Larry Kless' Weblog

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Robin Good's Best Video Conferencing Tools Mini-Guide

Robin Good has published a new mini-guide of the best videoconferencing tools, Best Video Conferencing Tools: Free, Low-Cost, One-To-One And Multi-Party Solutions - Mini-Guide - Robin Good's Latest News.

The videoconferencing apps mainly come in two flavors, browser-based and client-based. Most all run on Flash and require at least Flash Player 7 and others like Skype, iChat and ooVoo are stand-alone applications.

Most of them have similar functions with supporting a two-way video call, text chat, contact lists, scaling of windows and modest echo cancellation. Robin noted that many videoconferencing tools, "often integrate some complementary features, such as the ability to make VoIP phone calls, do screen-sharing, record sessions, transfer files, or whiteboarding." While many of those features are he added that premium services offer "pro features like better video quality, more participants, or advanced control and customization."

See his blog post for full descriptions and comparison tables of each product.

He used the following criteria to evaluate these tools:

1) Platform: Type of tool (software / web-based).
2) Video channels: Number of parties that can participate to a video conference at the same time (refers only to multi-party tools).

3) Public conference: Ability to make a video conference fully public.

4) Embeddable widget: Flash widget embeddable on web sites or social media sites.

5) Session recording: Feature to record your conference session for later review or publishing.

6) Text chat: Ability to text-chat other participants.

7) Other features: File transfer, screen-sharing, live annotation, whiteboarding, etc.

8) Pro starting price: Price and additional features of the first advanced pricing level.

Best Free and Low-Cost One-To-One Video Conferencing Tools

Best Free and Low-Cost Multi-Party Video Conferencing Tools

Honorable mention
http://www.dimdim.com/

This list was originally prepared by Robin Good and Daniele Bazzano for MasterNewMedia, and first published on April 6th, 2009 as "Best Video Conferencing Tools: Free, Low-Cost, One-To-One And Multi-Party Solutions - Mini-Guide".

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Join Kontiki April 16 in Mt. View for a special event - Turning Communications into Productivity with Enterprise Video

The folks at Kontiki are hosting an enterprise video networking event in Mountain View, California next week. If you're in the area, register for the event and mix it up with other online video people. It's a great opportunity to meet new people and see many familiar faces. The event is focused on video and using video for communications and you can network with the likes of Google, Wells Fargo, Charles Schwab and Sun Microsystems to see how they are creating, using and distributing video throughout their organization from a communications perspective. Kontiki will be showcasing their new, live capability, a new delivery option. Accordent will also be on hand to demonstrate Kontiki Live and On-demand content delivery integrated with Accordent Technologies. Details are below.

Collaborate with leading technologist at the Computer History Museum and learn about one of the most up-to-date and innovative approaches to Live and On-Demand content delivery.

EVENT INFORMATION

RSVP:
Space is limited, so please register online now for this exclusive event.

Register

WHEN:
Thursday, April 16, 2009
4:30PM–7:00PM
Computer History Museum Tour at 7pm

WHERE:
Computer History Museum
1401 N Shoreline Blvd.
Mountain View, CA 94043
Get Directions

KEY GUEST

Wade Hennessey,
CTO of Kontiki

Now more than ever, it is critical for executives to boost productivity through high-value low-cost employee communications. Please join Kontiki for a networking reception to discuss how communication tools can help enhance your company's productivity.

Is your company struggling with reduced travel budgets while being asked to do a better job communicating? Discover how some of the world's largest enterprises are using Kontiki to increase productivity and lower travel costs. Executives agree that engaging employees with short video communications is a cost-effective way to maintain credibility, instill confidence and increase efficiency. Kontiki's innovative software-based solutions leverage your existing IT infrastructure to deliver high-quality live, streaming and/or on-demand video company-wide. Accordent Technologies provides enterprise-wide rich media communications solutions that enable world-class organizations to inform, train and engage their audiences online.

This informal event will feature:

Demonstrations of how to use video to make high impact corporate communications a reality.
Provide you with funded market research that shows the industry wide growing need for short high impact communication.
Discussions of a software versus hardware solution for live and on-demand video delivery.
A Case Study: Learn about Kontiki and Accordent's recent
8-week deployment to over 180,000 employees for a high quality video broadcast for the CEO of the 15th largest company in the world.
Networking with industry experts and peers.

