Friday, December 12, 2008
Vuclip Consistently Gets It Right
When people ask me how to offer a broad appeal mobile service, I suggest that they check out Vuclip.
Sure, millions of people use it, so I am not alerting them to some newfangled magic bean app or something. But Vuclips really GET IT -- understand what's necessary to create an enduring leadership brand/business in the mobile space.
If you live even farther under a rock than I do, let me let Vuclip tell you a little bit about themselves:
Vuclip is the most widely-used mobile video search site in the world. We are the only true mobile video search and delivery solution that allows you to access any video on the Internet and watch it on any video-enabled phone. Go ahead and search for an Internet video that you'd like to watch on your mobile phone. Vuclip will find that video, transcode and optimize it "on the fly", and then deliver it to your mobile phone in real-time. Pretty cool, and there's no need to download any application to get it to work. Our service is free, although standard carrier data charges apply.
Vuclip users can also take advantage of numerous personalized services, like creating "Cliplists", receiving alerts about new videos and sharing their favorite videos with friends. With Vuclip's unique and proprietary real-time streaming and personalization technology, you are sure to have a rich and hassle-free mobile video experience:
- Millions of videos delivered to mobile phones every month
- Users in more than 130 countries
- Over 2,000 mobile devices supported
Vuclip also enables online publishers and content owners to mobilize their video content through its Vuclip Video API Program. Vuclip delivers high-quality mobile video streaming with a rich multimedia experience across all wireless networks and handsets. Through a simple API level integration, publishers can quickly and easily bring their video content to consumers on the go. The Vuclip Video API Program provides a variety of different integration options, from something simple like a "Send to Phone" feature widget, to a fully functional white labeled video search and delivery platform, powered by Vuclip.
I'm not going to get into the features and all that because you probably already use Vuclip, as I do.
But let's pause for a moment to think about all the things they do right:
- Massive catalog of virtually every video online
- Delivery system that makes vids viewable on a phone regardless of where they are sitting or what platform they are displayed on
- Massive 2000 handset range
- Global globalness
- Happy viewers
- Opportunity to monetize through ads, pre-roll, whatever
For those in mobile trying to figure out how to crack the nut of having a strong BUSINESS in the space, look no further than Milpitas-CA-based Viclip for a model.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Sure, millions of people use it, so I am not alerting them to some newfangled magic bean app or something. But Vuclips really GET IT -- understand what's necessary to create an enduring leadership brand/business in the mobile space.
If you live even farther under a rock than I do, let me let Vuclip tell you a little bit about themselves:
Vuclip is the most widely-used mobile video search site in the world. We are the only true mobile video search and delivery solution that allows you to access any video on the Internet and watch it on any video-enabled phone. Go ahead and search for an Internet video that you'd like to watch on your mobile phone. Vuclip will find that video, transcode and optimize it "on the fly", and then deliver it to your mobile phone in real-time. Pretty cool, and there's no need to download any application to get it to work. Our service is free, although standard carrier data charges apply.
Vuclip users can also take advantage of numerous personalized services, like creating "Cliplists", receiving alerts about new videos and sharing their favorite videos with friends. With Vuclip's unique and proprietary real-time streaming and personalization technology, you are sure to have a rich and hassle-free mobile video experience:
- Millions of videos delivered to mobile phones every month
- Users in more than 130 countries
- Over 2,000 mobile devices supported
Vuclip also enables online publishers and content owners to mobilize their video content through its Vuclip Video API Program. Vuclip delivers high-quality mobile video streaming with a rich multimedia experience across all wireless networks and handsets. Through a simple API level integration, publishers can quickly and easily bring their video content to consumers on the go. The Vuclip Video API Program provides a variety of different integration options, from something simple like a "Send to Phone" feature widget, to a fully functional white labeled video search and delivery platform, powered by Vuclip.
I'm not going to get into the features and all that because you probably already use Vuclip, as I do.
