SplashCast Archive

SplashCast has launched a new version of their multimedia player. SplashCast is best known for the ability to take different types of media (video, audio, pictures, text) and merge them into one show. Today's upgraded player is very sweet indeed.

Marshall Kirkpatrick, Director of Content at SplashCast offered the following list of features:

• Item level navigation, with preview thumbnails and captions.
• Inline, multi-media commening – text, video and audio – with easy publisher moderation.
• “Follow me” email subscription to future shows by any publisher.

The inline commenting is great, though one thing I didn't notice is whether a comment is associated with the entire show or a specific piece of the show. If it's on the specific piece of the show, then it's a bit like Viddler's inline commenting.

The preview thumbnails are YouTube-like and very smooth. This was one of my frustrations with SplashCast in the past – in that you had to use these boring arrows to try to move forward and back – now you get a small thumbnail with title so you can jump around as desired. Check out our previous SplashCast coverage.

I have embedded Marshall's 3-minute overview of the new features (RSS come inside!):

And here is a live sample of the new player:

Tip to Rex Dixon

This morning SplashCast launched a new channel for NPR (National Public Radio). From the SplashCast blog:

The application, called the NPR Podcast Player, displays the latest episodes of a variety of NPR Podcasts. Facebook users can add the application to their profiles (via the URL http://npr.org/facebook ) to automatically receive new NPR Podcasts episodes to listen to and to share this great content with their friends.

Additional discussion on the release can be found here, here, here, here and here. I guess what I don't get is why would you want to listen to these shows inside Facebook and not on iTunes or your favorite audio player?

Marshall Kirkpatrick, Director of Content for SplashCast, Twitter'd about the buzz/traffic from the launch which I thought were worth sharing:

• marshallk Did I say monster day for SplashCast? The numbers for the past hour just came in, 2X our best hour ever for player loads. Woo hoo! 
• marshallk monster day for new users at SplashCast. hooray! 

Congrats to the SplashCast team for the great launch! Check out our previous SplashCast coverage as well.

I think we can all learn a good marketing lesson from Marshall Kirkpatrick. Marshall is Content Director at SplashCast Media. SplashCast launched a new RSS feed thingymabob today. But forget about what he launched. To me, it's the way he launched it that gets him some major street cred in my book. Now of course Marshall is well known inside the tech circles and blogo' which certainly helped the release get out there. No doubt that is one of the reasons that SC hired Marshall which makes great sense.

Marshall sent me the embargoed press release over the weekend and we chatted about it some (along with others). I asked for some quotes and he sent some over (which I included in my post this morning). SplashCast also setup a page for writers to look at (I am not sure if I can link to it) which provided more information about the release, images, videos, and other media. Also included was contact information for Marshall and some of the other execs at SplashCast. I wish more companies (and specifically PR firms) would do this. Don't make me work for art and media for YOUR release.

Third, once the story went live, SplashCast setup a page about the launch. Typical content release but also at the bottom is a live embedded chat. Marshall was in there all afternoon answering questions and helping users with any concerns. He also answered questions from CenterNetworks visitors and I bet he did the same on the other sites that posted about the news.

Anyway, just a few things for you to think about when you launch your startup or add new major enhancements. Communicate the news, help the writer, and be around to answer your customer's questions and concerns.

SplashCast is launching a new feature, MyPodcastNetwork, as part of their player that (in simple terms) will allow you to take any media RSS feed and show it on your site. You set the feed in the player and then the player will always show the latest plus the other media that is part of the feed. I haven't seen anything like this before (if you have please post it in a comment and I will update).

SplashCast defines the new feature as, "SplashCast is releasing the first version of a new feature that will allow the video or audio enclosures in any RSS feed to be displayed in a SplashCast player on your web page. This will take podcasts beyond iTunes and make every page on the web an avenue for live distribution."

In their upcoming section they speak about stats and since I am a stats freak, I think this is a piece that is really missing. How many people have viewed my video/audio files inside the rss, where are they, who are they, what page did they view it from (using this new player option), etc. As videocasts become more popular, the dreaded ROI discussion will begin. Whomever can own the video stats market might do pretty well for themselves.

I asked Marshall Kirkpatrick, Content Director, for some comments on the new service:

This new functionality really speaks to a big part of the original vision for SplashCast. When the My Podcast Network featured gets combined with the forthcoming quick editing capabilities, then we'll see all kinds of remixed, multimedia channels of commentary on media from around the web. I'm way stoked about that. I saw something on the O'Reilly factor yesterday that really needs to be sliced up and interspersed with some PowerPoint documents I've got and video responses I've recorded – if you know what I mean. Creating a whole channel of that kind of interaction with media will be awesome.

Podcasts – they're not just for iTunes anymore!

It's great that so many media outlets are releasing content via RSS. RSS is a very versatile technology that can be mixed, spliced and filtered in so many different ways.

I think SplashCast seems to be thinking first about where the gaps are currently but, just as importantly, also considering where we need to be moving. The latter is what makes a company sustainable and succeed over the long-term.

Here is a screenshot of the RSS directory within the SplashCast web app:

Marshall has posted some updates to the SplashCast player. Besides Viddler, I like SplashCast a lot. I think those guys are doing some interesting things with the way you can create almost dynamic presentations including video, audio, pictures, etc. Just imagine a mashup of the two :)

The updates include:

• Easy embed – thank you! This was one of my frustrations with the service
• RSS feeds – grab a RSS feed for any channel
• Sidebar sizing – this is another great addition – I think many of the video services don't offer enough options in size of their widgets
• Adding a channel to a player takes one click

Keep up the good work guys and gals!

SplashCast has released some stats on their first 30 days in operation. The information looks pretty good. I think one of the best things they did was to hire Marshall. He is very well known across the new tech market. Since these techies are early adopters, it allows SplashCast to get "in" quickly. While his official title is Director of Content, he is an evangelist for the company. Their video player is not perfect (yet), but it sure is innovative. There are a lot of useful features that make it quick and easy to make a "cast".

Here are their highlights released today:

• The company today announced a strategic alliance with Automattic, the company behind the popular WordPress hosted blog service http://www.wordpress.com/ . SplashCast subscribers can now easily publish their channels directly to a WordPress blog with a simple 'point and click' from their dashboard. Toni Schneider, CEO of Automattic, noted: "SplashCast is pushing the envelope with their innovative rich media syndication solution. Having SplashCast integrated into WordPress.com helps our mission to empower our bloggers with the best content creation and publishing tools on the web."
• SplashCast also announced today a partnership with IODA http://www.iodalliance.com/ , which distributes thousands of releases from independent labels to digital music and video outlets around the world. IODA's catalog is extremely comprehensive, encompassing more than 2,500 music labels.
• Since the company launch on January 30, more than 5,000 new shows and more than 3,000 individual channels have been created using SplashCast – this includes not just talented amateurs, but professional companies that have endorsed the SplashCast Syndication Network to spread viral videos for General Motors(R), Beyonce and more. To watch these and other channels, visit the new SplashCast search catalog at http://web.splashcast.net/catalog .
• The renowned TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference http://www.ted.com/ , has also selected SplashCast for video syndication of speakers such as Bill Clinton, Paul Simon and Tracy Chapman and others who have spoken at past events – a remarkable series of endorsements for such a young company.
• SplashCast has also achieved more than 1,000,000 player impressions since launching 30 days ago.

Congrats to the team and keep up the good work!

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:
bgcolor="#FFFFFF" FlashVars="player_code=TENE7846FF"
wmode="transparent" width="320" height="240" name="player"
align="middle" allowScriptAccess="never"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer">

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.