List of Free Upload and Video Content Service Companies

You'll find some video or video related web sites I'm watching in this space below. These sites offer various online video services. Some offer free video uploads, video micropayments, video subscription services, video content distribution network hosting, video portal creation software and more.

• veoh.com. Veoh is funded and "boarded" by media players and net influentials. They are soliciting videos from the web community and will serve them on their website for free.
• ourmedia.org
  Ourmedia is a free public archive for everyone to upload and share their personal content, it can be text, audio, music or video. Their mission is to help others store and share work around the world at no cost.
• ifilm.com
  IFILM is a video-entertainment web portal, offering channels of movies, short films, TV clips, video-game trailers, music videos, action sports and its celebrated Viral Videos collection. IFILM.com delivers more than 30 million streams per month, making it one of the top ten streaming media sites in the world. Through its distribution partners, including Real Networks, WindowsMedia, MovieWeb, Rotten Tomatoes, Starpulse and AskMen, the IFILM Network reaches more than 20 million buzz-building visitors per month. The Network offers unique brand-building programs for blue-chip advertising partners, including Activision, Capitol Records, Warner Brothers Entertainment, Toyota, Apple Computer, Heineken and Chrysler.IFILM is a privately held company based in Hollywood, California, with investors that include Axiom Ventures, Inc., Eastman Kodak Company, Liberty Digital, Rainbow Media, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Vulcan Ventures, Inc.
• Yahoo Video Search, Yahoo Personalized Home Page, Podcasting Beta Page and online content producers.
• https://upload.video.google.com/ Google Video, Expect contextual video and text ad insertion.
• Prodigem - If you want to sell your movie or your own high quality album download, Prodigem helps you to do that. They take a 10 percent commission and applicable credit card fees.
• YouTube.com - upload, share and "tag" your videos!
• olivelink.com - streaming video do it yourself through a pointer to your video files.
• http://www.omn.org/ - Open Media Network, I've tested this and the software worked well. I didn't find enough video content that I liked a month or so ago. That has probably changed. You upload your videos to the Open Media Network. They offer a video reader and options to send your video to portable devices.
• Podcasting Advertising Networks, kiptronic, podvertising (background in DSP), podtrac and others.
• Streaming Ad insertion - lightningcast.com and others.
• http://www.participatoryculture.org/ has a system called the Broadcast Machine. It helps with uploads, integrates RSS, provides ways for you to list Metadata. The system is based on BitTorrent P2P. This program can only be used on the Mac at this time
• Akamai, limelight, and the audio/video content distribution networks offer specialized audio and video based hosting from different locations around the world.
• Video Content Portals Software and Systems. Some of these systems include subscription or individual download pricing. You decide on the subscriptions or flat costs per download and the software does all the work. theplatform.com, accordent.com, media-publisher.com are three examples.
• P2P streaming sites. RedSwoosh.com and others serve streaming content owners
• ComVu is William Mutual's new company that allows you to upload video and stream to phones with just a few clicks. The results are immediate.
• MobiTV. The largest content aggregator and host for mobile video content.
• nontonBlog a server side mobile video blogging tool for Linux/Unix (public domain)
• http://freevlog.org/ - step by step guide to setting up a video blog.
• BitPass and PayPal are provide transaction services to the audio/video community. They have just started offering affordable credit card micropayment transactions.
• feedburner.com - a podcast/video blog tool that tracks video blogging use and information. Tonight's favorite video blog on feedburner was offered by a "dominant" female.
• vlogmap.org has a small but growing list of video bloggers posted by their physical location on a map. Some video bloggers may not want to advertise their "physical" location. This video log map showcases video bloggers country by country, and city by city.
• http://vlogdir.com/ This is a vlog or video blogging directory. They are featuring a video blog from Rock N Roll TV. It's episode 7 - and here's a description of the content and the file sizes.

Rock n Roll TV - Episode #7: Click to play. 25Mb, Windows version 37M, iPod version 22Mb

Description:
It's part of the rocker experience to get ink'd.......so we went in search of a great tattoo shop here in LA and found one with Vintage Tattoo. From the owner, Baba to legends Rick Walters and Tennessee Dave James who have both been tattooing a verrrry long time, Vintage Tattoo was a perfect place for my Friday Night Tattoo. And before you ask....no, it didn't hurt too much.

