Exclusive Interview: Marshall Kirkpatrick of SplashCast

Written by Allen Stern - February 17, 2007

I have enjoyed reading Marshall Kirkpatrick's blog entries all over the web. He was one of the lead writers for TechCrunch before leaving to do his own thing. That didn't last long (maybe 2 days??) before he was scooped up by a new "mixed media syndication platform" called SplashCast. Marshall is very talented and I wanted to find out more about him and also what the heck a "mixed media syndication platform" is. (I am now coining the term MMSP). Marshall was kind enough to spend a few minutes with me and the transcript of our discussion is below. Oh yea, he even gives a juicy bit at the end about what Mr. Arrington likes to do in public.

Allen: Can you provide a brief background about yourself?

Marshall: I grew up in Eugene, Oregon and now live in Portland. I'm 30 years old. I've done a lot of different things in my life, I've worked at a tofu factory, an animal hospital, for a nonprofit technology group called NetSquared, at TechCrunch and many other places. I've always written a lot and found RSS and blogging to be life changing tools for people who want to research and communicate.

Allen: What is SplashCast and how can it help content creators?
Marshall: SplashCast is a mixed media syndication platform that's simple enough for anyone to use. The end product of our admin console is an embedded Flash player that can display multiple videos, photos, text frames and audio. Other people can subscribe to your media channel, embed it on their pages and receive updates to that channel pushed to their player automatically by RSS. That's the big picture, it works best to see SplashCast in action in order to really grasp what it does.

The usefulness for content creators varies depending on who you talk to. Some people like the ease of our content creation tools, for recording voice-overs on top of photo slide shows, for example. Other people like the fact that our player is a simple, very clean looking way to embed any number of YouTube videos all in one small space. Other people like the persistent connection that SplashCast creates between a publisher and their audience of supporters - embedding a video podcast you like in your blog is no longer a one-off act - that embedded player is live and as up to date as the channel it's subscribed to.

Here is a sample:

The creative possibilities are almost countless, in part because SplashCast leverages RSS in several different ways. In addition to pushing updates to distributed players by RSS, you can also populate a channel by RSS. For example, I built a channel last week of all the US presidential candidates' official YouTube channels. I just plugged the YouTube RSS feeds into SplashCast and like magic there were more than 50 videos available in one embeddable player. Whenever one of those candidates uploads a new video to YouTube, it will be automatically available in my SplashCast player.

Allen: How do you make sure spam and other "illegal" content don't make their way into the player?
Marshall: We tell people not to use SplashCast that way and we provide an easy way for anyone to flag content as copyrighted or objectionable. As for spam, if I put your live channel on my website - there is some trust required there, but if content starts being delivered that I don't like I know where it came from and I can easily either change the channel or delete the player.

Allen: Why did you decide to join SplashCast?
Marshall: I joined SplashCast just a few weeks after leaving TechCrunch because I think the company is taking a great approach to consumer level media syndication. I love RSS and I'm convinced that online media in general and video in particular are going to be huge in the very near future. SplashCast engages with these issues in a smarter way than any other vendor in the space.

They also offered to pay me well to hang out in an office with people I like and watch a whole lot of YouTube. While my original plan post-TechCrunch was to do consulting with an emphasis on the nonprofit sector, this was an opportunity I just couldn't pass up.

Allen: I don't see any ads or any fees to use SplashCast, how do you (if you do) monetize the service?
Marshall: Monetization will be rolled out in the next few months. There are lots of possibilities but we are really going to try to avoid pre and post roll video ads. I think we're going to bring a fresh, noninvasive approach to the question of monetizing rich media on the web.

Allen: Who is using the service? Is it geek-only or mainstream?
Marshall: Photographers, painters, teachers, Zen Buddhists, farmers' market advocates, Japanese pop-culture commentators, video bloggers and a General Motors entertainment news project are some use cases I've noticed recently. It's leaning towards the non-geeky, but it's so darned useful for bloggers who want to embed multiple YouTube videos in a single player in a blog post that we are seeing a fair amount of that too.

Allen: What is the team like? Has it been what you expected when you signed on?
Marshall: The team is small, there are only 8 of us right now. They are all kind of freaky, in a good way - which is what I hoped for and where I feel most comfortable. Thankfully, we have a CEO who is very skilled, driven and ambitious but not an ego-maniac filled with hot air. That's really refreshing. The team is very supportive of engaging with new social media and has also retained a traditional and very capable PR agency. I like that dual strategy approach. There haven't been any big surprises yet, I had a good idea what I was getting into with this company given previous communication with them.

Allen: What exactly does a "Director of Content" do?
Marshall: Freak out that every possible software development must be implemented simultaneously and immediately. Once that freaking out is done, I hunt for good examples of SplashCast put to use by our users and communicate with as many of users as I can.

I also try to rock the blogosphere with breaking news and compelling analysis in order to drive traffic to our site and thus expose people to our company. That's worked very well for us so far.

Allen: Who are your competitors?
Marshall: Everyone and no one, to be honest. We do things that are also done by Brightcove, VideoEgg, Revver, VodPod, YouTube, Blip, Flickr, Feedburner - you name it. The way we do it is very unique though - no one else has yet offered a mixed media, multifile display that leverages syndication and is easy to use.

Allen: How would you compare SplashCast to Brightcove?
Marshall: Brightcove is best positioned to serve big media on the web. They have a beautiful multi-file player but no push syndication. They beat us on video transcoding quality right now but we beat them on ease of use. We also do much more than just video.

Allen: Is SplashCast funded? Can you share any info on the funding?
Marshall: The company raised $1.3 million last summer and is in talks to complete a modest Series A round right now.

Allen: What's coming in the next 6-9 months for SplashCast?
Marshall: Total global domination and a bunch of bizarre use-cases that I can't even imagine today. Our users will move beyond their current emphasis on the multi-file and low-branding aspects of SplashCast and will begin using it more extensively for distribution around the web. It's a paradigm shift but I think people will use us more like Feedburner than like YouTube.

Allen: Since you have reviewed what seems to be hundreds (if not thousands) of startups, what are the most important things that a startup must have to be successful?
Marshall: Let's be honest - I know best what it takes for a start up to launch well. I also know what I need from a service in order for it to help me do my job well. As for startup success, I'd say visibility, timeliness, ease of use and good business development strategy for partnerships, content and distribution deals are all high on my list.

Allen: And what would be the one thing that you believe would be the strongest characteristic of a startup that will fail?
Marshall: Not judging the circumstances of the market you are entering accurately; have a cool idea that's either ahead of it's time or is just plain unrealistic.

Allen: Which new RSS feeds are you reading these days?
Marshall: NewTeeVee, Look Shiny, Steve O'Hear's The Social Web and one feed that's TechCrunch, Gigaom, Mashable, ArsTechnica and PaidContent spliced together and filtered for the word "video."

Allen: What was it like working with Mike Arrington? Any secret juicy bits you can share?
Marshall: He and I are very different people but it was a fun job. He's got a really kind heart but is no nonsense when it comes to business. He's a man who likes to be hugged in public - just kidding about that part.

Allen: Where do you see video going this year?
Marshall: There's going to be a ton of people and companies putting video online in the next year - not as many as are blogging in text but a ton none the less. I think and hope we'll start seeing more video from people who aren't white and/or traditionally beautiful women.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to do this interview.

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