But let's pause for a moment to think about all the things they do right:
- Massive catalog of virtually every video online
- Delivery system that makes vids viewable on a phone regardless of where they are sitting or what platform they are displayed on
- Massive 2000 handset range
- Global globalness
- Happy viewers
- Opportunity to monetize through ads, pre-roll, whatever
For those in mobile trying to figure out how to crack the nut of having a strong BUSINESS in the space, look no further than Milpitas-CA-based Viclip for a model.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Skout.com: Location Based Friending
The most shocking thing that I found about Skout.com, a location based mobile friending tool that lets you meet people that share your interests in your area, is that people are actually making friends on it. When I first read the concept, I expected a service packed with hookers and sexual compulsives, looking for horizontal friends.
Oh, I am not saying there are no dirty birdies on the site, but I was struck by how many people were making friends -- actually vertical friends -- on the service.
That's nice to see. Lord knows there are enough places for hookups online, so I was glad to see that this concept is really more mainstream than what I feared.
You'll find a couple of videos on how it works here (they are not embeddable, those silly geese) but basically you use one of the methods to identify your location via your phone. from there you can explore the other members online, contact and find your friends, or simply identify where you are and what you are doing. In all cases, it is possible to have really friendly interactions by text or even in person if you are comfy with that.
The service allows you to control who knows your location -- no one, your friends, or the universe.
Another interesting aspect is that you can log in using your identity from a preexisting social network profile. So no need for ANOTHER log in and all that. Additionally, you can put a widget for Skout on your FaceBook profile and get things going two ways in that manner.
Here's how they define the topline value of the service:
SKOUT is the social tool that connects you to others who are looking for friendship right now! Notify your new friends by posting mobile pictures, video, or chat. Do it on the go!
Find tens of thousands of people looking to meet up and connect with you. Many only blocks away.
Engage others in conversations at your computer or on-demand with your mobile. Get started chatting seconds after joining.
Notify your new friends by sending them pictures and videos captured by your mobile phone while on the go. Share your moments!
It's a nice innovation - definitely one worth your poking around in. Not sure how they are going to make money, but the potential for advertising and other streams by dint of the location based nature of the service are strong.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Oh, I am not saying there are no dirty birdies on the site, but I was struck by how many people were making friends -- actually vertical friends -- on the service.
That's nice to see. Lord knows there are enough places for hookups online, so I was glad to see that this concept is really more mainstream than what I feared.
You'll find a couple of videos on how it works here (they are not embeddable, those silly geese) but basically you use one of the methods to identify your location via your phone. from there you can explore the other members online, contact and find your friends, or simply identify where you are and what you are doing. In all cases, it is possible to have really friendly interactions by text or even in person if you are comfy with that.
The service allows you to control who knows your location -- no one, your friends, or the universe.
Another interesting aspect is that you can log in using your identity from a preexisting social network profile. So no need for ANOTHER log in and all that. Additionally, you can put a widget for Skout on your FaceBook profile and get things going two ways in that manner.
Here's how they define the topline value of the service:
SKOUT is the social tool that connects you to others who are looking for friendship right now! Notify your new friends by posting mobile pictures, video, or chat. Do it on the go!
Find tens of thousands of people looking to meet up and connect with you. Many only blocks away.
Engage others in conversations at your computer or on-demand with your mobile. Get started chatting seconds after joining.
Notify your new friends by sending them pictures and videos captured by your mobile phone while on the go. Share your moments!
It's a nice innovation - definitely one worth your poking around in. Not sure how they are going to make money, but the potential for advertising and other streams by dint of the location based nature of the service are strong.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
Sugar’s Shop Sense Debuts
You may have seen that earlier this month Sugar debuted what is essentially an affiliate marketing program that lets individual bloggers generate revenue by referring readers to commerce sites. The ERROR_1">ShopSense program works on any major blogger platform, but is especially suited to their OnSugar blogger offering. R>
By featuring links, content, widgets, and text on their pages, individual ">bloggers can generate revenue when their readers buy.
The ShopSense site section offers more details, but Sugar is essentially incenting users to do more than just slap a widget on a page. Users are given access to visual assets so they can make posts about specific assets, talk about sales prices, and otherwise feature items.
