. I've already signed up for several sessions and you can join as well by going to the How Do You ooVoo? link.

ooVoo is a free multi-party videoconferencing application that's very similar in form and function to Skype. The main difference between the two is that ooVoo allows you to have up to a 6-way video chat with a paid account and 3-person video chats for free. ooVoo recently moved to a paid plan following their promotional period.

Several months ago ooVoo hosted a series of My ooVoo Day With... video chat sessions which gave fans an opportunity to speak directly with some of their favorites bloggers that included Chris Brogan, Erin Kotecki Vest, Marshall Kirkpatrick, John Wall, Robin Good, iJustine and many more. It was a promotion event headed up by the people at Crayon to get the word out and also raise money for the Frozen Pea Fund in the name of 22 charities. I participated in 3 of the 161 video chat sessions that took place over 12 days. There's a great commemorative video of the event here.

In my video conversation with Philippe Schwartz, he said that he was moved by the"My ooVoo Day With..." event and had waited a few years to create a conversation with the ooVoo community. Also participating in the video call was Robert Muffoletto, an educator and coordinator of New Media & Global Education at Appalachian State University who joined from Holland. Roberto coordinates an international online masters program and shared some interesting stories on how his students are using ooVoo. We spoke about a range of topics from ooVoo's product roadmap, their vision, community feedback and upcoming ooVoo events. Philippe recorded the session which lasted over an hour and posted it here.

Philippe said the PC version of ooVoo has about 9 months of development on the Mac OS version and that's why it has more features. But the new Mac OS version will be available July 28th and will incorporate video recording and telephony. He also said ooVoo was developed as a consumer product and not a business product and that they have focused on superior video and audio quality for multi-party calls. The quality of the video and audio is one of best I've experienced on the variety of two-way video chat solutions that I've used. Philippe said that's achieved by their proprietary algorithm. He added that new ooVoo offerings will feature moderated calls, scheduled events through an ooVoo portal he calls "ooVoo in a box", notifications through IM, more integration with social applications like Facebook and MySpace and the release of API's for web and widget development.

Regarding more "My ooVoo Day With..." events, Philippe said they are about to launch a new event at the end of this month focusing on the elections called, My ooVoo Day With, Political Edition and more of the regular "My ooVoo Day With..." events will follow later in the year.

Why not give it a try?

My ooVoo Day With... Recap Video, and the Good Deeds That Were Done

Scott Monty sent out an email yesterday to participants of “My ooVoo Day With..." as an update on what's new with ooVoo and a link to a fun new recap video that commemorated the "My ooVoo Day With..." event. In his email he said, "Thanks to your participation, it was a complete success. You helped fill over 450 seats in 161 video chat sessions over the course of 12 days. ooVoo was exposed to more people at once than ever before... But more than that, you made a difference to a number of charitable organizations. Last month, ooVoo was pleased to present a $30,000 check to the Frozen Pea Fund in the name of 22 of the hosts; in addition, $1,500 went to each of the following charities: Pie Ranch, the Massachusetts Air & Space Museum, the Disabled American Veterans; and $750 each went to the Ma Chien Autism School and Hands & Voices."

The video was created from recordings and screen shots made by people in the ooVoo community. I think they did a great job putting it together and the song is really cool too. You should be able to spot me in it!



Video description: "In February 2008, a group of 20 bloggers and podcasters hosted “My ooVoo Day”. The participating bloggers chatted with fans via ooVoo. To thank all the bloggers hosting the chats, ooVoo donated $30,000 to the Frozen Pea Fund, a fund established to support the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer campaign, in honor of blogger and cancer patient Susan Reynolds. Go to http://www.oovoo.com/ to download ooVoo and keep an eye out for My ooVoo Day With, Political Edition coming in June."

Some of the recent updates to ooVoo include the ability to stream ooVoo live and have an ooVoo video chat within Facebook. You can check out the ooVoo blog for more information.


In related news, ooVoo was a recent Webware 100 Winner in the Communications category as one of the cool web apps for everyone.

Congratulations ooVoo!

GigaOM Show: Seesmic's Loic Le Meur, and Why Video is Changing the World

Joyce Kim and Liz Gannes interviewed web entrepreneur and video blogger Loic Le Meur on the latest Giga Om show, Episode 34 - Forget Twitter: Seesmic.com creates online video conversations. The episode description says, "Unlike most online video sites that rely on a video upload model, Seesmic provides an online built-in user interface that enables participates to record their personal video note directly to Seesmic's servers. This could be the future of conversation over the web."



Sessmic has been described as the Twitter of video however Le Meur calls Seesmic a video conversation software and incorporated that into the tag line "Join the Video Conversation." Jose Castillo thinks Seesmic is another example of why video is changing the world and he recently expanded a short post on his blog into a full article on Streamingmedia.com. Castillo described how he tapped into a community conversation started by a deaf Seesmic user Louis Ricciardi writing that, "I was reminded why video is so important and why it is changing the world … it’s all about people communicating."



Liz Gaines said on NewTeeVee, "Seesmic is a video startup I’ve shied away from writing about too often, because I’m not sure I really get it. But I figure if so many smart people think there’s something good going on here, I should keep an eye on what the company is doing."

Loic responded on his blog, "Ah and Liz says she does not really get Seesmic, even after having me on the show, I must really not be clear enough, let me know if I can explain more."

Allan Stern from CenterNetworks wrote a post about Seemic last month titled, Taking a Look at Seesmic and Why It Won't Work Despite Those Behind It. He compared some of the many video tools and distribution services like YouTube, Flixwagon/Qik, Ustream, SeeToo/ooVoo and concluded that, "It's taken me a while to figure out what Seesmic is but I've come to the realization that it's a video message board... If Loic can figure out how to make the "video conversation" real-time and step away from being a message board, then it has a much better chance of succeeding. But there are plenty of services that do that already."

Jose Castillo put things in perspective regarding Seesmic by saying, "We all are guilty of focusing too much on the tools we use every day. Blinded by the coolness of our latest application or service, we sometimes forget that connecting human beings is at the core of online media."

Related:

• Seesmic blog
• Loic's videos
  
• Loic's blog
• Seesmic vs. Video Blog Comments Could Launch Real Innovation - March 23, 2008 from CenterNetworks by Allen Stern