Rocket's Tail

Most segments of industry were hit hard last year! Remember just a month ago when we were all kissing 2009 goodbye ready to see it gone forever? Well Jeremy Allaire‘s company, Brightcove, managed to grow its revenues 50% year over year, in 2009. Their customers have ranged from media companies (The New York Times, Fox, AOL, etc.) to plenty of non-media companies (Reebok, GM, Ticketmaster, etc.). And, seeing an opportunity to develop customers on the lower tier of online media, they rolled out Brightcove Express for $99/month; perfect for your local newspaper just dabbling with online video or that travel company looking to grow its community of travelers!

Jeremy Allaire is no new-comer to this space, either. Having co-founded Allaire Corporation where he developed Coldfusion and then teamed up with Macromedia to develop Flash, he is truly one of the online video industry’s leaders.

Rocket’s Tail caught up with Jeremy Allaire at the Brightcove Headquarters in Cambridge, MA to talk with him a little bit about where the industry is right now, where it might be heading, and how that intersects with other industry segments.

Rocket’s Tail caught up with Roger Wu at the NY Video Meet-up this week. His company, Klickable.tv, has a unique take on making videos interactive. Inspired by pop-up music videos of the 1980′s, Roger liked the idea of tagging a video and allowing people to engage with the content directly by then having pop-ups upon scroll-over or opportunities to click for more information or to even make a purchase. He described Klickable.tv as a wrapper that can take your already-published video (on say YouTube, or Vimeo) and allow you to create interactive opportunities as easily as tagging a photo in Facebook. The end-user experience is that of being able to click on a portion of a video to get information, links, and other fun interactions.

Here is the video interview with Roger:

Additionally, you can see Klickable.tv verion of the video by clicking here: http://rocketstail.tumblr.com/

I asked Roger a few additional questions just prior to this post:

1. Are their any limitations to the length or source of footage that can be used with Klickable?

Nope – we’ve had people stream 90 minutes through – just remember your audience, i’d rather watch 90 1 minute clips than 1 90 minute clip

2. When I wash a video through Klickable, and somebody watches that, does it count as a video view on the source video portal (say YouTube or something else)?

It does if you are using the video portal’s video player, which our free version does for YouTube and Vimeo.

3. Are their ways for video creators to make money with Klickable?

Yes, affiliate links, advertising, analytics, engagement, etc etc!!

4. Does Klickable do any matching up of content with advertisers?

We do. If you check out the “free” version we utilize LocalPages to serve up contextually relevant Pay per click advertising…

Rocket’s Tail spends a lot time talking with the people who make online video possible from the business standpoint. But, there are some fantastic creators out there who are putting their ingenuity and artistic predilections to entertaining the rest of us. They play a critical part of the development of this industry. What do they expect when they get involved in online video projects? How do the projects stack up to their expectations? This past week we caught up with some of the people who have created O-Cast (Anne Richmond, Leah Johnston, Kate Kuen, and Turner Smith). They and others have put a lot of time and creative energy into the NYC online video hit O-Cast. Here is what they had to say:

Dina Kaplan has a number of shows that she really enjoys and they are all on a network that she co-founded with Mike Hudack, Justin Day, Charles Hope, and Jared Klett. They are on the ground floor of a critical evolution in syndicated content; online video. Boasting some fifty thousand shows currently and constantly adding more, Blip.tv recently added syndication to a wide variety of aggregation portals like: iTunes, YouTube, Roku, Tivo, and many more. Where Hulu aims to purvey the highest quality content from the top-tier studios and networks and YouTube is targeted at “every-user”, Blip.tv aims to develop the middle tier of webseries productions and syndicated them (with advertising) to a wide range of portals.

Rocket’s Tail recently caught up with Dina to hear her thoughts on what differentiates them in the market place, the coming evolution of 3D, and the future of online video.