Register now for this complimentary, one-of-a-kind Kontiki event. Drop your business card off at the door with a chance to win an Accordent rich media creation product.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

TubeMogul Looks to Grow and Standardize its Online Video Analytics with $3 Million in Series A Funding from Trinity Ventures

TubeMogul, online video's most popular distribution and analytics service, announced last week it has received $3 million in Series A funding from Trinity Ventures. "We invested in TubeMogul because we saw the potential of a viable business model, a solid product with a growing customer base at this early phase. However, it is my relationship with the executive team that that reminds me why I love what I do, helping passionate entrepreneurs fundamentally change an industry,” said General Partner from Trinity Ventures Ajay Chopra, who will join TubeMogul’s board. "TubeMogul has the team, vision and product to drive a fundamental change in the way online video is monetized.”

The funding will be used to fast-forward growth of TubeMogul's video distribution platform and accelerate standardization of its online video analytics. With over 75,000 users and hundreds of millions of streams tracked, TubeMogul solidifies its position at the nexus of online video.

Last week at the Future of Television conference Tim Street got an on camera interview with Brett Wilson, TubeMogul CEO and co-founder about the investment and some new features coming down the pike.

"We are thrilled to be partnering with a world-class venture firm like Trinity Ventures whose reputation as a value added partner is well known among entrepreneurs,.” Brett said, "To have Ajay on our board who was also a successful entrepreneur and passionate about winning this is space is invaluable."

With TubeMogul, users upload videos once and TubeMogul deploys them to as many of the top video sharing sites the producer chooses. TubeMogul's integrated analytics then provide a single source of metrics on where, when, and how often the videos are viewed. TubeMogul's free beta service has been live since November of 2006. In January 2008, TubeMogul announced the launch of its Premium Products, which include a host of new professional features.

Through its acquisition of Illumenix in October 2008, TubeMogul is also able to offer rich engagement and performance metrics through InPlay, its Flash-based analytics service. Integrating within minutes with any Flash video player, InPlay tracks audience statistics and user interaction in real time. TubeMogul also offers a marketplace to connect online video producers and advertisers and a promotion service for new viral campaigns, video ads or web series.

TubeMogul is on track to be cash-flow positive by the fourth quarter of 2009. "Since the company’s founding, TubeMogul has hit every single one of its revenue targets, and this one should be no different," said Dave Toth, co-founder of NetRatings and a TubeMogul board member and early investor. Other early investors include Knight's Bridge Capital Partners.

I recently visited the TubeMogul headquarters in Emeryville, California and met with Brett and the TubeMogul team. I had a great conversation with Mark Rotblat, VP of Business Development about online video distribution, analytics, TubeMogul’s InPlay technology and more. Look for that video later in the week.

Congratulations to Brett, John, Mark, David, Eugene and everyone at TubeMogul!

About Trinity Ventures
Founded in 1986, Trinity Ventures, a boutique firm, partners with passionate entrepreneurs to transform revolutionary ideas into reality. With over $1.5 billion under management, Trinity Ventures was founded on the principle of personal engagement and mutual respect with the entrepreneurs we fund. Trinity Ventures focuses on early stage technology ventures with a particular emphasis on digital media, Internet services, mobility, security and software markets.

About TubeMogul
TubeMogul is the first online video analytics and distribution company serving publishers large and small who need independent information about video performance on the Internet and automated upload to the Web's top video sharing sites. TubeMogul's analytic technology aggregates video-viewing data from multiple sources to give publishers improved understanding of when, where and how often videos are watched. TubeMogul offers tracking far beyond the traditional metric of video "views." TubeMogul InPlay, which can be activated within minutes, tracks rich viewership metrics such as audience engagement, attention span and site performance -- all in real-time.

For more information about TubeMogul, contact:
David Burch
david@tubemogul.com
+1 510 653 0501

Related:

Traditional Media in Transition Features For Your Imagination CEO Paul Kontonis on Web Video Distribution Strategies

Leading online digital media studio For Your Imagination develops, packages and distributes high-quality original Internet TV and web video series. The New York-based studio works with brands and content creators to develop their online video content, offering them the opportunity to reach a targeted, advertiser-friendly audience.

I recently spoke with CEO Paul Kontonis about FYI's sponsorship deal with Warner Brothers to promote the 'Watchmen' movie on their Axis of Comedy network. The promotional campaign was both unique and groundbreaking for the digital media and the two-part interview with Paul is here and here.

The media industry web series, Traditional Media in Transition, has a new episode featuring Paul who speaks more about the promotional campaign which provided narrative integration of a Watchmen-themed storyline through four programs within For Your Imagination's video network, including an original Kyle Piccolo Comic Shop Therapist mini-web series. Paul goes on to discuss challenges facing the new media industry along with some progressive strategies to address them.

