social video Archive

Magnify.net has launched a new widget based on the new YouTube API today at the April NY Tech gathering named VidyUp. I’ve embedded the video demo below. The idea is to bring in sites who aren’t interested in the full Magnify suite but rather want an entry ramp to get videos from site visitors onto their site.

You install the widget, users can then upload videos into YouTube and they appear on your site. It’s pretty slick and I am guessing we will see more of these type of widgets coming from developers using the YouTube API in the near future.

DivX has announced that at the end of this month they will discontinue operations of the Stage6.com video sharing site. They have already stopped user uploads and you can view sites through the end of the month. The compete traffic chart is below showing just under one million uniques in January 2008.

DivX will focus on video sharing on third-party sites. With the traffic levels the site is showing and the 30,000 videos on the site, couldn’t they find a buyer? Seems a bit off to just close the service with such strong traffic levels. The company did say that they worked on a exit plan since mid-2007.

“Our core business is to work with a wide variety of partners to give consumers a high-quality digital video experience on any device or platform,” said Kevin Hell, CEO of DivX, Inc. “By no longer expending resources on Stage6, we sharpen our focus on creating a global standard for digital video while building a business that maximizes shareholder value. We will provide more information related the Stage6.com shutdown on our fourth quarter earnings call, scheduled for March 11, 2008.”

One of the things I’ve noticed is the majority of video players currently being used across the Internet put up a large stop sign after the selected video has been played. This morning I watched a video from Kara Swisher that did exactly that. I’ve embedded the video below so you get the idea.

Most of the large video sharing sites (e.g. YouTube, Viddler, DailyMotion, etc.) offer some videos to switch to after the first one has completed. How many people actually switch off to another video? Isn’t there a better way?

As a marketer, I don’t understand the reasoning behind stopping the video after the initial selection has completed. Kara has a huge library of great videos but unfortunately the viewer may never see any of them. There should be a never-ending stream of Kara’s videos for me to hop from one to the next. This new stream would allow me to see more of Kara’s work, interact with it, and potentially find something I’d be likely to share.

Here’s an idea for the video sharing sites: When I upload a video, allow me to pick a "piggyback video". The piggyback video is the one I’d like to play after the initial video. The way it would work is also simple. Video A plays, short delay to select another video and if nothing is selected, Video B begins. For home made video players and corporate-players like Brightcove (which powers Kara’s videos), make a stream. Even if we only move from one video to two back-to-back videos, the branding and reach just doubled. Technical how-to videos would also benefit from piggybacking. I could show one way to solve the Rubik’s cube and then piggyback someone else and their way to solve it.

There are some analytics issues to work through with this idea but the positive content and marketing benefits are strong enough that the idea is worth a look.

Yesterday, Loic Le Meur wrote about the round of venture capital he has raised with his "video conversation" tool Seesmic. Loic has, by far the best smile in the tech industry. While his video tries to make out likes hes a newb, clearly he isn’t. He has even beat Calacanis at the friend game – and that’s no easy feat! Of the $6 million, $5.5 come from larger investors, leaving $500,000 for the balance of 12 other investors which averages at $41,000 each.

You can read our initial review from November. Why don’t I think Seesmic will work even though there are enough names involved to keep pushing it over and over? Simple really – unlike Valleywag, I don’t see Seesmic as a video email tool. Seesmic is a video conversation tool but isn’t a real-time conversation, it’s a "wait and see" conversation and that’s why it won’t work. 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. I hope this explanation helps Mathew Ingram clear up his confusion on what Seesmic is.

Let’s look at the different types of video tools today with a Twitter-like explanation of each. I am probably missing some video types so leave others in the comments.

YouTube and other basic video sharing tools

With YouTube, you upload a video of yourself playing with your kid. People may comment but the goal is to get visibility for your video — that is, share it with others. You aren’t expecting a conversation over the video. Most videos on YouTube are there for "push" only.

Flixwagon/Qik

These are real-time mobile video broadcasting tools. I take my cell phone and shoot video live on a channel where people can watch and interact via comments. An archive is offered for later viewing in the same style as YouTube above. (Flixwagon/Qik)

Ustream

With Ustream, you create a channel and again broadcast live using your Webcam or camera and others can interact via chat. An archive is offered for later viewing in the same style as YouTube above.

SeeToo/ooVoo

We reviewed SeeToo late in 2007. SeeToo lets you have a video conversation with others in a real-time environment. ooVoo lets you have group chat using video, again, in a real-time environment.