I'm looking for other sites disrupting the current media ecosystem. In particular, some video blogging content that is a little different than the rest. (The video blog site I usually recommend if you've never been to one is www.rocketboom.com.)

As always - let me know if I'm off base or my data needs an update or a correction.

Thanks! See you on the Net.
Peg

Internet TV Companies Raise Funds. Innovators - Brightcove,

Internet TV Startup BrightCove raised 16.2 for their Internet TV network last week. It's their second round of funding. Barry Diller is on their Board. They closed a deal with AOL.

Brightcove

The BrightCove blogs said this, 'In practical sense, the agreement with AOL reveals one of the ways we plan to give publishers very powerful means to build their Internet TV businesses by leveraging the distribution that AOL.com can provide to reach consumers and ultimately to make publishers money. We very much believe that Internet syndication, whether it's to a major web destination like AOL.com or a network of smaller affiliates is going to be one of the defining characteristics of Internet TV. "

Syndication as defined in the RSS world is still my bet as the early syndication leader. The challenge I see now for Video RSS is that the current state of podcasting and videoblogging client software (reader or viewer) still leaves a little to be desired. I suspect that will be solved soon by Yahoo.com or one of the many podcast/soon to be video blogging client software programs.

Portable Media and Podcasters Converge in Los Angeles

I didn't know what to expect of a podcast expo or portable media expo. I assumed I'd be meeting people who are excited about creating their own audio podcasts, and some technology providers.

The event at the Ontario Convention Center (near Los Angeles) is the brainchild of Tim Bourquin. You'll find the agenda at portablemediaexpo.com or podcastexpo.com

What I didn't expect was this.

Heavyweights around every corner.

They weren't necessarily wearing badges...but you'd recognize the faces.

The older Internet companies were circulating, friends we know in the media business, and content providers of podcasts like Disney, Whirlpool and others. Yahoo brought a team. Interestingly, I haven't seen anyone from Apple. NPR had a presence on a keynote, and are finding podcasting a very valuable and popular service for their listeners. I saw some familiar faces from the radio world. I met a few investors. There were visitors from the Netherlands, China, Korea and other parts. As expected, consumer electronics companies were in the mix.

On the user or individual creator side....

There seems to be a new breed of excited, passionate individuals creating their own podcasts. Some of them making significant money - unbelievable as it seems through adsense, amazon and other links off their podcasts or blogs or websites. Others - it's a labor of love. They are into advertising models, sponsorships, per inquiry methods, direct sales, contributions and who knows what. An old radio friend - David Lawrence (net music countdown, online tonight, the davidlawrenceshow.com) has launched a real estate podcast network or portal at www.newhomepodcast.com A few companies including PayPal were pushing their micropayment solutions. The commissions were reasonable.

It was a mini-focus group for those of us who are involved in this area but have not had time to talk to this new generation of podcasters. The podcasters are quite similar to the group of individuals that do their own webcasts in their passion and interests. I've met the most diverse group of people from professionals and hobbyists who are driving the new distribution model of RSS, and aggregation services. I'd expected to see a few more rebels of a sort, but only saw one goth looked purple haired woman with a crown, and a few others that you wouldn't see at broadcast conventions. Someone mentioned there was a drag queen about, but I didn't see him.

I was very surprised that the conference sessions were sold out and the attendees were technology companies, a content providers and podcasters, investors, and a little of this and a little of that.

One my session yesterday - Orb Networks (get your media from anywhere using the Net or phone or any other portable device ), limelight (CDN), RedSwoosh (remember Scour.net - Same folks!) p2p Streaming, and Veoh - a contributed video site with plans to package or integrate advertising in the future. Veoh said they accepted all types of video - including, as the founder mentioned, a rather robust of adult media content. They do filter for children and other visitors. Veoh seems to have a model in some ways like current - Al Gore's user contributed web enterprise. The panel had an interesting dynamic, I don't think anyone said streaming or downloading was better or worse. Befitting the show - on-demand was the topic and focus for the most part. What I found very interesting in looking into their backgrounds is who is funding these companies, and who's on their board of directors. I'll post later some of the names.

