Archive for ContentDeliveryAnd Distribution
Guide To Online Content Syndication: Part 1
Posted by: | CommentsOnline syndication allows web publishers to distribute their content to multiple audiences, networks, as well as to traditional media outlets and to their online counterparts. In an age where content is increasingly in contexts different than the original source, understanding professional syndication options and their pro and cons is a strategically important piece of the success puzzle for any professional web publisher.
Photo credit: head-off mashed up by Robin Good
Blog syndication works much the same way as the syndication of content from well-known online content producers.
For example, just as the Associated Press, the largest and oldest news organization in the world, is paid to allow a myriad of web sites to republish content from its reporters, bloggers are looking for ways to get paid for the content they create.
However, blogger content is far too often republished without permission, without attribution and without payment and that is where blog syndication comes into the picture.
Do you want to understand what online content syndication can do for you? Are you interested in making sense of all the different syndication options available?
Larry Schwartz and Susan Gunelius have prepared an in-depth report on online content syndication which provides lots of valuable insight into the various options, pros and cons available to web publishers.
Here all the details:
The Truth About Blog And Twitter Content Syndication – Part 1
By Larry Schwartz and Susan Gunelius
What Is Blog Syndication?
The Opportunity
The concept of syndication is not a new one. In fact, syndication formally originated over 100 years ago. As early as the late 1800s, news organizations were participating in syndication activities.
Before 1910, the syndication of comic strips in newspapers began as a tool to boost newspaper sales through the broad appeal of comics like Buster Brown and Mutt and Jeff.
Today, consumers take it for granted that a new Dilbert will appear in their Sunday newspapers each week.
As media evolved throughout the 20th century to include radio and television, syndication grew as well. Soon comic strips such as Little Orphan Annie became syndicated radio shows, television cartoons, and more.
Today, the syndication business model is extremely popular and has proven to be beneficial to content producers, distributors and consumers.
It’s not surprising that the 21st century brought with it a new age of syndication – online content syndication.
As the business of online content grows, more and more consumers shift their content consumption habits from traditional, mass media to freely available content on the Web.
According to an April 2009 report from The Nielsen Company, The Global Online Media Landscape, nearly 1 billion people around the world are actively involved in the digital media universe.
With nearly 1 billion people looking for specific content each day, syndication provides a unique opportunity for media producers (such as news organizations, bloggers, video producers, and so on) to get their content in front of a large and highly targeted audience.
Today, it is common to find large companies and well-known brands, particularly from news organizations, syndicating their content. Those influential content producers have three things going for them:
- They produce content that people want to read.
- They produce high-quality content, making consumers perceive them as authoritative and credible sources.
- They create brand recognition across a broad audience.
Blog syndication works much the same way as the syndication of content from well-known online content producers.
For example, just as the Associated Press, the largest and oldest news organization in the world, is paid to allow a myriad of web sites to republish content from its reporters, bloggers are looking for ways to get paid for the content they create.
However, blogger content is far too often republished without permission, without attribution and without payment. That is where blog syndication comes into the picture.
Types of Syndication
Syndication can be confusing, because there are actually several types of syndication.
Each syndication model centers around an agreement between content producers and content aggregators or distributors, but the processes between syndication models differ.
The three types of online content syndication are defined below:
1. Licensed
Distributors pay a fee to content producers to provide their content to end-user customers.
Blog syndication through Newstex Blogs On Demand follows the licensed syndication model.
Unlike other syndication models, in which content can be republished on multiple, publicly accessible web sites, licensed syndicated content through Newstex Blogs On Demand is distributed to end-users who access that content via closed systems found at
- corporations,
- law firms,
- financial institutions,
- government agencies,
- or academic research libraries.
Links back to the content producers blogs are retained to ensure the bloggers are identified as the original publishers.
In return, bloggers are paid royalties when consumers access their syndicated content and bloggers benefit from increased exposure to professional influencers.
2. Ad-Supported
Content producers share in advertising revenues generated from their content that is syndicated to end-user customers. There are some blog syndication companies that follow the ad-supported syndication model, which offers little control to bloggers.
Blog syndication through BlogBurst follows a version of ad-supported syndication by paying only top performing bloggers using a performance-based reward system.
Blogs that are not highly trafficked do not earn money but do benefit from broader exposure than they might be able to get on their own.
3. Free or Bartered
Content producers receive no monetary payment but can benefit from:
- increased exposure,
- embedded advertising, or
- secondary sales such as subscriptions, product tie-ins, seminars and so on.
Many blog syndication services have followed the free or bartered syndication model without long-term success, such as the defunct BlogRush and ScriptWords.
Other blogs follow a slightly different variation of blog syndication, such as PaidContent and SeekingAlpha (for the financial industry), where bloggers are given the opportunity to syndicate (i.e. republish) certain posts or articles on these sites for no payment but with the hope of achieving added exposure.
Who Syndicates Their Content?
Television studios, radio producers, web site creators, video producers, bloggers, microbloggers (people who publish short 140-character or less snippets via sites like Twitter) and others look for syndication opportunities to grow their audiences, make money and reach their goals.
In fact, blog syndication is gaining significant popularity as the number of blogs continues to grow (there are over 130 million blogs according to Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2008 report and millions more in countries not tracked by Technorati).
Well-known bloggers with highly-trafficked blogs, bloggers with growing blogs and bloggers of every size in between syndicate their content.
For example, Engadget.com, Gawker.com and Mashable.com are just a few of the thousands of popular blogs that syndicate their content through the licensed syndication model.
Who Distributes Licensed Syndicated Content?
Television and radio producers typically seek out individual distribution partners to syndicate their content. This process is also used by news outlets (think of news columns that are syndicated to multiple newspapers, such as Dear Abby), web sites and bloggers.
However, it is difficult for smaller players to secure syndication deals with large distributors.
For example, the average, quality blogger would have a very difficult time signing an individual distribution deal with LexisNexis (a leading global provider of information solutions to professionals in the legal, risk, corporate, government, law enforcement, accounting and academic markets).
When smaller players have to secure syndication deals with large distributors is where licensed syndication is useful for some content producers, such as bloggers.
For example:
- Companies like Newstex aggregate the content they license to syndicate and provide it to high quality, well-known distributors.
- The well-known distributors then provide that content to end-user customers around the world in real-time and often alongside content from internationally recognized and respected news organizations and sources.
- Suddenly a blog with an audience of thousands of visitors per month has the potential to get in front of millions of people through a simple syndication agreement.
Bottom-line, licensed blog syndication gives quality bloggers an equal seat at the table with top online influencers and media outlets.
Who Uses Licensed Syndicated Content?
People who use syndicated blog content come from a variety of professions. For example:
- Academics,
- journalists,
- scientists,
- legal professionals.
Them and many others use syndicated blog content to support and streamline their lives and their jobs everyday.
Unlike free, bartered or ad-supported syndicated content, licensed syndicated content gets in front of a unique audience, because it is distributed to closed systems. That means it is not accessible to the general public.
For example, LexisNexis content might be delivered to a corporation for use by corporate researchers on the company Intranet or corporate library. Alternately, content might be delivered to law firms or universities for research purposes.
In all cases, the content can only be accessed by employees or individuals who are able to use the closed systems through which the content is delivered.
Companies that license blog content for their distributor partners to provide to end-user customers must provide premium content, because end-users who access licensed, syndicated content on closed systems (e.g., a Wall Street trader accessing blog commentary about stocks from the trading desk or a journalist seeking commentary for a breaking story) expect to find only the best information.
The content needs to be:
- Timely,
- authoritative,
- credible, and
- accurate.
Many of these end-users choose to access content through a quality distributor of licensed syndicated content because they want more than a simple web search can provide.
End-users want easy access to great content from a variety of top sources that is directly applicable to their needs and they want it now!
Why Should You Syndicate Your Blog Content?
Content syndication offers a variety of opportunities to bloggers, but the decision to syndicate your blog should be made based on your individual goals for your blog.