Seesmic

I was chatting with a friend today (in text) about Seesmic, and here’s how I described the application:

• mary records a video
• mary uploads it to seesmic
• mary sits and waits and keeps hitting refresh hoping someone posted a reply
• oh look there is a reply
• mary has to watch the whole video because there’s no way to scan it
• now mary makes another video
• and the cycle repeats

People want instant gratification — look at IRC or any of the IM apps. No one wants to wait for maybe someone to post a video. While some call Seesmic a "Twitter-killer", its clear that 99% of what’s uploaded on Seesmic could be handled in text – there’s no real benefit to video for the conversation – it’s not like there are charts and graphs that someone is pointing to. I’d bet a dozen hot that if Loic started a fancy Web 2.0 text chat service the same group of people would be on there too.

On Mathew’s post, Antje Wilsch commented with even more reasons why Seesmic won’t make it:

• you can’t comment, scan, or make notes on video / hard to easily forward to share (gotta’ worry about video formats, players, flash etc etc)
• many people cannot, or will not, watch video at work (!)
• time savers – difficult to briefly skim a video to see whether worth watching the whole thing like one can quickly do with text
• it’s not that interesting watching unattractive people (had to say it!)
• quality takes time to put together – esp on video costs go up (vs. say re-writing and editing text) so the quality vs. speed thing is an issue

Conclusion

At the end of the day, if anyone can make Seesmic work, it’s Loic. He’s got the charm, the connections around the world and now an all-star cast of people to continuously spread his message. Will it be enough in the long-term? 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.

Are you using Seesmic? If so, please share your experiences with the service.

This morning I sat down with Yoav Ilan at the ‘Bucks to discuss his new startup, SeeToo. SeeToo is a peer-to-peer social video service which lets you share a video with a family member or friend in a real-time environment and chat as well. Yoav believes that some videos aren’t meant to be shared on a public stage and sometimes you want to share the video and walk someone through it. We took a look at his new baby crawling on the floor and he spoke about how he shares the video with his parents in Israel and they can see their grandbaby crawl and chat at the same time.

So here’s how the service works. After signing in, you select your video to share. SeeToo processes the video which takes seconds. Then you send the link to the video to your friend or copy it into IM. The other person joins in and the video syncs and you watch the video together. You can annotate the video by clicking on it and chat as well. The other person can take control and do the same things.

We tried videos over 500mb and they were ready in 15-30 seconds. The video plays using streaming from one pc to another pc – SeeToo stores nothing. In addition, the other party saves nothing as well. Yoav says it’s much faster than uploading the video to a sharing service which could take hours (I agree).

Some comparisons will be made to Seesmic but they are different. Seesmic has simplified video sharing and SeeToo has simplified video interaction and collaboration. They have raised about $1 million from several people including Israeli investor Yossi Vardi.

We spoke briefly about the business plan but Yoav asked me not to post the details. He’s also got some interesting expansion plans for the product as well coming in 2008.  

It seems like a fun service and useful as well. I could see future expansion into B2B for product sales and more immediately usage with military members sharing videos with loved ones back home. Closer to real interaction than uploading a video to YouTube. The interface is simple and could probably use some more color and life — perhaps they are holding that part back while in beta?

If you’d like an invite to the beta, use the code ‘centernetworks’ and visit SeeToo.

We reviewed Seesmic last week and described it as, "a video sharing service just like YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler, etc. The difference is that Seesmic has stripped away much of the "extras" that come with the other services. Almost every video sharing service allows for web cam uploads, Seesmic just seems to make it easier."

Getting an invite to Seesmic is harder than finding a name for your new Web 2.0 service. Luckily I located founder Loic Le Meur in Paris and after feeding him several rasberry and cod crepes and after forcing him to walk up the Eiffel Tower blindfolded, he agreed to give me some invites. You see what lengths I go to for the CN reader?

We’ve got six (6) invites to give away. Want one? Leave a meaningful comment below that includes the word 2008 in it. Codes gone.

In case you missed it the first time, here is my demo video:

It appears that Jakob Lodwick has left Vimeo. Valleywag believes he was fired, some say he quit. Who cares why. It’s not like his next startup is going to do a background check. Liz says that Jakob remains an investor in the company.

The real question is what happens to Vimeo and Jakob now. Let’s take Jakob first. My bet is that he appears on the payroll of Tumblr within ten days. A secondary option is some new startup based on video combined with love lessons with his girlfriend Julia Allison.

Vimeo is another story. In my opinion, Jakob was the “icon” of that site and depending on whether he still participates in the community will determine where the site goes. I compared Viddler and Vimeo recently and believe both sites have great potential in front of them. Both rely on their communities for growth and virality and with Jakob gone, those characteristics take a hit. Will people still lip dub now that he is gone? Sure, but he seemed to lead that charge on the site. Will the community fall apart without him? Not sure, but it might be the right time for another player to make an offer to the Vimeo community.

When I think about joining a startup, Vimeo would be one I would seriously consider as the community is strong and their technology is moving forward past the current leaders.