Today - my session is on metrics for podcasting (and of course this applies to video blogging).
On this panel - Arbitron, Podtrac.com, BridgeRatings and m-metrics.
(Note: There are still about 5 names for the video portion of podcasting, so you may call it by another name today.) It's very interesting to see the evolution of metrics, and how this is happening faster than webcasting metrics. It's not just because these are primarily downloads - it's because the technology has had time to mature. The manufacturers and the application companies are partnering to be able to communicate to devices, whether on the chip level or in a proprietary system like iTunes or Audible.

PS - In talking with P2P "professional" service providers serving content, I believe you'd be amazed at the number of huge media content sites that are using their services.

PPS - You won't see podcasters using the name ipod in their business name. Apple has sent out cease and desist letters to many, if not all of them. Some have till December to rename their businesses, and can refer to their old business names until the middle of 2006. The negotiations with Apple are different for the individual companies who had iPod in their name.

Best,
Peggy

Disruptive Broadcasting... An Invitation

I wanted to drop you this first note to give you a heads-up on what’s been brewing between a few of us. The concept has taken a life of its own. We’re in the midst of building a community of the best and the brightest in digital media.

Our community includes executives and experts from around the world who are exploring, challenging, investigating, and creating opportunities in the new digital media world.

Challenged Broadcast Empires

As you know so well, broadcast firms, publishers and the motion picture industry were living in a tightly controlled competitive space. They built their empires, became dominant and others couldn’t find a place. The expense needed to secure the technology infrastructure and content was out of reach. Political hurdles were way too high.

Media Industry Digital Boom Today?

Today, I can’t keep track of the number of industries jumping into the new “broadcast” space. Some will find the space 'sexy", talk a big game, spend millions of dollars and be gone. A few others are here to stay and are creating chaos for many of us. A growing number of established businesses are effectively learning how to manage change. Others will be sold, merged, or forgotten. In the meantime, what do we do to compete or work in this new media environment?

Common Interests

Our colleagues in our new community have a common desire to discuss the challenges they're finding in this disruptive digital media space and to explore and investigate new developments and businesses.

They realized that talking to the same people over and over again in their own unique sectors was only the starting point.

This executive community includes those challenging the status quo, shaking up the "old school" and the creative ones figuring out how to make this work today in their established businesses.

The one central connecting point between all of us is that we're all involved in the new business of broadcasting, multimedia, audio and video distribution, content and media.

Who’s Involved?

This new community includes those working in the new “interactive broadcast” space. Broadcast. This includes executives from all of these industries: consumer electronics , broadcasting, publishing, cable, telecom, motion pictures, powerline, Internet, satellite, media syndication (traditional and RSS/MRSS, podcasts/videoblogs), P2P, Video Search, IPG/EPG, DRM, retailers, advertisers, educators, corporations and entrepreneurs, content producers, and creatives and others sitting at the same table. Isn’t that too expansive? Unfortunately – we can’t compete without knowing what is really happening in all these spaces. In fact - this community won't work unless we have the diversity.

We’re selecting experts to include on our advisory panel from the entire media ecosystem. Maybe you’re the next new disrupter, innovator or creator that will receive a nomination to the advisory board. Today’s media changes are not built on a time-line or controlled, and the best new advisor to our community might be a teen-ager, reformed “hacker”, a politician or a Doctor. Who knows? Nominations for advisory positions come from the other advisors who have accepted the challenge to look for innovation and enterprise. Media isn’t just News and Entertainment any more, it’s corporate communications, medical broadcast networks, and the individual. We have a bigger media universe to explain than 10 years ago.

We’re filling out the advisory positions making sure we have people from around the world, in different areas of our interest.

How do we handle the disruption in digital media today?

“What” or “Who” do we need to know as we transition into the “media anywhere” universe?

How do we manage the media chaos? Is there a process?

What will I be doing in my job 5 years from now? How do I manage my “new” career responsibilities?

This new community gives all of us a head start in figuring out what companies have a chance of succeeding and who’s dead in the water. It’s about figuring out the fact from the fiction in all the media and technological hype. It’s impossible to figure that out by yourself. There are way too many moving parts to figure out who’s working with whom, and what’s behind the curtain.

We are about the old and the new coming together (people and ideas) to challenge our ideas and explore ways to help us plod through this transitional media stage.