Holiday recipe for 2009

• Yaron Samid and NY Video
• A hearty startup competition
• A month of preliminary online voting
• Approximately 200 Online Video Professionals in one room
• Live online demos
• Mobile SMS voting

Take the ingredients and shake ‘em up. Throw in the coldest night of the year. Place them comfortably in the Columbia University Business School. Let the ingredients fight it out for 90 minutes. When you’re all finished, you’ll have a rockin’ good time.

Shout Outs!

Shout outs of the night go to Israel Drori, Founder of Zixi who, after his demo froze, came back strong with a live performance of “Stairway to Heaven” by his neighbor’s son some 250 miles away. And to Mike Sommers of KickApps who, when questioned, gave some good ole fashioned smack-talk; claiming Brightcove’s customers would one-day come walking through their door.

How The Contest Went Down

Yaron Samid welcomed professionals and newcomers and introduced the top six competitors: Kaltura, 5min, Adotube, KickApps, Popscreen, and Zixi. Each company presented an online demo. And then attendees voted from their seats via SMS. Despite a couple of minor technical glitches, all six companies demoed their products and responded to two questions. The audience spoke—and 5min came out on top. Congrats to 5min, and to all the finalists, for their excellent work, products, and presentations.

Rocket’s Tail condensed the night into 10 minutes of video. Meet the contenders here:

Every once in a long while, one of those projects arrive that is more than just a video. Last month, I was contacted by the Assistant Director of Community Services, Tammy Trojanowski, in the hometown of Saxon Mills (Stratford, CT) with just such a project. They wanted to document an experience where teens and cops would sit down for four round table discussions over lunch. The goal was to foster understanding, see the people behind the labels, and take the resulting video out to other parts of the community as a conversation starter to share what they had learned during the sessions. Made on a very short time-line, here is the video that was made:

Some years ago I saw Bob Dylan play with Paul Simon in Northern California. It was a joy to see these sages play a double-bill and perform duets together. But, Bob keeps on playing and touring, constantly writing new music and giving new voice to old songs. Love him or hate him, he has been one of the most prolific song writers of my parents generation, my generation, and probably my children’s generation, too. Yeah… WOW!

Last month, this musical American bard released “Christmas in the Heart” an album that will raise money for charities around the world.

Dylan has been much criticized for his music video of “Must be Santa” (see below). I have to disagree with the critics who think it’s just too bizarre. What is Santa but play and merriment? This polka-infused version of the song is nothing but fun as Dylan oscillates from Sage to bartender to leader of a party of merry-makers! Pat Boone can sing about Mommy kissing Santa Claus and Dylan can’t have a little fun with this Christmas myth?  Bob Dylan has a long history of doing Christmas right with plenty of respect, even on this album. I, for one, finished the video and felt like gettin’ up and dancing to celebrate Christmas. Not bad for a new rendition of an old Christmas Song.

Don’t take my word for it, decide for yourself:

You can see the exact same version on Bob Dylan’s page by clicking: here.

(Please note the YouTube Demo of the FlipMino HD is embedded below.)

As you can imagine, I shoot a lot of video. Usually, I find myself behind Panasonic equipment and have grown to like their P2 system and the incredible color they provide. But, let’s face it, none of the Panasonic P2 cameras tuck nicely into your back pocket. Earlier this year, I was watching something on Tim Street’s Blog and asked him what he was shooting on. Turns out he was using one of the Flip standard definition cameras at that time. Quick perusal of their website and I picked up a FlipMino HD. I’ve now shot some 20-30 interviews on the camera and plenty of other footage. What I have found is that I have some strong likes and dislikes about the camera. Here they are:

What I like:

