Posted on Wed, Feb 08, 2012 @ 12:40 PM
Facebook’s Mobility Challenge
Lots of people love their cellphones. Facebook, so far, is not a big fan. Amid the jaw-dropping financial figures the company revealed last week when it filed for a public offering was an interesting admission. Although more than half of its 845 million members log into Facebook on a mobile device, the company has not yet found a way to make real money from that use.
People Research Movies On Their Phones — Especially On Apps Adding to the stream of reports about how people do more and more on their mobile devices, mobile ad network Greystripe just released the results of a survey about the movie research process.
Amazon & Viacom Announce Streaming Video Deal Amazon today announced a video deal with Viacom, Inc. which will allow Amazon Prime members to instantly stream TV shows from MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, TV Land, Spike, VH1, BET, CMT and Logo.
Google Makes Its Chrome Browser Mobile On Tuesday, Google introduced its Chrome browser for phones and tablets that run the latest version of its Android operating system, Android 4.0 (or, what Google calls “Ice Cream Sandwich”). Chrome’s mobile browser is as speedy as its desktop counterpart, but incorporates a few bells and whistles too.
Posted on Thu, Feb 02, 2012 @ 02:18 PM
Extends Enterprise Video Capability to Social Media and Collaborative Environments; Allows Registration, Tracking of Viewers, Simultaneous Viewing By Internal & External Audiences
MediaPlatform software now enables the streaming of live or pre-recorded webcasts and full-featured webinars to Facebook Pages and Microsoft SharePoint Online collaboration sites. This advance in functionality—the first to enable webcast producers to require registration through the Facebook page—will help organizations leverage their investments in online video across their social media presences and information worker collaboration environments.
MediaPlatform developed the Facebook webcasting capability based on a request by one of its clients, Detroit-based TVS Communications Solutions. According to TVS webcasting director Jennifer Swinehart, “We have several large company clients that need to make live webcast presentations to both internal and external audiences at the same time. Facebook is a natural environment to accomplish this goal - and MediaPlatform’s WebCaster is an ideal platform to reach the vast audiences offered by Facebook.”
Many businesses are still trying to find their way in social media marketing. In this context, online video offers new opportunities for social media engagement, especially with more than 800 million active users on Facebook, which makes it the second most accessed website in the United States behind Google (according to a December 2011 Nielsen Research Study). The Facebook webcasting capability benefits organizations that want to add streaming video content to Facebook Pages but prefer to have that video originate in the same enterprise platform that they use for other webcasting purposes in part so they can present to internal and external audiences simultaneously, like TVS’ clients required.
Posted on Wed, Jan 11, 2012 @ 04:24 PM
MediaPlatform Webinar: Video and Your Network - The New Reality
Thursday, January 18, 2012
2:00pm-3:00pm EST / 11:00am-12:00pm PST
Everyone knows that video is bad for your network. Except, that’s simply not true anymore.
Join us for a lively discussion about how the “rules” of enterprise are being rewritten by technology innovations from Adobe® and others. In this presentation, Greg Pulier and Erik Herz, two recognized thought leaders in the enterprise video space, will explore the potential of multicast fusion on the Adobe® Flash® Platform to deliver breakthroughs in network performance when delivering a pervasive video experience.
Plus, be the first to hear about MediaPlatform’s truly radical advance in peer-to-peer webcasting from the cloud.
About the Presenters
Greg Pulier is a founder and president of MediaPlatform® and has spent the last ten years developing rich media webcasting software products. For the past 8 years, Mr. Pulier has been managing software teams and developing new technologies in the streaming media industry leveraging his knowledge of neuroscience and brain processing.
Erik Herz leads business development for MediaPlatform® and is responsible for all direct sales in the New England and Eastern Canada regions. He has been webcasting since 1997 when he was an Application Engineer in the Real Broadcast Network.
Posted on Thu, Jan 05, 2012 @ 12:03 PM
Why is enterprise technology so far behind consumer technology? Because the “user” isn’t the same person as the “buyer”. In enterprise software the user is generally a non-IT person, but the buyer is usually the IT department. Enterprise SaaS gives users greater influence over technology adoption, leading to products that are built to be used, not sold.
The combination of cloud, social computing and mobility can be used to raise productivity. Users expect to get access to personal, work, business applications and data from any device, anytime and anywhere.
The cloud might sound like a buzzword but is in fact a superior architecture, not because it makes installation and updates easier, but because it starts to remove IT from the purchasing process, meaning the user and the buyer are, increasingly, the same person. This will lead to high-growth markets, that will be dominated by enterprise software companies that didn’t exist a decade ago.