In Part 2 we will discusses the benefits of licensed blog syndication and debunk some of the myths about blog syndication at the beginning, so you can make the best decision for you and your blog.
End of Part 1
Part 2 – Guide To Online Content Syndication: Part 2 (will be published on 9/16)
Originally written by Larry Schwartz and Susan Gunelius for Newstex, and first published on July 9th, 2009 as The Truth about Blog and Twitter Content Syndication
About Larry Schwartz
Larry Schwartz is a co-founder of Newstex and President of the company, with responsibility for sales, marketing and product development. Larry has guided numerous entertainment and new media ventures, from start-up through growth, development and maturity, including Bolenka Games Online (Trivial Pursuit(R) Online), GFI Group (Nasdaq:GFIG – financial), Wizard World (publishing), Patron Technology (technology) and Tickets.com. Most recently Larry was President of Comtex News Network, a real time wholesaler of news to the financial industry.
About Susan Gunelius
With nearly 20 years of marketing, branding and copywriting experience, Susan Gunelius, President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc. is a published author and active blogger (Susan owns one of the leading blogs for business women, Women On Business). Susan is also a featured columnist for Entrepreneur.com where she writes about copywriting and marketing communications.
About Newstex
Newstex was founded in 2004 by online business experts CEO Steve Ellis and President Larry Schwartz. Newstex is a content aggregator and syndicator, which means Newstex collects licensed content and delivers it to numerous content distributors who provide it to their end-user customers. Copyright of Newstex, LLC Copyright holder is licensing this under the Creative Commons License, Attribution 3.0.
Photo credits:
The Opportunity – Mikhail Mishchenko
Types Of Syndication – Michaela Stejskalová
Licensed – Michaela Stejskalová
Ad-Supported: – Michaela Stejskalová
Free or Bartered – Michaela Stejskalová
Who Syndicates Their Content? – Fantescawine
Who Distributes Licensed Syndicated Content? – Searagen
Who Uses Licensed Syndicated Content? – Richard Thomas
Why Should You Syndicate Your Blog Content? – Alastor
Multimedia animated slideshow creators are web-based services which allow you to remix pictures, photos, video clips and music to create visually impactful showcases, slideshows or just memories of a great holiday. In this guide I have selected and reviewed the best multimedia remixing tools available out there.
Photo credit: Ophelia Cherry
These multimedia remixing tools allow anyone with little or no technical knowledge to create compelling audio-video slideshows. While experienced users may access advanced features to fine-tune their creations, anyone can get started and produce decent results in a matter of minutes. With these tools, remixing photos and videos into a multimedia animated slideshow is absolutely a no-brainer for both the technically-savvy and the novice alike.
In this guide I am presenting two comparative tables and a set of mini-reviews to put all of these multimedia remixers through their paces.
First, here are the key features that characterize these multimedia animated slideshow creators:
- Web-based: You do not have to burn CDs to show your slideshows to family and friends anymore. Since these multimedia slideshow creators are all web-based, you just need a computer connected to the Internet and you are done. No more carrying around heavy slide projectors and screens to set up.
- Media import: You can easily access digital content stored inside your media libraries. Either from your computer or across the web, it becomes easier to upload photos and videos to edit and combine into a multimedia slideshow.
- Special effects: You have access to a wide range of transitions and special effects to pimp up the visual impact of your slideshows. You can use customized backgrounds, titles, interactive texts, frames, borders and clickable hotspots inside your slideshows.
- Music: You can either upload your own songs or choose some readily-available tunes inside the music library of the service. Then you can sync (automatically or manually) your music and visuals to create a perfect mix.
- Distribution: You can publish your visual creations on any website or social media page by simply pasting a standard snippet of embed code.
Second, the criteria I have used to select and review these multimedia animated slideshow creators:
- Remixing: Remix your media in an automatic or manual fashion
- Templates: Utilize ready-made templates to create slideshows.
- Social media import: Grab photos and videos from own social media.
- Music library: Access to royalty-free / paid music library.
- Download: Save created slideshows to your computer.
- Social media distribution: Share slideshows on social media sites.
- Private / public: Enable and restrict access to slideshows.
- Pro features: Access an advanced set of features with premium paid accounts.
Please note: When I write “multimedia animated slideshows” I am clearly not referring to those kind of slideshows you can generate on Flickr or Picasa. What I am presenting here are instead slideshows enriched with transitions, animated texts and special effects, that look like professionally-produced movie trailers.
Still, you have no idea of what a multimedia slideshow looks like? Check out some of the examples I have prepared for you right beneath this guide comparison tables.
Here all the details:
Co-Browsing Tools Comparative Tables
Examples of Multimedia Slideshows and Remixes
Created with Scrapblog
Created with Animoto
Created with Vuvox
Multimedia Animated Slideshow Creators And Remixing Tools
- One True Media
One True Media is a free multimedia slideshow creator. After the registration process, you can upload your media and start mashing up your photos and videos. Plus, you can add transitions, special effects, frames, texts and rotate images and videos to customize your project. You can also add music tracks from your computer or from the music catalog of One True Media. If you do not want to start from scratch with your slideshow, the service provides you with a set of ready-made templates, priced at $2.99 each. Your project can either be public or private. If your project is public, other registered members can edit and republish your slideshow. Once your project is completed, you can download it to your hard-disk, distribute it using social media or e-mail and even embed your slideshow on the web. You cannot import media from third-party online services. The premium account costs $3.99/month and allows you to have advanced editing options, unlimited monthly uploads and creations, player skins for embedded sharing, premium music, and more.
http://www.onetruemedia.com/ - Scrapblog
Scrapblog is a free online slideshow generator. After registering, you can combine photos, videos and music in a multimedia presentation using a drag-and-drop interface. A slideshow can either be public or private and you can start with a blank page or choose a free template from Scrapblog gallery. Then upload selected photos and videos from your computer or import any media collection from Flickr, Picasa, Facebook and other services. Later you may add a music track from the Scrapblog library and customize orientation, opacity, size, shape of the elements on your slideshow. When your project is finished, you can order it in a print format, share it via social media, download the project to your computer and also send your creation via e-mail. By purchasing credits from Scrapblog, you can also use ready-made templates, stickers, customized backgrounds, frames and more to enhance your slideshow. With $10 you get about 100 credits. A premium account is not available.
http://www.scrapblog.com/ - Animoto
With Animoto you can produce automatic multimedia remixes of your videos, images and music for free. Just register, choose a music track and some images and videos to start. Animoto analyzes the music and automatically harmonizes your track to the images and videos while adding special effects and transitions. You can either import your photos and videos from your computer or have Animoto grab your media on popular sharing sites to start. The service claims than two videos are never the same, even re-using identical media content. Anyway, if you are not satisfied with the result, you can always manually re-arrange the order of your media and try again. You can embed your slideshow on any social media site, web page or send it via e-mail. You cannot set private / public projects nor have free templates to start with. The premium account is priced at $249/year and allows you to produce slideshows for commercial use, create full length slideshows, access the extended music library, remove the logo of the service and download your slideshows.
http://animoto.com/ - Vuvox
Vuvox allows you to mix, create and blend your media – video, photos and music – into visual creations without spending a dime. After registering to the service, you have three service at your disposal: Express, to create visual presentations from the RSS feed of a photo album you have on social media; Collage, to build an interactive storyboard with videos, links, images, music and clickable hotspots; Studio, to create any kind of professional media presentation with several fine-tuning options. Whatever project you want to start, Vuvox lets you upload your own media from your computer or grab your photos, videos and music from your social media on the web. You can either create a private or a public slideshow. No free templates or music library are available. Once your slideshow is created, you can share it via e-mail or social media, but you cannot download it to your computer. A premium account is not available.