• This thing is darn small! Truly it’s smaller than my mobile phone (a blackberry), so it tucks away nicely, even into tight pair of jeans.
• Especially in bright daylight, the clarity of the images is pretty spectacular. In the demo below, please note the incredible blue sky and silhouetted mountains behind the subject about half way through.
• The flip-out port/USB charger – on the ultra models you have to buy batteries, but on the Mino, the charge comes directly from the computer. (Please note that I once uploaded video from a hub, which didn’t provide power back to the camera and spent a day wondering what the heck happened to my new camera, which the hub had drained of power!)… This is a personal preference thing, but I like the fact that if I plug it in each night when I’m shooting, the camera is ready to go when I wake up in the morning.
• The software needed to make a quick video is located on the camera, meaning that if you have access to a computer and the internet, you can make a quick video edit and post it to the world from virtually any cafe in the world (save parts of China and Cuba, where they would be screened).
• Surprisingly, the camera is pretty good in lower light situations. In side-by-side comparisons with the Insignia, the footage from the flip was much better.
• This may seem funny, but I really like the handy little pouch the Flip comes in. Not only is a storage bag, but it doubles to keep the lens clean; excellent for yielding high quality images.

What I don’t like (or just bugs me silly):

• A red/orange light comes on the front of the camera when you are shooting. My finding is that this can unhinge a subject. We were shooting a public meeting one time and as soon we hit record, the public officials stopped talking. LAME!
• The codec – What I have been told is the way Flip fits so much video data into its camera is by shooting to square pixels. Whether or not that is true, I don’t know. What I do know is that the Flip video has difficulty when being edited outside of the Flip video software. I captured some excellent interviews earlier this year and wanted to marry them up with a cool intro for Rocket’s Tail. The Flip Video just wasn’t compatible. Additionally, I have tried to upload the movies to Youtube without going through the export process or it’s native (upload to Youtube) option only to have Youtube’s file conversion fail. So, while I like fitting so much footage into the camera, I want video that is more compatible with other systems (PLEASE NOTE: I also shoot on an Insignia, which comes at a similar price, and I find similar issues with it’s footage).
• The editing software – On the one hand, I very much like that there is editing software in the camera. On the other hand, some aspects of the software are limiting: 1). Low word count and/or control of the title screen and credit screen, 2). software only allows 4 pieces of footage to be edited together, 3). it doesn’t natively allow you to incorporate non-flip video in the edit (I know I keep coming back to melding video from different sources… but, it’s important to me!)
• The microphone is located on the operator’s side of the camera… this is completely weird. I have heard that newer versions of the camera have fixed this… but for now, when you watch a Rocket’s Tail interview that was done on the Flip… my questions will be louder than the subject’s answers.

The Demo:

I had the fun happen stance of unknowingly introducing Liora Mendeloff (InstantMediaKit.com) to Matthew Gill (Burn the Boats Produtions), one of her clients. After raving about his experience with InstantMediaKit, Liora did what any good marketer would do; she asked for a testimonial. She pulled out her Flip Ultra and I immediately pulled out my FlipMino HD. What I tried to do was capture various lighting and sound situations available in the moment. There are some close-up and perspective shots. At times the subject is in silhouette. You be the judge.

Summary

The FlipMino HD has some great applications, but it’s not great for every application. If you’re doing Gotcha! journalism, the record alert light is not going to help. However, it’s great for those on-the-fly interviews or footage that will be instantly posted through the system, the images are great. If Flip comes out with a camera that delivers footage fully compatible with alternate editing systems, I want to check it out!  For versatility, ease-of-use (and pocket), the Flip takes the cake!

Something that really stood out in my interview with Dana Tower about pond5 is that one the four things he wants you to remember about pond5, is they are friendly! Dana was certainly amiable in his interview with Rocket’s Tail and having perused some of the footage on their website, it ranges from the lovely to the banal to the vintage; much of it in HD. Prices for a royalty free clip begin at $5 and seem to be centered between $35 and $50. So, when you need that one-of-a-kind shot of an orangutan in HD and don’t have time to spend a day at the zoo, head on over to pond5 (http://www.pond5.com/).

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to interview Ron Yekutiel about Kaltura, the company where he is CEO. The company offers the first-ever Open-Source Video Platform… and if you know what you’re doing, you can have it for free!