Business unit stakeholders often recognize the value of new technology before IT departments can harness it. In addition, emerging markets are growing rapidly in terms of technology expenditures and influence. Growing technology use and energy consumption around the globe have led to an increased emphasis on green technologies and power conservation within IT industries.
2012 is going to be a renaissance year for enterprise software, and everything—including, most importantly, the way we work—will be transformed along with it.
Posted on Wed, Dec 21, 2011 @ 04:32 PM
MediaPlatform Director of Business Development Erik Herz was interviewed at the recent Streaming Media West conference in Los Angeles. Herz explains why companies no longer have to stream Windows Media inside the firewall and Flash outside. Read the article here.
Posted on Wed, Dec 21, 2011 @ 12:21 PM
By Ilana Greene
I recently sat down with an event planner friend and posed her a set of questions that could only be asked in 2011, around the subject of how she plans an event that no one actually attends in person… a virtual event. Even there are no paper invitations, table cards, cocktails to serve or coats to check, a virtual event webcast is very much an event.
1) How do you think through the audience's experience from start to finish for a virtual event?
- It’s got to be easy for the first time visitor - Any event website should be planned on the assumption that the viral visitor is a "first-time" visitor. Accordingly, the site should have a simple design for easy navigation and help the visitor fulfill the purpose of their visit.
- Capture the audience’s attention - A successful virtual event depends entirely on the effective capture of the user's attention. The audience must be drawn to the subject matter instantly, and will only remain engaged in the event if the experience is being delivered as expected. User expectations are typically derived from event marketing and branding.
- bear in mind that the presenter is not directly in front of the audience he or she is speaking to, which means things like tonality, subtle facial expressions and wit/sarcasm may lost, even if you are streaming in high definition video. I try and stay very direct or very obvious as not to accidentally convey something I do not mean. This might mean being delving into more than one example, or providing a host of reasons as to ensure my audience understands the message I am trying to convey.
- Know Your Customer - The first step in planning a virtual event webcast would be to conduct a needs analysis to determine the audience's goals and objectives, and then build an event plan around those goals and objectives. Whether the stated goals involve increasing sales, marketing a new product or service, or making a press announcement, the usual desired outcome is to facilitate some action on the part of the audience members. Any event, virtual or otherwise, should account for the client's desired action from his/her audience.
- Test the concep t - When planning a virtual event it's extremely important to put yourself in your audience's shoes and make things as simple as possible. If you’re planning your first virtual event, it's good to attend other virtual events to get a feel for what you like and what you dislike and what works smoothly and what you can improve upon.
2) What are the pitfalls of a virtual event? Where can things go wrong?
- Make It Simple - With the web landing page – or lobby – for a virtual event, you only have one chance to make a first impression. If the site is difficult to understand or the visitor can't find what they are looking for, the visitor won’t return. Even if those errors are corrected in the future, reclaiming that lost visitor is nearly impossible. The best webcasting/virtual event solutions enable you, the event planner, to create a Web lobby that caters to their audiences' wants, needs. A messy, or overly cluttered, Web lobby is the most common problem and can frustrate the user. Organization is key to maximizing the user's experience.
- Murphy's Law of technology plays a role - If it can go wrong, it will! Even with the best webcasting tools, glitches happen, systems crash, and programs freeze. It can be a nightmare, but there are ways to mitigate any serious event damaging problems. Test, test test… you absolutely have to test every link in the technology chain before you do your event – and use exactly the equipment you will use in the real show. It’s no good to test with camera A and Encoder B but go live with camera C and encoder D. You might as well be leaping without a safety net. Make sure you webcasting/virtual event service provider has a dedicated tech support person for your event.
- Virtual events also don't allow for the personal one-on-one interaction which can be important in terms of building lasting, meaningful relationships.
3) Is it important to you to control the look and feel of every aspect of the experience, like the html invitation, the registration page, the reminder emails, the archive?
- Yes. Every step of the user's experience should be thought through and streamlined. Your branding, website, email invitations, social media sites, and marketing tools related to your virtual event need to look extremely professional and polished. From a both a branding and marketing perspective, nothing is more important than a solid and consistent "look and feel" throughout all stages of virtual event planning. The more professional your marketing tools are the more likely people will be to register.
- E-vites, registration pages, follow-up emails, surveys and thank you should all seamlessly blend. Colors, layouts, and typefaces must be the same. Based off of his/her initial viewing, the user should be able to instantly know, without "digging" through the content, exactly where and what a given supplemental branding/marketing piece is in reference to.
- Aesthetics also convey a message, so try and stay mindful of this aspect of the experience as well. It is basically a challenge to try and navigate the fact that people will have different takeaways from your presentation, but it is your job to try to be as thorough as possible to accommodate as many people as possible.
4.) How about the presentation itself? What's important in terms of managing the presenter and making sure that he or she has a good experience?