http://www.vuvox.com/ - Joggle
Joggle is a free media library that allows you to create animated slideshows and music playlists. Based on Adobe Air, Joogle lets you remix your digital content regardless of its location: social media sites, online communities, external storage devices and computers. You just select the photos and videos you want to mix and choose a music track to start. Then add transitions, special effects and tweak other options to customize your project. Joogle does not work by actually importing your media, but just providing you with referrals and copies of your files to work on. What this means is your project dynamically changes as you modify the original files where you have stored them. Once your project is created, you can download it to your computer, publish it on the web using web widgets or share your creation privately via e-mail. No private / public projects nor free templates are supported. Premium account is also not available.
http://beta.joggle.com/ - Roxio PhotoShow
With PhotoShow from Roxio you can blend your digital photos with your favorite tunes in a multimedia animated project. Just submit your media to Roxio and the service automatically remixes your content by adding special effects and transitions. If you are not satisfied with the final result, you can modify your project and also add text, bubbles, borders, frames and much more until you get a rendering you like. You can either upload photos and videos from your computer or import content from your social media accounts. When your slideshow is finished, you can distribute your creation to any web site or social media. No private / public projects are available. The premium account of Roxio PhotoShow costs $39.99/year and allows you to use ready-made templates, access the Roxio music library, upload your own MP3s and also burn or download your slideshows.
http://www.photoshow.com
Originally prepared by Robin Good and Daniele Bazzano for MasterNewMedia, and first published on August 31st, 2009 as “Multimedia Animated Slideshow Creators And Remixing Tools – Guide To Best Online Services“.
The Professional Web Publisher SuperGuide: POP Becomes An Online Learning Program
Posted by: | CommentsThe reason for which I started MasterNewMedia was to help others take greater control of their lives. I wanted to be meaningful to others by helping them discover how to effectively leverage the uniquely powerful communication opportunities offered by the Internet.
In full honesty, I really love to share what I discover and learn on a daily basis. It is not a marketing tagline: If I can help someone else achieve its communication goals by sharing what I have learned on my own, I am the happiest person on earth. Ask around (type Robin Good or MasterNewMedia in there and see). And this, at its core is what I have been doing here at MasterNewMedia, for nearly ten years (October 7th is MasterNewMedia 10th birthday!) now by sharing free in-depth content and making it also sustainable thanks to an extremely successful partnership with Google AdSense and its contextual advertising program.
And just about a year ago, I wrote here on MasterNewMedia what I wanted to be the new editorial strategy and direction to take:
“From a media and technology news and reviews daily web magazine to a reference, learning resource with a specific focus on media literacy, communication skills and professional web publishing. This is the new editorial strategy focus for Master New Media… This is where I am going next.“
Over the course of these last 12 months most such changes have become reality: I don’t cover anymore the latest news as a priority, I have increased the focus on the topics that are most relevant to those who want to communicate effectively by using the Internet, I have expanded my how-to / guide approach leaving behind more impromptu, spontaneous and personal coverage, and more. Just look at my plan of last year and see for yourself.
Today, I am finally adding another key component to this new strategy, on which I have worked for over a year and a half. It is item 7) of my last year plan and it is my most ambitious communication project so far.
Here all the details:
POP – What Is It?
POP is my first online learning program for professional web publishers, and by this I mean those who have a serious need, desire or plan, to make their online communication efforts more effective.
POP is not a course about learning how to make money online, nor about how to create a fast-success, big traffic blog site. I am uninterested in those goals per se and I have learned the hard way that it takes serious effort and true, genuine dedication to get anywhere memorable.
POP is more like a VIP club than a training school. The curriculum is dynamic and learners get to change and modify it. New information and know-how is served in many cool different formats and it is accessible 24 hours a day. I, the club founder, spend dedicated time with each one of my guests inside their VIP suites. I listen to their stories and I do my best to understand where they want to get, and then I help them identify possible critical points, as well as the alternative roads available to them. I don’t teach. I work with them to find a custom strategy that works for their specific needs.
Who Is It For
I have not designed POP for those who want to learn how to get 10,000 visitors a day or who badly need to make some extra money in the quickest and easiest way possible. POP is not a shortcut to get somewhere faster and with less effort. POP is for those who have a real strong reason for wanting to become effective online entrepreneurs, publishers, change agents and who want to invest all of their best energies and resources to get there.
These are the people who have already been publishing online or caressing the idea of doing it, but have never gotten to achieve enough skill, clout or following to really make a deep, lasting change. These are the people who have started already a few times but who have never made enough of their journey to really see what was awaiting them on the other end. These are those who while having a great idea, failed to understand the strategy and best approach to make into a reality, often using the methods of the pasts to build something for the future.
These are the people I have designed POP for.
If I look at the demographics I have collected over time, they are also intellectually active, ambitious, strong individuals. Most are aged between 25 and 55, have a graduate degree, do not work for a large organization and, and many of them are trying to achieve something unique and very challenging in their life. Something that by itself means for them realizing a long-standing dream and not just a need to have a work or find money.
I guess I could say that in one way or another, all these people HAVE A MISSION. A mission to realize something, which requires communicating effectively to others, and being able to get others to see and act on that information.
Why Do I Do It?
That’s the million dollar question: why do I do it?
There are a few reasons why I decided to create this online learning program. The the top ones are:
1) If you know me a bit more than having read some of my articles, you know that, at the essence, I am and I always wanted to be an agent of change. I like to change the world around me and others, to see greater beauty, love, harmony grow and prosper around me. I like to help those, especially the ones who are not gifted by fortune, money or great resources to achieve what to others would seem outright impossible. I like to help the small guy, the passionate seeker who is after something special to achieve it, by empowering him or her to communicate more effectively and to leverage to the max the opportunities and reach provided by these new media, online communication technologies.
2) I want to help. I am very frustrated by seeing so many talented and capable individuals, many of whom are my friends or people I know really well, miss their most important goal and slowly give up on it. This drives me mad. I know that if I could help them see HOW they can change in simple ways their course of action, their ability to achieve what they were after would increase tenfold. Unfortunately, many of them fall into their own traps and never recover from it: Sometimes is just laziness, sometimes it is being too closed on one’s own ideas, sometimes it is wanting to get there too fast. No matter what is the reason, sometimes we all need a listening partner with lots of experience to really re-gain some vision and perspective.
3) I like to be independent. That is I do not like to “depend” on others to decide, influence or change my own course of action. I don’t like to depend on someone or something that sets the rules of when or how I must express my talent (work) nor on someone who tries to squeeze me as a lemon without treating me as a fair mate. I don’t like to depend on one great client, on one supplier, or on one great business partner. I like to be able to realize my goals with or without them.
4) I have understood that the future is not just about information, content and ability to publish and exchange, but it is very, very much about learning. If you can’t learn new things, then having all this information at your disposal is not only useless, but often counterproductive and detrimental. Knowing how to manage and extract from this ocean of information what is really uniquely valuable to you, is priceless. Knowing how to organize your know how and skills so that they do not get wasted, or understanding how these new tools and technologies function and how to extract the best from them is invaluable.
5) Learning is an enjoyable, enriching activity that is very different from the experience most of us have been exposed to in school. Education, including schools and universities are going to some deep transformations, and the value they are able to provide, outside of very specialist, closed systemic areas (medicine, law, engineering, education, etc.) is rapidly decreasing. People are starting to realize that great learning takes place not in a gray classroom, not by listening and memorizing information and not certainly by passing official tests and exams. This has nothing to do with learning. true learning has to do with being with others who have a love for your same interests, in being part of a group where there are people with more experience and people with less, in experimenting, trying and making mistakes while confronting new stuff in a playful, open-minded fashion.
6) Communication is the most powerful skill one can have today. It is worth more than money or estate and its effects reach far more distantly and deeply than weapons or laws. Look at the religious movements. Not that I am very fond of them, but, through communication, they have achieved some pretty amazing goals. Look at some of the leading countries of the world. They have perpetrated some of the most horrendous and nefarious actions while making it appear as they were crusading to save someone home and kids from the devil: all communication strategy masterpieces. And now that communication and publishing tools are within the reach of almost anyone, the key difference is not anymore in the tools, but in the strategy and tactics being used.