I like the idea of a program like this – somehow this seems less like PPP than some other offerings given that this is fashion and bloggers are likely to have a strong interest in featuring fashion and beauty content anyway. By participating in the program, they simply make it easier for their readers to get this look. And the Sugar store has such a broad range of items that bloggers will be able to find content especially suited to their pages.
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to write.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
SearchMe and Visual Hunting
I cover a lot of next gen search stuff here, and virtually every time I do I get emails saying that there is a similar solution founded 12 minutes before the provider I highlight with similar attributes.
So let’s start by saying that search offerings are OF COURSE similar, but that the successful ones are going to add a simple and intuitive layer on top of basic search functionality – one that has telegraphic uiser appeal.
SearchMe certainly meets those criteria. It is based upon the simple premise that seeing a thumbnail of the pages in the results will help users more quickly and easily find the content they want. Here’s a screen:
It’s that freakin’ simple. Here’s how they describe themselves:
Searchme lets you see what you’re searching for. As you start typing, categories appear that relate to your query. Choose a category, and you’ll see pictures of web pages that answer your search. You can review these pages quickly to find just the information you’re looking for, before you click through.
Hey, I like shiny bells and whistles as much as the next person, but sometimes simple is best. Regular people have no interest in spending an hour learning how to use a new search tool. With SearchMe, the learning curve is a straight line.
As you can see, rolling over a result makes a small version of the page appear in the top of the results page, in a sort of iPod like interface. It is enormously helpful. Want to snag a picture? Then go to a page where the thumbnail shows pictures. Etc.
With all the search start ups out there, the battle for supremacy is going to be mighty tough – and indeed supremacy may not be an appropriate goal for the future goven that other areas of the web have totally fragmented. Who’s to say search won’t go that way at all. But however the market evolves, SearchMe has one big advantage going for it: useful simplicity.
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to write.
So let’s start by saying that search offerings are OF COURSE similar, but that the successful ones are going to add a simple and intuitive layer on top of basic search functionality – one that has telegraphic uiser appeal.
SearchMe certainly meets those criteria. It is based upon the simple premise that seeing a thumbnail of the pages in the results will help users more quickly and easily find the content they want. Here’s a screen:
It’s that freakin’ simple. Here’s how they describe themselves:
Searchme lets you see what you’re searching for. As you start typing, categories appear that relate to your query. Choose a category, and you’ll see pictures of web pages that answer your search. You can review these pages quickly to find just the information you’re looking for, before you click through.
Hey, I like shiny bells and whistles as much as the next person, but sometimes simple is best. Regular people have no interest in spending an hour learning how to use a new search tool. With SearchMe, the learning curve is a straight line.
As you can see, rolling over a result makes a small version of the page appear in the top of the results page, in a sort of iPod like interface. It is enormously helpful. Want to snag a picture? Then go to a page where the thumbnail shows pictures. Etc.
With all the search start ups out there, the battle for supremacy is going to be mighty tough – and indeed supremacy may not be an appropriate goal for the future goven that other areas of the web have totally fragmented. Who’s to say search won’t go that way at all. But however the market evolves, SearchMe has one big advantage going for it: useful simplicity.
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to write.
Rummble: Find Good Folks And Good Places Nearby!
Location based mobile services are going to be an enormous boon to the growth of mobile in the US and abroad. And a UK service called Rummble is being widely lauded as a great platform in this space.
In a nutshell, Rummble uses GPS and a bunch of social media functionality to make it easy to find people and places that you would like:
Here's how they describe what they do:
Rummble is a location based social search and discovery tool, enabling users find recommended content for a location more easily, without a traditional keyword search. Instead, Rummble’s algorithm provides personalised results based upon a trust profile it builds for you and the content in your social network.
We’ve chosen to build our first service around location based content:
- Discover content for any location (e.g. cool bars, local knowledge and the secret hangouts)
- Give friends automatic warning when you will be in their area
- Share location based content - reviews, photos, videos and blogs
- Explore with Rummble on your mobile or on the web
- Meet new people nearby
- Publish your Rummbles and your location to Facebook and other social software
- It works anywhere - you can use it at home or on the move via your mobile.
Rummble works globally and has been in closed Beta since September 2007. In April 2008 the Rummble service went into limited open Beta.