We’re connecting virtually, with conference calls, roundtable discussions, and at events.

What’s our Acceptance Rate for our Advisors?

So far we’re batting 100% on nomination acceptance and participation. We knew we had to have the highly influential businesses on board as well as the innovators. We started with the experts working on large efforts. The advisors are all experts in their own right, and many you will know instantly work at large companies. We have executives on board as advisors who work for Microsoft, Apple, the BBC, AOL, a partner in the global law firm, Pillsbury, Winthrop, Shaw Pittman, WorldSpace (global satellite radio), and others from around the world. This is only the start.

How’d this start?

Jeff Pulver and I have been talking about this for years. He’s been a great supporter to the webcasting/broadcasting community. He owns a slew of successful companies under pulver.com and appropriate to this forum, owns pulvermedia.com. He's called the Father of VoiP often because he created an Internet community among the individuals and companies who started VOIP. At about the same time, 1996 - I started a webcasting community a year after I started working with broadcasters, the Net and streaming. Both communities grew. And nearly a decade later, both communities remain active.

Jeff has agreed to support this new community idea. He’s allowing us to gather together an incredible community of thinkers and doers in digital media who are working through this disruptive state in media. We’re figuring out the virtual communications of the community, and feel it’s important to get together for coffee, dinners, roundtables, and forums here and around the world. Thank you Jeff

The New version of TV? Disruption in Broadcasting and the Media. What do you call it?

Even with a number of smart people around a room, no one has figured out what to call this new media audio and video interactive distribution and personalization thing? ? Do you have a guess?

What's the new age of broadcasting called that includes personal broadcasting? It is certainly a disruption for traditional broadcasters, but it also allows all communication companies to be broadcasters. All devices in your personal space will be IP connected, they will broadcast or webcast or stream or download to you as long as it has a screen.

Some folks call it ITV (interactive) or ETV (enhanced) or IPTV (internet protocol), or webcasting, streaming. Some consumers call these enhancements what you do with your DVR or TiVo. Then there's mobile media, mobile TV or portable media. One carrier was calling it TV, another carrier was calling it streaming. There is also TelcoTV, Powerline TV (or name du jour), wi-fi or wi-max TV. You can't leave Sirius, Worldspace and XM Radio as they start to send video.

In the horseless carriages days... would they have guessed the name would be cars, autos? Wireless seems a little odd too, doesn't it? Some of us still say we're on the "line" when we're on the telephone and that references goes back to the telegraph.

My pitch and thoughts on screens have become old news for some people, and still a few think Science Fiction.

About 10 years. I had a Microsoft PR agent say to me one day - oh - you're the one that gives talks about screens. Today - we use a few more terms than just screens.

Here's the drill that I've been known to "sermonize."... A screen is a screen is a screen. If you want to view something on any screen, you'll be able to do it. A screen big or small, on the wall or projected on your windshield. Anywhere there is a screen - consumers will be able to get the content of their choice. Some call this TV today. And any device or wearables may have screens.

I realize that projections out of your phone or other devices are not technically screens, but it has in the past been the easiest way to explain it to people. My term screen or monitor may have to change. With Phillips new screens in the bathroom integrated into your mirror, there's not a surface that can't be converted to a screen sooner or later. It's a mirror or it could be a wall, it's the side of a building, it's a rolled up newspaper (or magazine) updated all the time or it could be disposable. It's a wearable piece of art or advertising marquee. (I have met the two owners of the company that's working on this last bit. You can display art, rotating or moving graphics, embedded lights in material. (You can control what people are seeing on your shirt by remote control on the Net. New Age People Sign-boards. It may not even be something where we see the screen end or begin...and sci-fi inspires a number of us, as we look to holographic displays and wet-wires.

Will podcasting, video blogging, vblogs last as the name for consumer driven or contributed audio/video? It's already moved out of just consumer audio and video months ago as commercials broadcasters, corporations, stores, retailers started to do their own podcasts or video blogging. How soon will it be until blogs are pay per view or paid subscription? You don't have to wait, it's already up and running by a number of podcasters to pay to view extra content.