What’s So Unique About POP?
The key unique thing about POP is that I want to help DIRECTLY a few, very serious and dedicated individuals. Yes, I am not just taking anyone in. I am accepting only a small number of people because my key goal is to help these individuals on a one-on-one basis. Yes, I want to be able to help directly a few individual / projects to achieve their own goals and I know that by just posting my best know-how, tools and resources this would not be possible. Each one has a different story, assets, background, skills and goals and you can’t apply the same strategy, tools and sequence to everyone. So, I am going to have just enough participants that I can actually devote multiple one-on-one session with each one of them.
The other unique thing about POP, is that it is not the typical online course made up of PowerPoints and written guides that you access on an online web site. It is rather a social dancing club where passionate ballroom dancers get together to learn and share their skills with everyone. Besides great video lessons, audio stories, written guides and my very own publishing and communication toolkit, these individuals get to meet with me inside live events and workshops online, can attend open-clinics to review their progress, have access to an exclusive forum where they can ask questions and have access to every single resource and contact I use for my own work.
What Is Inside the POP Learning Curriculum?
The POP topics range from my very own communication strategy and approach to the specifics of content production, writing, content distribution and marketing, information architecture and design, SEO, advertising and monetization. I don’t focus on one area. I cover them all. From thinking and designing a strategy before you start, to refining and improving your existing publishing, distribution and social media approach. The end goal is to put these people in control of their ability to create an enthusiastic following, a community of passionate, an audience of raving fans. And to get there, there is no easy, automated, one-click solution. The secret is simply thinking more ahead of doing, in asking and questioning more your assumptions, and in trying and experimenting more, while in company of bright, trusted, generous friends.
How Much Does It Cost? – How Long Does It Last?
POP is just about to open. Pricing information and access to enrollments will be visible to everyone in a few hours. If you want to be there when this happens, simply go to http://pop.robingood.com and drop your name in the dedicated input box. I will notify you personally via email as soon as the POP doors are open and a few hours before I make my public announcement inside my newsletter and through my other public communication channels (Twitter, facebook, etc.).
During the POP experience, I unroll the whole POP learning program over the arc of five months, before adding new modules and update some of the existing information. In theory one can come in just for those five months or stay for as long as sHe wants. Once you are in, you can stay forever. POP is a lifelong learning experience, and just like at the dancing club, even after you have taken all courses you can still learn a great deal simply by attending, practicing and exchanging with the talented people who are there.
To Find Out More About POP
To learn more about POP I have published a few resources to give you a better idea of what is in store.
1) Think Strategy, before Technology – VIDEO + PDF
On the POP home page I have just published a very short video and a PDF entitled: Think Strategy, before Technology. With it I try to analyze why so many promising web publishers fail to achieve great, memorable results, or lose enthusiasm and confidence in reaching their goals via the Web, and I propose some basic, down-to-the-ground corrective actions. You will not duplicate your traffic omn your site nor you will make 10,000 dollars after reading and watching that, but it may be that you will look at how to get where you want to be with a different pair of glasses.
2) POP Sneak Preview
This is a 15-minute video presentation of the POP learning platform I made a few weeks ago. It showcases what POP looks like once you are inside. You can get a good idea of the variety of contents, the organization of modules and the overall ease of use and look and feel of the learning platform.
3) POP FAQ
I have received many email questions in the last few weeks asking me all kinds of things about POP. You have some doubts about POP issue and you want me to clarify it for you. Done. I have answered all of the most common questions you have sent me so far through a series of short videos I have published on this POP FAQ page. I have also added a box on that same page for you to submit new ones.
Originally written by Robin Good for MasterNewMedia and first published on August 26th 2009 as “The Professional Web Publisher SuperGuide: POP Becomes An Online Learning Program”
How important is going to be the role of the “newsmaster“ in the future? Is this network middle layer of human filterers and scanners actually emerging? What about serious business talk: Could the newsmastering practice ever become a professionally sustainable role? And what is its value?
Photo credit: solarseven edited by Robin Good
Thanks to the generous time and availability that educational technologies researcher George Siemens, media futurist Gerd Leonhard and online collaboration and facilitation expert Nancy White have provided during their recent visit to Rome, I have been able to record a few interesting short video clips in which questioned them on a topic I feel as relevant today as when I first wrote about it in 2004: newsmastering.
Though almost five years have gone since that time and things on the Internet have changed a lot, what I had originally envisioned as a new network figure needed to aggregate, filter and select the most relevant info, news and tools on a specific topic has indeed started to spontaneously emerge.
Thanks to the new opportunities created by social media first and more recently by technologies like Twitter, which make it very easy for people to aggregate, scan and redistribute valuable news and information, the basic skills of the newsmaster have started to become more visible and acknowledged.
But this individual, the emerging newsmaster, is not just like the typical passionate Twitterer who shares all kinds of valuable information she finds. Her value, as I see it, emerges from focusing only on one, very specific topic, and acting as an always-on radar. Its unique value is not just in the ability to capture everything being said, written and published on a specific topic, but very much into her ability to filter, select and editorially curate (titling, sequencing, grouping, commenting, etc.) the flow of information she manages.
Technology-wise, RSS remains the key component through which a newsmaster can bring together information coming from many different kinds of sources: traditional web sites, directories, search engines, social media such as blogs and video sharing sites, news content sites, social bookmarking destinations, and now also from Facebook, Twitter and Friendfeed.
So while a lot of people are spontaneously doing some kind of very-light, serendipitous newsmastering via their Twitter or personal social media stream, only very few have tried refining their natural newsmastering approach or have become aware of the opportunity that exists to take this to a higher, professional level.
Mastering how to create high-value newsradars and training skilled news editors in the art of newsmastering may be in fact one of the key lifesaving strategies that wise-minded newspapers operating online can still adopt to offer greater value, even at a price, to those interested in it. No matter what the topic, there is always a good number of people willing to pay to stay more informed than everyone else in a certain sector or industry niche.
But this is just my view. Since many have not even ever heard about the idea of newsradars and newsmastering, I took the time to briefly expose my vision to my three video guests asking for their free and open reactions.
Do you see what I see? Is this a possibe emerging business role? Is there value in doing it? Does it have a future?
Here’s what they had to say:
The Role Of The Newsmaster In The Information Ecosystem – George Siemens
Duration: 6′ 26”
Full English Text Transcription
George Siemens: The more complex the world becomes, the more obvious is that we need multiple viewpoints, multiple perspectives in order to even begin to resemble the complexity of what is happening in the world.
What happens, and this is what I see with courses that I am teaching, is that I have long stated that content it is worthless.
Content is so freely available today. One of the examples I have given recently was Encarta, Microsoft’s encyclopedia. I think it was 1985 or so and Microsoft was doing some focus groups, asking people: “What would you pay for Encarta?” The initial reviews were: “A $1000, $2000“.
By the time Microsoft has got to market, they were charging around $400 and it kept dropping. Encarta closed down two months ago or so. When they closed down they were charging $19.95 for their encyclopedia.
20 years ago Microsoft thought that taking your physical encyclopedia, putting it on a CD-ROM with images, videos and audio would have been so valuable that people would have paid $2000 for it.
I do not think you could sell one Encarta CD today, and then the question for me is: “Why?“. Why cannot you sell it anymore? The reason you cannot sell it is because the economic value point does not reside in content.
There is so much free content available online, there are:
- Wikipedia,
- people who are publishing and posting their information online,
- universities that are sharing information,
- foundations
- corporations that are sharing examples or content
The question becomes: if content is not the value point, what is the value point? To a degree, newspapers were both valuable for content, original coverage and for what they selected and did not select.
The newspaper had to make choices on the part of its readers to say: “This news is important and we are going to tell you about this“, but that strength was its own weakness.
The fact that newspapers could select what was important for readers, served an homogeneous society, and it served a very specific world view. World views today have fragmented where we have a huge spectrum. Look at politics these days, just a device of this within politics demonstrates the growing diversity within society as a whole.