Your Rummble reviews and status updates don't just stay on phones, or indeed within Rummble. In fact, the service is connected to many of the big social nets, including FaceBook, Bebo, Flickr, Twitter, Google Gears, and Fire Eagle. So you can send your info directly to profiles in less time than it takes to say "Buckingham Palace."
As I said at the beginning, many of the loudest and best opinions online have heralded Rummble as a marvelous example of what place based mobile services should be. A friend of mine in the UK is almost ready to jump in front of a bus for the sake of the service 0- that's how strong user love quickly becomes. Now that they are in limited public beta, I would expect that their presence in the US will get big rather rapidly.
The ad opps in place based are enormous -- both for national retailers, service providers, and even local businesses looking for ways to attract new and lapsed users to their doors. That makes the potential revenue and profitability for services like Rummble very promising, indeed.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
PixelPipe: Upload Content Once, Get It Practically Everywhere!
We all have distributed social presences online -- photo sites, video sites, social nets, blogs, vlogs, etc., and it can be rather cumbersome to upload content to relevant locations. What do you do when you want to add a new photo to Flickr, MySpace, Bebo, FaceBook, and Blogger?
Well, most of us visit the relevant sites and manually upload to each.
That is, until we get started with Pixelpipe.
Here's how CrunchBase describes what they do:
A service that allows users to publish media once through the Pixelpipe gateway and have it published out to over 45 online destinations. Choices of media include photos, video and audio files. Destinations include most of the popular social networks, micro-blogs, photo/video sites, blogs from around the globe as well as online storage as well as a few generic interfaces like Atom, FTP and email to allow the user to publish to their personal destinations.
It works on PCs, natch, but also iPhones, Android, and some other smart phones.
It can deliver content to a huge range of social media and other sites -- let me say that again, a HUGE range. And more are being added constantly.
Here's a video about the iPhone app. but the service works the same on other phones as well.
Pixelpipe is a great app whose time has definitely come. Download it today and get started!
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
iVisit: So Many Ways To Communic8
We've come a long way from the days I remember where calling across the country was definitely a special occasion thing. Now we call anyone anywhere pretty routinely, whether in a personal or a B2B context.
iVisit hopes to help all of us take the connectivity of the phone still further. With a broad array of valuable service for just $4.95 per month per user, they may just do it. Check out all the things you can do using your 3G phone and the iVisit service:
- Online video chat with up to 8 users
- Push-to-talk across carriers
- Text messaging
- Record and Share Audio, Photo, and Video Messages
- Track mobile users with GPS Location Based Services
- Desktop-to-mobile, mobile-to-mobile, and desktop-to-desktop connectivity
Here's how they toot their own horn:
iVisit combines audio-video conferencing, instant messaging, presentation and desktop sharing into one powerful unified communication solution. It works on desktop computers and mobile devices, enabling cross carrier and cross platform connectivity.
Our breakthrough peer-to-peer (P2P) networking technology dramatically reduces the cost of unified communications and online meetings. With FREE one-to-one conferencing and multiparty for $4.95 per month (per user), iVisit is affordable to deploy across your entire organization. Invited participants attend meetings free!
iVisit is not just a solution that replaces travel, training, and other occasional events. We are enabling organizations and individuals to make unified communications and collaboration as widespread and frequently used as email.
Our pioneering efforts have enabled audio/video conferencing and Location Based Services (LBS) between 3G mobile phones and desktop computers. Managers can remotely assist, track, and interact with their mobile workforce to see what they see in the field. You can also host or attend online meetings from anywhere using your mobile phone.
It is a 3G oriented service, but the penetration of 3G phones is rising so rapidly that this gives them loads of room to grow.
The company also offers a business services plan that includes all of the personal offering's features plus:
- Host and attend live meetings
- Manage a remote workforce
- Real-time collaboration with presentation, application, and desktop sharing
- Secure server solutions manageable without an IT department
I particularly like the idea of videoconferencing through phones -- a nice offering for a distributed team.
Now, not all of these features are new, by any stroke. But iVisit is far less expensive than many of the alternatives -- something that will prove a big selling point in a down economy.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.
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