- Chronological order Make sure that all your objectives are in chronological order to build to your concluding point. Always provide examples on how the information can be applied and used in a real setting/situation, as well as the benefits of your points. Provide a recap with notes. And make sure all deliverables are provided in a timely manner.
- Know the material A good corporate communications team will ensure that the presenters are well-briefed on the issues and, in the case of an executive town hall session and the potential for employee discontent, aware of any hot-button topics that could derail the presentation. I've seen nothing worse than an ill-prepared presenter who fumbles through his PowerPoint slides, gets defensive or gets off-message. It is important to find a presenter who has had experience with virtual events. Having the ability to screen questions before the presenter responds to them (or even send them to legal for a quick look during a live presentation) can be extremely useful.
- Succinct and on point Giving a virtual presentation is different from doing an in-person presentation in the sense that the presenter needs to be succinct and on point because he does not have the luxury of subtle non-verbal communication. Even with high quality, high definition streaming of video, the audience generally isn’t paying as close attention to the presenter as they might in a live setting.
- Mimic the "look and feel" The presentation should also mimic the "look and feel" characteristics exhibited throughout all branding and marketing phases and sub-phases. Typically, virtual events are much shorter in length of time than those "physically housed" (standard in-house events). Virtual events are instant and energetic. Consequently, a virtual event must be hosted by someone who shares similar qualities.
- Mental stimulation . A good audience needs mental stimulation. The user needs to be entertained. Asking questions, talking about breaking news (relevant to the subject matter, of course), and listening to the user's feedback are all host/presenter must-do's.
5.) How about the audience? Do you want to be able to make sure that everyone is happy? How important is it to have real time awareness of what's going on, say through live chat features during a webcast?
- Real time awareness is essential - it is really the only way to know if the audience is actually interested and engaged in the subject matter. Engaging with the audience through the use of a live chat, for example, provides an excellent way to ensure that the user experience is being met - or not met - as expected.
- Include Q&A - The audience needs to be able to ask questions or make comments through the virtual event. Have a dedicated person monitoring this chatter and responding to comments and questions. Also be sure this person has a way to convey what is happening to the presenter. Have a forum for the audience to send questions live so there's real time Q& A. Real time awareness and participation is very important so the audience is engaged and not feel like he/she is being lectured. Monitoring chat is also an effective way to build community around the event, but it’s not wise to let people just comment without an intermediary filtering out odd or counterproductive material.
- Understand what is being presented - The audience is most content when they understand what is being presented, and understand how they can use the information that is being presented. Otherwise, if the benefit of the information is not obvious, people begin to feel like you are wasting their time, or that you do not understand their needs.
Posted on Fri, Dec 16, 2011 @ 12:03 PM
YOUTUBE FOR SCHOOLS
YouTube is launching a brand new tool to for teachers and students. “YouTube for Schools” is a portal that helps curate education materials and videos on subjects such as history and math while filtering out potentially offensive or distracting content.
IS THE KINDLE AMAZON'S TROJAN HORSE?
http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/12/amazons-trojan-horse-dont-underestimate-the-kindle-fire/
REALTIME SEARCH ENGINE FOR MOBILE DEVICES
http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/13/topsy-launches-realtime-search-engine-for-mobile-devices/
OCCUPY MOVEMENT AS NEW MEDIA INCUBATOR AND LIVE STREAMING SHOWCASE
The Occupy movement is not only benefiting from digital tools, but also adding to and transforming the landscape of new media available to today’s advocates. Instead of asking how digital technologies are transforming advocacy, is it more appropriate to ask how contemporary advocacy is transforming digital technologies?
http://mashable.com/2011/12/12/ows-tech-innovation/
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/business/media/occupy-movement-shows-potential-of-live-online-video.html
MOTOROLA XYBOARDS
MOBILE TIME SPENT > PRINT BUT NOT IN $$ SPENT
http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/12/time-spent-mobile-print/
UPHEAVAL IN MICROSOFT MOBILE GROUP
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/an-executive-shuffle-in-microsofts-mobile-group/
Posted on Mon, Dec 12, 2011 @ 05:31 PM
By Mr. Bitz
It has come to Mr. Bitz’s attention that not everyone out there has the kind of lucidity on the important subjects of video streaming that our world simply demands. This is a serious matter. Video streaming is one of those stealth topics that underlies many aspects of modern technology life. Mr. Bitz is here to explain all of life’s big mysteries to you. Understand that video streaming is central to the design of mobile devices, the capacity of corporate data networks, and even the future of what we now call television. So, what is it?
Most of us know what video streaming is, even if we can’t explain it very well. You click on a video player in your Web browser and after a few seconds of something called “buffering,” the video starts to play. Sometimes, if the network connection is slow, the video will stop as the stream catches up to where you are. Let’s look at what’s actually happening.