One newspaper cannot cover that fragmented world view, so we need all of these various points of interest, these various viewpoints shared, this content been created from different perspectives. But a newspaper, by nature of its design, cannot bring all of these pieces together.
The world is far too complex to be captured today in a daily newspaper. The newspaper says: “We have a sport section, this section, that section, etc.“.
Let’s say I am interested in soccer and I am in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I am not going to get detailed soccer information in my morning newspaper, but I might get good hockey information.
If I am a hockey enthusiast living in Rome, I am not going to get good hockey information in the local newspaper.
What is happened is that there is a challenge:
- the diversification of interests,
- the complexification of society
have put us into a position where we need to have all of these viewpoints available so that individuals can select what they wish to be following.
When people can select what they want to follow, is where the middle layer comes in and the newsmaster notion comes in.
Even with the ability that we have to seek and solicit the information that is relevant to us, the abundance of that information is so significant that a person who does this as a spare sort of side activity, cannot keep up.
Let’s say I work as an accountant in a major organization, and in my spare time I like to do a little bit of what you, Robin, would call professional online publishing. The newsmaster model helps me take control of my fate in this area.
Let’s say I am passionate about soccer or I am passionate about cooking. I can create and I want to follow various developments of the cooking field, but there is no way I can quit my job as an accountant to become a complete expert as somebody who is following cooking or wine making.
What do I need to become a complete cooking expert? I need the middle person who becomes an expert in the cooking area of society that likely makes their living off of it, because:
- they are passionate about it,
- they have a growing readership,
- they have a growing publication base online with videos and audio,
that while I continue being an accountant I can become a wine maker. I can become an informed wine maker by following these expert-amateur that are sharing their information and staying on top of the field.
Now where it would get interesting, and this I do not think will happen for most people, is:
- If I become so informed that I decide to share my information on sites, I start earning money through whether advertising or sharing of information on my site. Then it is possible that I also could become a full-time newsmaster.
- Maybe I do not want to become a full-time newsmaster. Maybe I want to be an accountant, but I still want to follow what is going on in the field.
If I do not want to become a full-time newsmaster, I need that middle man who is able to be an expert in that field. I can then step in and plug in to the expert’s information, expertise or guidance while I continue what I am doing. Now, I have a very focused information source.
Over time, I will learn to trust the expert because I will know them personally on Facebook, on Twitter, through their
blogs, through their videos, through their podcasts, something that would never have had happened if I would have picked up whoever’s handbook, or wines around the world. The personal connection would not be there.
With specialized expertise within different fields, sort of a newsmaster model, you become the person that tracks huge trends and can filter down important elements and share those with others. I absolutely think that is a business model or a value point that society needs.
Scanning And Filtering News And Info – Nancy White
Duration: 1′ 20”
Nancy White: There are certain people in my network who I have discovered, or they have discovered me, who are so good at sending out pointers or noticing something or someone and pointing it out to the rest of the network. These are people I pay more attention to in these various media.
If you look back in network theory, this idea of the filter and the scanner has been around for a long time. The technologies have augmented the importance of filters and scanners, because before it was a slower process.
Now the person who is good at filtering or scanning can totally change both the community and the network.
People ask me: “When you are hiring somebody, what are some of the things you look for?” I reply: “In every team you have got to have a filter and a scanner, because some people are not good at that, and other people are“. There is a talent and then there is a skill associated with it.
I really value people who are good filters and scanners, and scanners are different than filters:
- scanners may take in more than you want.
- the filters start finding the gold.
A bad filter would be blocking things, they will start exercising some sort of influence or editorial control that blocks innovation.
Anything has its plus or minus side or its positive or negative side. I do not want to glorify these things as perfection does not exist; they are humans.
Future Of News: The Importance Of News Curation And Distribution – Gerd Leonhard
Duration: 1′ 47”
Gerd Leonhard: What we are looking at with newspapers and print publishers, is lots of times they had a sort of monopoly on information coming from feeds like the ones from Reuters and many others that they had aggregated themselves.
Now, newspapers and publishers are upset because what is happening is the entire world gets the feed. The users themselves are becoming producers. They are producing for each other like on Facebook, Twitter, and so on.
The fact that producers and users are producing for each other is also damaging this sort of exclusive access model, very much like the music industry had the same model.
I think any system based on monopoly right now by market default is in trouble, because people go around it and find other ways.
What producers need to do is to incorporate everyone, and also aggregate people’s voices and opinions like The New York Times is starting to do, or like Digg and many others. These are all aggregators, and include this aggregation of people’s voices and opinions with the professional things that they do, without having to be too sort of insular about what they do and how they do it.
I think curation is key in aggregating people’s voices, because most people have to go through 500 feeds of some sort of news event, and that would take them hours to go through the feeds and pick the right ones.
A professional reporter can search the right feeds in five minutes, because they have the skills to select photos and those kinds of things; which is very valuable, but not if you put those feeds under a wrapper.
It is not going to be easy for newspapers and print publishers, because having had a monopoly on the viewers and the information has put them into various sort of privileged position.
Now the monopoly is of the viewers: they go somewhere else and the news feeds go somewhere else as well.
Newspapers and publishers have to create a new platform where they add value in different ways.
Video clips originally recorded by Robin Good for MasterNewMedia, and first published on August 13th, 2009 as “Future Of News: The Newsmaster Role As Seen By Gerd Leonhard, George Siemens And Nancy White“.
About the interviewees
Gerd Leonhard is a media futurist as well as an author and writer, a media and Internet entrepreneur, a strategic advisor, and a keynote speaker & presenter. If you want to get a good feel for what he does, you can check out Gerd’s blog MediaFuturist or visit his Youtube channel.
To learn more about George Siemens and to access extensive information and resources on elearning check out www.elearnspace.org. Explore also George Siemens connectivism site for resources on the changing nature of learning and check out his new book “Knowing Knowledge“.
Nancy White is an online facilitation and community-building expert. Nancy is the owner of Full Circle Associates, a company that develops collaboration and facilitation strategies, communications, planning and Internet collaboration solutions for non-profits, organizations and businesses.
Online Content Distribution: Guide To The Best Content Syndication Services
Posted by: | CommentsOnline content distribution services allow you to syndicate your content to other web publishers while improving your prestige, visibility and in some cases, even your end-of-month revenue. In fact, such content redistribution partners can be major publishing giants like USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and others. In this guide I have brought together and reviewed the most interesting online content distribution services presently available.
Photo credit: Roman Antoshchuk
Despite the abundance of sources available on the web, and the apparent ease of preparing new content, professional, high-quality content is still extremely difficult to acquire, and even more challenging to create.
Online distribution services try to sort this problem out by acting as intermediaries between web publishers like you and online distribution partners. The content you produce on your site is syndicated to relevant distribution partners who are free to to re-contextualize your original content in the way they see most fitting. For example, USA Today may republish a video you have shot to add more value to a news article, or The New York Times may add one of your blog posts to provide further details about a specific live event it is reporting.
The two main benefits of syndicating your content are:
1) The fact that in most cases where a distribution partner republishes your content, you are also getting a link back to your web site. As you well know, this not only may likely bring you quite a few extra visitors, but it can also boost your ranking inside the SERPs (search engine result pages).
2) The opportunity to generate extra revenues when your content is being syndicated. This means that each time an ad-enabled content widget containing your article, is published on a web site, you earn part of the advertising revenue. Or if you use a service like Mochila, which works as a content marketplace, anytime a publisher purchases your content you earn a percentage of the selling price.
3) The extra visibility and prestige that your presence on quality content partners can generate.
One thing you should be careful about, is signing exclusivity agreements. When you do so you are obliged to stick with just one distribution partner, and you cannot publish your content on other sites or through other syndication networks.
To learn more about content distribution and syndication I have prepared a comparison table where I confront the key traits of the main online content distribution services out there. Here below, the specific criteria I have personally selected to review these services:
- Exclusivity: Distribution restricted to only one partner.