Remember Push? Front page of news magazines in the dot com heyday. They were touting Push as the big thing. (Remember Pointcast, Backweb, Miranda?) We see bits and pieces of all the earlier software in today's new syndication services RSS, mRSS and others that drive the subscription and distribution components of aggregation software.

We still have push, but we don't call it that. It's likely that McAfee is pushing you virus updates, Macromedia an upgrade and Microsoft a security update every day or week.

Perhaps you're pulling your podcast feeds, or blogs or they're being pushed at you in a manner of alerting for you to download later? Is it push or pull, or a little of both? It may matter technically, but not to consumers as long as they get what they want when they want it.

We still need many of the readers updated so that it's easier to subscribe. All multimedia types will be standard in the future, so why not add them today and make it easy for people to upload or change their audio or video on any device.

We have to transition to easier software if we want the general public to get podcasting and video blogging and aggregation software.

This "name to be determined" in the digital media area of what "interactive" audio and video is...inludes a little push, pull, subscribe, random, personalization, progressive download, downloads, streaming, and interactivity.

Your system will decide that your content can be receive on a P2P network for a bit, then hop to a satellite when you're out of range, then back to cheaper bandwidth when you're near a hot-spot, wi-fi or a mobile network or broadcast frequency.

New devices are picking up all sorts of data "signals". We see data bursts and streams hopping from network to network, from person to person. Motorola - iRadio takes it one step. Then there are developments transferring wi-fi, wi-max to DTV, to wireless, or wired, satellite, voip and others in all sorts of configurations.

How will your data be delivered?

Your intelligent engine or your smart "agent" or client software will find the cheaper content based on your location or when you want the content or where you can get it. Do you care if it's bouncing off your neighbor's wi-fi, as long as it's okay with your neighbor and your data is secure?

We've paid for bandwidth before so this is old news.

It's akin to that surcharge for "roaming fees". Some networks are more expensive if you want to communicate or receive information.

Will you be able to pick and choose the networks at will, based on content or cost?

Yes...it will be seamless and you won't know a thing as the data flies by if you're paying premium rates. If not - you may be forced to see other advertising information which may alert you to the network. The intelligence on the network or your client figures out the fastest way to get things to you based on what you need, a data trickle, delayed information or a live stream . It might be a little P2P at max times, then DTV data signals, wi-fi/wi-max this and that.

Content will come in different configurations, with exclusives here, there, and "hold" dates and fees for different release times. This is nothing new. We see it sliced, diced, rehashed, bundled and split into different things for people with different interests.

Isn't this fun?

Video on Microsoft's New User Interface (UI) Code Name: Ribbon

What's a new Office user interface got to do with digital media? It would be a natural extension of uniformity if they brought it over to all their products. Will Windows Media be next? Maybe, maybe not. But either way - if you're developing in the next 6 months before Microsoft upgrades in 2006, you may wish to get an idea about what Code Name: Ribbon is all about, and perhaps use some of these techniques in your layout and UI design.

Bottom Line - the new UI is easy to use and that's great news. It's taken awhile for them to do this and that's a shame, but finally! It may not be as simple or uniform as the Mac, but it looks like a very good revamp. This will impact so many people, as they have to spend a week or so learning the new user interfaces. I think it'll be worth the effort.

Here's the explanation and a few glimpses of the New User Interface for the next Office version. If I remember correctly about 7 minutes into it, you'll see the Word interface if that's of interest. PowerPoint visuals are shown at around 17 minutes. In my opinion, it is much better than the existing user interface in all regards. I couldn't tell if Outlook was revitalized. I know a new version of OneNote is in the works, and not soon enough for those of us who are addicted to it. It's a great program for dropping graphics, text, audio, video into a folder and later finding them.

The New Interface is such that all drop down menus/levels as you know them today. are deleted.

This is an interview with MS employee Julie Larsen in the Office area for Microsoft. The code name for the new navigation bar at the top is called the Ribbon. They are estimating it'll take 2 weeks for the average person to get used to the new UI.

It's worth considering as you develop new interfaces that may embed or play audio and video. You may find some ideas that will help you develop skins, web pages, special effects, with an easy to use interface that people will come familiar with very soon. If you're manipulating audio and video, you could use some of the techniques of the UI to manage transcriptions, perhaps search, or add your own multi camera viewpoints.

http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=114720