Tilzy Archive

The new nextNYers episode is now live. Check it out below. It features Joshua Cohen and Jamison Tilsner, founders of Tilzy.TV. Check out my conversation with Joshua and Jamison to learn more about what Tilzy.TV is all about.

If you are interested in participating in nextNYers, send me your details.

Last week I sat down with Joshua Cohen and Jamison Tilsner, founders of Tilzy.TV. Tilzy is a tv guide for the Web meaning that it wants to provide you with shows to watch based on your likes and dislikes. They also provide commentary on the online video scene and new video shows. I first met Joshua and Jamison back in April where they presented Tilzy to the NY Video Meetup. I was very impressed during our discussion how open they are to feedback and suggestions, it's actually quite refreshing. Here are my notes from our conversation:

• The name comes from Jamison's last name
• They list over 400 video shows with more added each week
• Relaunched the site last month based on user feedback
• Goal is to be the online tv guide just as the tv guide is to tv
• They are focused on the content, not the technology – this is their differentiation point
• Focus is on semi-pro and professional videos, not the typical YouTube video
• The team is Joshua and Jamison, occasionally they bring in freelance journalists
• They are working on a daily video show – similar to Diggnation but much shorter in length
• They generate revenue from Google AdSense and affiliate referrals
• They are working hard on pr/marketing now to grow traffic
• Their goal is to send traffic back to the video content creators web site as the video is just one element. They are seeing that more and more professional video content is about the experience in addition to the video

Thanks to Joshua and Jamison for taking time out of their busy day to meet with me!

This evening I attended my first NY Video 2.0 Meetup. Quite a large crowd (about 150ish) with most people raising their hand that this was their first video meetup. About half of the audience work for large companies (AOL, T-Mobile, etc.) and half from smaller companies and startups. A handful are from recruiting firms and a few agency people – yet not as many as I would have thought. If you are in NYC and looking for a job in the new Web space, this meetup might be for you.

Here are my notes… 

• Gary (no last name) noted that his video blog is the best, even better than Ze Frank – winelibrary.com - though I had a chance to chat with him afterwards, seems pretty cool
• Brightcove had 2 people – they seem to be pretty hot in the NYC meetup scene. — not sure why they didn't answer the questions that related to how AOL Video is working with Brightcove
• The idea of the meetup is to bring people together who are in the video scene somehow.
• Viddler recorded the event and I can post audio if someone prefers audio.

There were 4 companies presenting and here are my notes and general comments related to each one. 

Rob Sandie – Viddler (viddler.com)

• We are the best way to host video online
• Our forte is longer and larger video
• Ability to seek anywhere in the video at anytime unlike YouTube
• Rob speaks about timed comments and how this differentiates and is innovative
• He shows the dashboard
• Uses 3 volunteers to show the live recording feature
• Shows their new video commenting feature – this is very cool!
• Check out our other Viddler coverage

Shay David – Kaltura (kaltura.com)

• Starts with a video which had a high production value but didn't say much frankly
• Today they are showing some brand new features
• Tagline – It's the place to create together
• 1% produce 9% might comment, 89% sit back and watch, at Kaltura they want everyone to be part of the show
• Kaltura works by allowing friends to submit videos about a topic, then the producer puts the final video together
• Flash editor – works like a simple timeline
• It seems very user-friendly
• It allows you to pull images from Flickr using CC licensing
• Their hope is to provide a platform to allow people to collaborate on creating content
• They are looking at advertising and commercial licensing for sites

Gino Yoham - AOL Video (video.aol.com)

• Starts with a discussion about something – couldn't seem to get on track with what he was saying
• He speaks about "truveo" and their search product – sounds like AOL acquired them
• Their portal is just an index of video – videos play inside AOL (not sure I like that)
• Next he shows their widget and all of the big video companies are using truveo search
• Overall it looks like AOL's video strategy is to be a search engine for video – I can't say that I was "wow'd" by this presentation. I would love to understand if this is the overall strategy on video or just the search piece? 

James Tilsner from Tilzy.tv (tilzy.tv)

• They just launched – 2 people in the company
• Their vision is to be an entertainment guide to the Web
• They identify what they think is the new entertainment media
• Exploration and discovery – they built a surfing guide experience
• Basically it is a way to tag the brand
• It's an editorial – not exactly sure what James meant by this
• We want to cover this new entertainment medium like Entertainment Weekly would
• Believes it is important to drive traffic to the producer's brand
• My commentary would be that this product needs a lot of work before it can be mainstream. The audience had some good ideas for these guys, I hope they were listening!
• I think the concern here is that it's a completely manual process but could become a directory of video… but what gets in? how quickly can they get content in there. Would the VT massacre have been listed in news as quickly as it was on CNN?
• The two guys have great positive attitudes and that should help them as they grow