- Content distribution partners: USA Today, The New York Times, Reuters, etc.
- Compensation: Potential revenue payback.
- Analytics: Content distribution data.
- Pro features: Options included in paid accounts.
Here all the details:
Online Content Distribution Services Comparative Table
Online Content Distribution: Guide To The Best Content Syndication Services
- Gigya
Gigya is a widget platform that lets you distribute, track and monetize your content using web widgets. Wildfire, the proprietary technology used by Gigya, allows you to freely customize your content widgets and is designed to distribute re-shareable widgets on major social media networks, blogging platforms and even desktop platforms easily. Before embedding your widget, you can check out demographics info and the content of the website you are interested in to maximize the performance of your content inventory. Each widget can also be tracked after embed on your personal dashboard, using real-time metrics. To monetize your widgets, join the widget advertising network. Gigya pays you to promote widgets from top-tier brand advertisers. Widgets support both static and rich media ad formats. You pay only for the installs you budgeted for at the beginning of your campaign and Gigya retains a part of the revenues you make from running advertising campaigns. Every interaction, impression and viral grab is free. Each widget also lets you interact with major social networks: you make your friends sign-in and share their content using their existing accounts on Google, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and others. Users can then connect with each other right from the widget, without leaving your site. No list of content distribution partners available. Gigya does not retain exclusivity rights to distribute your content.
http://www.gigya.com/ - Mochila
Mochila is an online media marketplace aimed to both content buyers and sellers. You first submit your acceptance request to the company and, when accepted, you can start looking for content to publish on your site using a widget or submit content to Mochila that others will purchase and share. If you store your content, you can select licensing rules, ad displaying and customization options (ads you deploy or ads served by Mochila), and other settings. You then earn revenues form the syndication transaction when your content is published. Web publishers instead, can acquire any syndicated content for free with advertising support or buy any content a la carte while being able to place their own ads to earn more revenues. Content can be published either along other existing information available on your site or using a micro-site format, which is a website entirely build upon a series of content widgets. The analytics reporting facility allows you to track the performances of the content you have bought or sold and deploy advertising campaigns tailored to your needs. Mochila content distribution partners include: USA Today, Reuters, MSNBC, BusinessWeek, and others. Mochila does not lock you into exclusivity distribution rights for your content.
http://www.mochila.com/ - Clearspring
Clearspring is a widget syndication platform that helps you redistribute and monetize your online content. After a free registration, you can access the management console, where you can configure every aspect of your widget: styling, embed options, metadata, keywords, backlinks and more. You can also set the analytics feature to focus your target audience and monitor the performances of your redistributed content once published. Clearspring allows you to run ads inside your widget (both textual or interactive) and even use the whole widget as an interactive ad to fully engage viewers. Widget are generally redistributed by grabbing a piece of HTML, but using the Clearspring Launchpad service your viewers and you can avoid using embed codes most of the time. Widgets are embeddable on major social media sites just using a point-to-click system which automatically integrates the widget inside your social pages (more information on the website). To further monetize your widgets, you can either join the affiliate partners program and partner with social websites, widget providers and layout sites that are earning money promoting widgets or simply running ads along with the content of your widgets. Clearspring does not retain exclusivity rights to distribute your content. No list of content distribution partners available.
http://www.clearspring.com/ - BlogBurst
BlogBurst is a syndication service that allows you to spread your blog content to multiple destinations, automatically. Destinations include A-listers media networks and publishers like Fox News, Reuters, McGraw-Hill, and more. You then gain more visibility and exposure for your content while also attracting new potential readers and backlinks for your niche of interest. Top bloggers also get rewarded for the content they provide. By calculating headline impressions inside a quarter, BlogBurst lists all bloggers in a chart where each blog earns a fixed compensation depending on the position reached inside the chart. To use the service, you need to comply with BlogBurst guidelines which require to publish full RSS feeds, not have ads in your feeds, produce family-friendly content, avoid typos, post at least on a weekly basis, and more (detailed guidelines available on the site). From your dashboard, you can track in real-time your headline impressions, click-troughs and other metrics of your content. BlogBurst is free to use but the service does not clearly state the agreement behind the revenue sharing program and the money the company makes using your content. Your content is not meant for exclusive use by BlogBurst.
http://www.blogburst.com/ - Daylife
Daylife is an online content aggregation and distribution platform. What Daylife does is pulling content from thousands of popular sources online (and your own archives), analyzing that content and then syndicating relevant information to your web site in multiple formats (text, referrals, images, video, Twitter feeds, etc.). With the content you get from Daylife, you can even create whole new pages, sections, and entire sites made up of fresh, relevant content to add vast depth on any topic, while always retaining complete editorial control. Content distribution partners include: USA Today, Sky News, Newsweek, The Washington post, and many others. Different solutions are available for both large and small publishers like customizable APIs, in-line interactive windows, embeddable widgets or point-and-click windows you can customize and add to your web site. The service also allows you to integrate ads inside the content you serve, to generate revenues while creating more click-trough opportunities and links back to your site. No analytics features. Daylife aggregates all the content it serves complying to the Google guidelines, so the company does not retain any rights on what you display on your site. Prices available upon request.
http://www.daylife.com/ - Sphere
Sphere is a content syndication platform that allows you to spread your content on high-traffic websites and augment your website visibility. Whether if you are a big or a small publisher, you can distribute relevant matching content automatically to several content distribution partners like Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, etc. Big publishers can integrate contextual articles, referrals and videos inside third-party websites or take advantage of an interactive, redistributable widget. Small publishers can only use the embeddable widget to share their content. You can also use the automated widget inside your own blog posts to provide relevant content to your readers with no work from your side. The widget is free to use and optimized for major blogging platforms like WordPress, MovableType, Blogger, TypePad, and others. Sphere also provides you with a bookmarklet to install on your browser that lets you quickly share any relevant content you want to display inside the widget placed on your website. Sphere partners with ad agencies to deploy ads to your site and pay for the costs of the service. If you are an advertiser, you can also set your own ad campaigns and start deploying advertising in various formats inside widgets. Advanced paid features are available to customize the look and feel and crawling of web widgets. Sphere publishes your content under a non-exclusive agreement.
http://www.sphere.com/ - Newstex
Newstex is an online content syndication platform that aggregates real-time content on the web and serves it on your site according to your focus. The company adds value to the content gathered by adding metadata, stock ticker-symbols, keywords and other categorization fields that make your content easy to find. Three distribution services are available: Blogs On Demand, News On Demand and Video On Demand. Each service automatically gathers contextual blog posts, news and videos to display on your site and engage your readers. You can also submit your own content to syndicate to other web sites. When the content you submit to Newstex is approved, the company allows major content distributors like Amazon, LexisNexis, Reuters, etc. to republish and distribute your content to their end-user customers. Also, each time an end-user customer views your blog content you earn a 30% royalty of the gross revenues based on your royalty pool participation for each product your posts are included in. No content served by Newstex is editorially reviewed before posting. Newstex does not retain rights on content aggregated and published on third-party destination sites. No analytics features available either. Contact a Newstex representative for pricing information.
http://newstex.com/
Originally prepared by Robin Good and Daniele Bazzano for MasterNewMedia, and first published on August 3rd, 2009 as “Online Content Distribution: Guide To The Best Content Syndication Services“.
Professional White-Label Video Publishing Platforms: Guide To The Best Services
Posted by: | CommentsWhite-label video publishing and distribution platforms allow professional web publishers to move beyond zero-cost video sharing sites like YouTube and onto services which guarantee faster transcoding, HD video quality, the option to schedule both VOD and scheduled programming, CDN-based distribution, ad management and integration as well as private labeling and personalization of your video player.
Photo credit: Liubomyr Feshchyn and Christophe Testi mashed up by Robin Good
If you are looking for solutions that would allow you to set up a professional web TV channel of some kind, one for which you have a budget to spend and hope to sell advertising and sponsorship for, you have no choice but look for a professional white-label video publishing and distribution service.