"The ability to distribute your content anywhere on the web is one of the promises of web video." Paul says, "Just because it's out there doesn't mean it's going to be seen. You really have to become part of the conversation that your content lives in and you have to be able to engage your audience."

For Your Imagination's four principles of their distribution strategy:

Building a robust destination site
Finding the communities out there to tap into that support video
Reaching out to top influencers, the real fans
Going deeper into the vertical to build relationships with sites to carry the content

Visit For Your Imagination's web site for more on their web video capabilities.

TMIT is produced by Zoom In Online (ZIO), an award winning online video network, covering the best in pop-culture, providing visitors with the latest happenings in arts, entertainment, culture and technology with four online communities: Film & TV, Music, Photography and Design. You can subscribe to Traditional Media in Transition on iTunes, here. For more information visit www.zoom-in.com.

Related:

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Skype Comes to the iPhone, Voice and Text Chat App

By now you may have heard the big news eariler this week that Skype released Skype for iPhone which is an iPhone app that enables you to make free Skype-to-Skype calls from any WiFi zone. You can sign in to Skype via 3G, WiFi, GPRS or Edge and see who is online but calls only work on WiFi. iPod Touch equipped with a microphone can also take advantage of the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calling.

You can make free Skype-to-Skype calls and low cost calls to landlines and mobile phones – and participate in conference calls – from any WiFi zone. You can also IM all you want, and participate in group chats too, whenever you have network connectivity, whether it's WiFi, 3G, EDGE or GPRS.

The next version of iPhone 3.0 supports calls over 3G as this video demonstrates. Om Malik has been covering Skype on his blog for some time and his review of Skype for iPhone: Awesome. While there are a few issues that many say will be worked out in 3.0, Om says, "For those of you that use Skype on a daily basis and own an iPhone, this could very quickly become the simplest way to make long-distance calls. And I’m predicting a big upsurge in Skype as an “IM client” with this release. To Skype developers who worked on this product, I have two words: Great work!" Read Om's full post here as well as Phil Glockner's post Skype for iPhone: It's Real and It's Spectacular - ReadWriteWeb.

In less than two days after its release, Skype for iPhone was downloaded more than one million times – around six downloads every second. I downloaded the app on my iPhone and and easily logged into one of my Skype accounts and was making a VoIP call through my WiFi connection in minutes. All my contacts downloaded and I was able to see their status just I could on the Skype desktop client. I was able to text chat as well (without those fun emoticons) and the only thing really missing was video, which is not supported on the iPhone as of yet. The audio quality was very clear and while the latency of text chat was not real-time it was low.

Kurt Thywissen, lead engineer on the Skype for iPhone project, explains how the application works in this video.

Skype for iPhone
Uploaded by SkypeConversations

Skype is clearly the most mainstream video and VoIP application doing well financially generating $551 million in revenue last year reporting a profit each quarter for the past two years. Skype averages 350,000 new users a day making it the fastest growing internet company after just five year. Bernard Lunn noted on ReadWriteWeb that Skype May Be The Biggest Winner From The Web 2.0 Era and highlighted 10 reasons he says that Skype has a shot at becoming the largest player in what is now a $2 trillion market.

Goin' mobile, Keep me moving

On the Skype Blog Scott Durchslag outlined how Skype is "mobilizing" with a complete range of rich Skype software for mobile devices powered by every single one of the world’s six major mobile operating systems – Android, BlackBerry, iPhone OS, Java, Symbian and Windows Mobile.

Some of their mobile range includes:

You can read the full post here.

Skype rival JaJah had recently done this with the iPod touch turning it into an iPhone over WiFi with their white-label solution and many have recoginsed Nimbuzz as another VoIP alternative with their own iPhone app. Nimbuzz combines instant messaging, (geo) presence, and VoIP across popular communities across popular communities, including Skype, Windows Live Messenger (MSN), Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ, GoogleTalk, AIM, and social networks including Facebook and MySpace. The free application is available on the mobile, PC and web, for instant messaging, location.

Regarding Skype's valuation Olga Kharif of BusinessWeek asked as the Internet phone service makes its iPhone debut, can mobile phones add enough value to fatten up eBay's lackluster division for sale? She said, "Wireless versions of Skype are only one facet of unit President Josh Silverman's plan to spur growth. The company plans eventually to launch its service everywhere users may log on to the Internet, including phones, televisions, cars, and their work PCs, says Chief Operating Officer Scott Durchslag, "I see [Skype] as a Ferrari that's only firing some of its cylinders."

Related:

Update: 4/5/09