Video files can be huge. Even with compression, a few minutes of video can be many megabytes of data. To avoid having people wait for ten minute to download a two minute video file, some very clever folks developed a concept called streaming. Streaming involves chopping up that massive video file into pieces and sending them to your device one at a time. The media player on your device then decodes the data, piece by piece, and plays the media for you. Before the player starts showing you the video, it stores up a few chunks as a “buffer,” allowing you to see the material without interruption. The device is receiving pieces of the stream in advance of your viewing them. If the network gets slow, you will outrun the stream and have to wait for it to catch up. This is what happens when your online video freezes.
Mr. Bitz has found that most people grasp the streaming concept pretty easily. However, where things get complex, and Mr. Bitz finds his tell-it-like-a-four-year-old skills in high demand, is in the slightly deeper technical aspects of streaming. It’s easy for smart people to get confused when trying to figure out what is meant by codecs, formats, and transports. For example, if Mr. Bitz said that he was going to stream an FLV video in the H264/AAC codec using RMTP, you might find that a bit opaque. Let’s break it down and understand what that means.
One reason that streaming is confusing is that it is time-based and involves multiple processes. In contrast to a simple data management task, such as creating and saving a Word document, where you have a single file in one data format (.doc or .docx), with streaming you have a core video data format, a “container” using for moving the data as well as the time-based dimension of moving the data itself in a continuous stream.
Video streaming contains three layers of data management:
1) The encoded bits (e.g. H264 for video and AAC for audio)
2) The “container” that holds the encoded bits together (e.g. FLV or MP4)
3) The “transport” that is used to move the stream from the media server to the player (e.g. RMTP)
Based on a discussion with the eminently brilliant video expert, Erik Herz of MediaPlatform, Mr. Bitz has come up with a useful allegory that presents a real world analogy to streaming. (Yes, hard as it is to believe, even Mr. Bitz occasionally has to have things explained to him. Don’t want to blow your mind or anything, but it can happen…) Here goes: Imagine that you like assembling jigsaw puzzles. The bigger the better. You want to assemble a jigsaw with 50 billion pieces! This puzzle is so huge that it has to be shipped to you in a freight train. Every boxcar contains a billion puzzle pieces. The train pulls up. You start unloading the boxcars in order to assemble the puzzle. In this allegory, the boxcars are pieces of the FLV file. FLV is a data container for encoded video data. The puzzle pieces are the H264 encoded representation of the video. The train tracks are the network “transport,” such as RMTP. The big pile of pieces that you're adding to the puzzle is the "buffer." A special file called an M3U8 tells the player the order in which to play the stream. It’s analogous to the ship’s manifest, instructing the train workers on which car to unload first.
As with so many other processes that occur in computing, all of this happens so quickly that you hardly realize it's going on. Mr. Bitz hopes that this explanation of streaming will help you understand better what's going on when you watch a video on your PC or mobile device - or when you're trying to get your head around what's going on in your datacenter when you're trying to stream videos. There's a lot of room for confusion, given the multiple layers of technology inherent in streaming, a situation that's compounded by competing transport and format standards. It's often difficult to tell where you're having a problem. However, as long as Mr. Bitz is here, you have an ally in understanding the root cause of your video issues.
Posted on Thu, Dec 08, 2011 @ 02:12 PM
As the first company to deliver live webcasts on the Apple iPad® using HTTP live streaming (HLS), here at MediaPlatform we feel we should be your source for new developments in the enterprise mobile video space. With that in mind, we have created a weekly blog post titled This Week in Enterprise Mobile Video. We hope you enjoy our first installment.
You can also check out our "Enterprise Mobile Video Kit" here.
TABLET USAGE FOR HOLIDAY SHOPPING
http://mashable.com/2011/12/08/tablets-to-holiday-shop/
GOOGLE CHAIRMAN ERIC SCHMIDT ON ANDROID VS. iPHONE
POPE USES ANDROID FOR XMAS TREE LIGHTING
USING YOUR iPHONE LIKE A COMPUTER
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/technology/personaltech/epsons-megaplex-is-a-home-theater-powered-by-iphone-state-of-the-art.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=technology
Posted on Tue, Dec 06, 2011 @ 11:35 AM
MediaPlatform Founder Greg Pulier discusses the current state of enterprise video with Steve Vonder Haar of Business Video Today. After serving as the video sponsor for CMMA Fall 2011, MediaPlatform has been selected to serve in the same capacity at the 2012 Business Video Expo taking place February 1-3 in Miami, FL.
We will be using our MediaPlatform technology to capture live video of each session, and providing the online video platform to host the archived footage.