The traditional free video sharing sites like YouTube, are great for uploading and distributing at zero cost your favorite video clips. Much less exciting is the moment when you want to start controlling the ads that are displayed on your video clips, or you want to set up a day-by-day video programming schedule while monitoring and analyzing traffic, views and clickthroughs.
This is why to move from amateur video sharing to professional video publishing you really need to consider seriously whether you have a budget to support the costs that such pro video distribution services require. The video services I review here have all some kind of monthly or yearly fee that is clearly not within the reach of the typical blogger or independent video-maker.
On the other hand what’s the use of publishing tens of video clips and having hundreds of thousands of video views on YouTube if this provides very little return in terms of visibility and revenue for your business or web site?
The times are ripe for serious and economically capable video publishers to step up significantly above the generic, amateur Internet video publisher, and to strengthen their online video presence by providing extra quality, reliability, speed and monetization options which are so critical to their own future survival.
In this MasterNewMedia guide I have selected, reviewed and compared for you the best private-label video publishing and distribution platforms available out there, while paying particular attention to their key traits, strengths and weaknesses.
This is an area that will see fast growth and many new entrants in the near future due to the increasing demand for quality video channels and the need for many video sharing sites to start earning back their rapidly escalating bandwidth and storage costs.
If you are into video publishing or are considering the move from amateur to professional video publishing, this guide can help you get a comprehensive view of this new market and of the traits and features that characterize the first group of providers competing to get your attention.
Here all the details:
Professional White-label Video Publishing Platforms Comparison Table
Professional White-label Video Publishing Platforms
- Brightcove
Brightcove is an on-demand video platform to distribute and monetize your online video inventory. The web-based Brightcove Studio lets you create branded videos with your logo and monetize your clips trough advertising campaigns. Brightcove players are fully customizable to match the layout of your web pages and also maintain optimal quality whatever device or internet connection video you choose. Videos can be re-distributed and embedded across any website, even using widgets. Videos streamed are encoded with H.264 and VP6 codecs and range from low-quality till HD. You can also program video broadcasting using playlist creation facilities. You keep total control over the ads you show with your videos by choosing ad units, insertion points, frequency, relevance. You can also integrate your ad servers and ad networks to serve ads with your videos. Custom reports are generated by Brightcove to help you track the performance of your clips. To get a price quote (on an annual contract basis) you have to contact Brightcove sales.
http://www.brightcove.com/ - Livestream
Livestream is an online video platform that broadcasts live and on-demand videos. The premium account is priced at $350 and allows you to have a white-label channel to deliver videos with your own brand logo or watermark. Using a web-based interface, you can fully customize the size and look of your video player and also configure the redistribution of your videos; allow only specific audiences to view your clips or even disable sharing if you prefer. A list of ready-made templates for your channel is available and the integrated user chat allows broadcasters and their audience to communicate in real-time. Videos are encoded with Sorensen Spark (Flash 7) specifications and HD is supported. You can create a video playlist with the Autopilot feature to broadcast your videos 24/7 automatically. For optimal video encoding Livestream recommends around 700Kbps of upstream bandwidth. Livestream also provides an analytics tool that tracks and reports the performance of your videos. Advertising is supported and your ads are integrated inside channels using overlays that can be either served by you or by integrating ad servers and ad networks into your video production workflow.
http://livestream.com/ - Watershed
Watershed is the white-label version of Ustream interactive broadcasting platform. Watershed allows you to publish and distribute ad-free, branded videos to your audience both on web pages or mobile phones. Live streaming broadcasting is also supported. The video player is fully customizable and your videos can be password-protected or limited in number of views from your web-based Administrator control panel. HD videos are supported. You can also interact live with your audience via text chat, real-time polls or co-hosted broadcast feeds. Watershed does not support self-served or third-party-served ads on your videos. Reports are generated to take care of the performance of your clips. No video programming. Two pricing options are available: monthly-based plans starting from $49 and a pay-as-you-go pricing model that charges for monthly or hourly views by a single user. No encoding info provided.
http://watershed.ustream.tv/ - Glomera
Glomera is a web TV platform that helps you broadcast live and on-demand videos with your own logo. You can pull video from YouTube to broadcast inside your channel or create niche-targeted compilations to redistribute on third-party websites. Video channels are fully customizable to match the look of any web page. The scheduling feature lets you organize your web TV programs in a daily, weekly, or season-long programming. HD videos are supported and videos are encoded using FLV specifications. Web TV channels you build with Glomera Premium account are ads-free and you cannot serve third-party ads. The reporting feature allows you track the performance of your clips. Glomera Premium account is priced at $199/year. You can also purchase additional interactivity options for your channels like: rating, comments, on-demand video list, guide-programming, and more.
http://www.glomera.com/ - Ooyala
Ooyala has developed Backlot, a scalable video platform with content syndication controls and monetization features. Video quality is preserved to match your syndication relationships (web pages, video-sharing sites, mobile devices, or other). Backlot video player supports overlays with our logo / watermarks and is fully customizable. You can arrange your clips in playlists and program the broadcast with no operation needed from your side. Videos are encoded in H.264 format and HD video is supported. A video metrics report is generated to help you monitor the performances of your videos. Backlot manages also ad insertion points, frequency and the different ad units like pre-roll, post-roll, mid-roll and interactive which are served with your clips. Third party ad servers and ad networks are also supported. Prices depend on the campaign; more info contacting Ooyala sales department.
http://www.ooyala.com/ - Vmix
Vmix provides web-based video and image publishing solutions to distribute and monetize your content. You can brand your clips, serve ads with your videos and also track the performance of your channels. Videos are encoded in H.264 / FLV and distributed at optimal resolution to websites, mobile phones and portable devices using customizable players, widgets and applications. Vmix has support for HD videos too. A list of ready-made templates is available. Your audience can also interact with your videos using ratings, sharing, or video / text commenting tools. Scheduled playlists are automatically created to operate your video channel without human input. You can customize ad-serving procedures on your videos using different ad units (pre-roll, post-roll, overlays and also animated ad units), insertion points and frequency. You can bring your own ad server / ad network to serve ads inside your video clips. Pricing is subjected to distribution campaign you choose; more info on Vmix corporate website.
http://vmix.com - PermissionTV
PermissionTV offers a web-based solution to manage and monetize your online video inventory. You can choose between different player solutions that are freely customizable and redistributable on any web page. Viewers can interact with your video content by clicking on graphics, surveys or advertisement overlays and pop-ups. You can also create video playlists and deploy niche-targeted channels to your audience. Ad networks integrate with your videos to serve contextual ads using pre-roll, post-roll and mid-roll ad units. No info is provided about the encoding codec used for your videos, but HD is supported. No programming feature available. Pricing details available upon request to PermissionTV sales department.
http://www.permissiontv.com/ - Twistage
Hosted video platform Twistage allows you to create customizable video players with your own logo to embed on any website. Twistage integrates with your existing content management system (e.g. a blogging platform) or content delivery network. Videos are delivered to match the internet connection requirements of viewers; the video platform promises “uninterrupted delivery regardless of your site’s traffic demands“. No information is given on the encoding codec used and HD is not supported. Video player is fully customizable to match the look of any web page. You can create a video playlist to broadcast your videos in sequence. Ads on your videos are served using different ad units: pre-roll, post-roll, mid-roll, overlay and in-page banner advertising. You can also bring your ad server or ad network to provide your ads. Analytics reporting allows you to track the earnings and spread of your videos on the web, but also which portions of your videos are the most viewed. No programming features. A free trial is available. Contact Twistage sales department for pricing options.
http://www.twistage.com/ - Castfire
Castfire allows white-label video publishing so you can distribute and monetize your own videos using your logo / watermark. You can take control of the video production workflow and customize your player, ad serving procedures, viral redistribution, and much more through a web-based interface. A single video upload automatically generates multiple video formats to match your distribution needs and maintain good quality either on mobile phones, iPods, media box sets, HD-compatible TVs and more. Videos are encoded complying with H.264 specifications. Castfire has partnered with the automated video distribution service TubeMogul and allows you to distribute your clips on multiple video-sharing sites and also track precisely the performance of your video. You can also schedule and broadcast your videos without any user input. Ads can be served by third-party ad networks or ad servers using pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll units. Prices depend on the distribution campaign you choose; contact a Castfire representative for more details.
http://www.castfire.com/ - Delve
Delve provides a online video solution to manage, publish, measure, and monetize your video content. With a web-based management tool you can create an embeddable player that matches the look of your website and is freely redistributable over any web page. The player also auto-adjust the video quality for best results with every internet connection. Codec used to encode videos is H.264 and HD is supported. You can offer your users the ability to search inside your videos for topics of interests; a heatmap shows the portion of video that corresponds to a specific topic. Delve also provides analytics features to track the performance of your clips, but you can also use Google Analytics to monitor your video content. No video programming though you can broadcast video playlists. Advertising capabilities include the integration with ad servers and ad networks. Ad units options you can choose to serve your videos are pre-roll, post-roll and “random“. You can also set the frequency your ads are served and specify the ad insertion points. A 30-days trial is available yo test the service. For pricing options, you have to contact the sales department at Delve.
http://www.delvenetworks.com/ - VideoBloom
The Premium plan of VideoBloom ($299) allows you to deliver and monetize online videos with your brand logo using a dedicated player. The player is fully customizable and you can also redistribute and embed your videos on any website or social media page. Videos are encoded using MPEG4 specifications, also in HD format. VideoBloom claims that your videos are deployed to match the different internet connection speeds of your viewers while maintaining optimal video quality. Video playlists are available to broadcast niche-targeted compilations. No video programming. You can use different ad units to monetize your videos: pre-roll-post-roll, overlays, skin ads (for your video player) and companion ads. The analytics tool measures the popularity of your video on the web as well as your earnings through a web-based dashboard.
http://www.videobloom.com/ - MonetizeMedia
A live streaming and on-demand video publishing platform, Monetize Media allows you to distribute and monetize your video assets. Through a web-based interface you can arrange your video, organize playlists and insert advertising inside your clips. You cannot schedule playlist broadcasting for the time being, but you can pull videos from most popular video sharing sites to add to your custom channels. HD videos are supported. You have a list of ready-made video players at your disposal that you can also customize and scale to match perfectly any web page or mobile device. All video players offer chat, ratings, comments, social network sharing, social media tags, and RSS functionalities. Video players also detect the connection of your viewers to auto-adjust video resolution. You can set your videos for public or private access. Monetize Media supports online ad units such as banner, in-stream, overlay and pre-roll ads. Ad network integration is allowed to serve third-party ads. You can deploy your video on a pay-per-view basis and receive payments using your PayPal account. Performance reports are available to track the popularity and monetization goals of your videos. No encoding info is provided. Gold plan is priced at $1199/month plus a one-time setup charge of $500. A free trial is available to test the service.
http://www.monetizemedia.com/ - BitGravity
BitGravity is a content delivery network that provides delivery of on-demand video and live streaming broadcasts. The service takes care of distributing your videos but is not aimed to monetize your video assets with advertising campaigns. Codec used for videos is H.264 and HD is supported. There is no custom video player provided, but customers are free to modify the API of the Flash player to match their production needs. No video programming or analytics features. For further info you have to contact a BitGravity representative.
http://www.bitgravity.com/ - GizmoUTube.TV
GizmoUTube.TV is a white-label video platform that allows you to broadcast either on-demand and live streaming shows. GizmoUTube.TV provides a customizable video player which supports HD, interactive video search and redistribution on third-party websites. Videos are encoded in Flash H.264 and VP6 formats. Ad integration is not supported for the time being. For $1999/year you get a .TV domain name and 1GB of storage space per month. Expenses for bandwidth traffic are managed by Bits On The Run and payed separately. No programming available. More info on corporate website.
http://www.gizmovideo.com/gizmoutube.tv/ - The FeedRoom
The FeedRoom is an online video platform that helps you create and distribute niche-targeted video channels out of your online video inventory. Different customizable video players are available to help you find the correct matching with the look of your website. Players are also scalable, redistributable and allow user interaction with rating and commenting features. HD videos are supported. Reporting functions tell you who is tuning in, what and how much they are watching, and an understanding of which sources are driving traffic to your site. With The FeedRoom you can also monetize your video assets by offering online subscription, pay-per-view programming or by integrating advertising features. The platform has support for all popular ad formats, including in-stream pre-rolls, post-rolls and banners, as well as contextual targeting ads. You can also rely on ad networks partnered with The FeedRoom to serve third-party ads on your videos. No programming feature and no encoding info is available. You need to contact the company for available pricing solutions.
http://www.feedroom.com/ - BestTV
BestTV provides fully customizable Internet TV channels to distribute and monetize your video content. You can either broadcast white-label live streaming shows and on-demand videos on PCs, set-top boxes or mobile phones. You have also the option to create targeted playlists but not schedule a playlist to be broadcast without user input. HD videos are supported. You can monetize your video assets using both subscriptions and advertising options. Regarding advertising, you can employ pre-roll, post-roll and banner ads while setting ads frequency and capping to achieve optimal results. Ad networks can be integrated to serve third-party ads with your video content. Detailed reports are available to track your advertising campaigns and video performances. No encoding info is provided. To get a quote for BestTV solutions contact a company representative.
http://www.best-tv.com/ - Kaltura
Kaltura is an open source online video platform that allows you to manage, distribute and monetize your online video inventory using open standards. You can also import third-party video content from other websites or video-sharing sites, add your videos and create custom playlists to engage your audience. You can schedule your playlist for broadcasting without input and also take advantage of advanced features like: remix and annotate your videos, add text slides, translations, and much more. When you have your content ready, your video is encoded using FLV codec (HD supported) and then published using a customizable widget player that matches the look of your website. Powered by Gyga, your widget player is freely redistributable on any website or social media sites. You can even offer viewers to download your video player for offline viewing or broadcast private shows. Kaltura has partnered with ad networks to help you show ads with your video content that comply with IAB standards. Detailed statistics and analytics of your online video offering are also generated for your video campaigns. Contact Kaltura sales department for price quites.
http://corp.kaltura.com/ - KIT digital
KIT digital provides solutions manage, publish and monetize your online video assets. Videos can be offered on-demand on websites or mobile devices and you can put your own logo to represent your company. Video players offered by KIT digital can be fully customized, redistributed and shared on any web page. No info on HD support or video encoding. To capitalize on your video inventory you can serve ads with your content, even integrating your ad networks. Ad units accepted are: pre-roll, post roll, companion banners and flash overlay ads. Alternative revenue channels supported are: subscriptions, DTO (download to own), VOD (video on demand), and PPV (pay per view), pay per click and pay-as-you-view (per second / per frame). Detailed reports are generated to track your earnings and the performances of your videos. No video programming. Contact KIT digital for pricing info.
http://www.kitd.com/ - SOFTing K.iTV
K.iTV from SOFTing is designed to assist content providers with all key functions associated with managing online video: content uploading, cataloging, tracking and maintenance, advertising, analysis, billing and paying. You can either offer on-demand or live content. Once uploading your content you can take advantage of fully customizable video players that also allow you to create scheduled playlists to broadcast without any input from the user. A list of ready-made templates is available if you do not have specific customization needs. Advertising is supported with most common ad units: pre-roll, post-roll, in-stream, image & flash banners. Third-party ad network integration is not supported. Other monetization strategies include billing and subscriptions. Contact SOFTing support for pricing details.
http://eng.eu-softing.com/Originally prepared by Robin Good and Daniele Bazzano for MasterNewMedia, and first published on July 6th, 2009 as “Professional White-label Video Publishing Platforms: Guide To The Best Services“.