Social Networking

SPOTLIGHT: Streaming video for BlackBerry

Pete Wylie — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:15:34 -0400

Next2Friends announced the launch of a live mobile streaming video app for BlackBerrys Thursday;Pearl and Curve users can now stream videos directly from their devices to their personal video libraries. Users of the service can share the videos through other social networks or email them to friends and family. The service is free, and users only have to pay for the data they use if their plan doesn't include unlimited data.

Next2Friends soft launched the service in late 2007 and officially released in June 2008. Next2Friends is a mobile social networking platform that offers picture sharing and community building in addition to the streaming video feature.

For more:
- see the press release here

Related Article
Fierce 15 Online Video Movers and Shakers: Qik

Fierce 15 Online Video Movers and Shakers: Next New Networks

Pete Wylie — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:18:10 -0400

Next New Networks
Founded: Jan. 2007
Location: New York City, New York
Investors: Goldman Sachs, Spark Capital, Velocity Interactive
www.nextnewnetworks.com

The editors couldn't quite figure out where to put this play. Next New Networks is part content-creation play, part social-networking mantra, and part portal-style aggregation. It is nurturing content development like Mevio, but is doing so in the form of targeted unique channel development, rather than the "If they show up, we will sign them and see what happens."

The lead claim to fame for Next New is BarelyPolitical.com, the birthplace for "Obama Girl" and other biting satirical political shorts. In total, Next New has 16 website "channels" and has collected $23 million in venture capital for further development of existing properties and to build new ones.

Back to Fierce 15

Fierce 15 Online Video Movers and Shakers: KickApps

Pete Wylie — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:30:57 -0400

KickApps
Founded: 2005
Investors include Softbank Capital, Spark Capital, Prism VentureWorks
Location: New York City, NY
www.kickapps.com

KickApps gives customers many white-label options to integrate video into their community building efforts. The KickApps service allows enterprises to develop audience and customer base by offering a suite of applications that is easy to use, as KickApps manages all of the technology and the customer need only provide the content. Customers can layer social elements on the online videos they produce, such as the ability to rate, comment, tag and syndicate video virally.

KickApps flexibility in deployment is one of its main virtues, as it serves customers with user-gen heavy sites, media sites that have large inventories of editorial video, and sports franchises that want to integrate video into their fan community's online experience. The company has worked with HBO, Scripps Networks, Bonnaroo Music Festival, and the NFL's San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks. It's poised to continue to develop online video applications, as it can offer high-quality services as a discount in bundled social-networking packages, instead of relying on video as its main revenue stream.

Next: Fliqz

Recent News
Web 2.0, SM West, Fierce 15, oh my!

Joost goes web-based

Pete Wylie — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:15:28 -0400

Joost, the much-hyped, rarely-visited online video site, announced a web-based platform today in an effort to boost its paltry site visits. Joost formerly required a large download that required a reboot before activation, but executives hope the more user-friendly and immediately accessible web client will draw market share away from the YouTube juggernaut.

Presently, Joost isn't even in the top 20 online video providers in terms of market share, according to the most recent Nielsen Online results.

The new site will be entirely Adobe Flash-based within a month, operating through a plug-in system in the short term. A Flash-based interface surfaced over a year ago, but we have no idea why it took so long to be certified.

The biggest addition to the new Joost is a social networking feed that tells users what other users are watching in general, as well as what friends on the site have recently viewed. The site has to see this offering take hold; it's eaten a lot of venture money, and odds are a second web traffic flop will spell more than joost a redesign.

For more:
- see the mediaweek.com analysis of the new Joost. Article.

Invision.tv enters online video aggregation fray

Pete Wylie — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:58:47 -0400

The already-crowded online video aggregation market got another entry Monday, as Invision.tv launched its beta version and Facebook app at the DEMOFall 08 conference in San Diego. The company, based in the Washington D.C. 'burbs, offers an intuitive browser that aggregates many video sites in a style similar to TV guide channels.

Users can browse the top videos on each site, rank their favorite sites for easy browsing, and search across all sites or individual ones.

Videos play in an embedded player, one of the beta's main weaknesses. The player is minute; it's crowded out by all the other content, and the display is so small that videos are hardly watchable while expanding the player to full screen mode is not intuitive.

The aggregation display is nice and the multiple feeds are easy to browse, which somewhat makes up for the display issue.

Invision.tv adds a people feature to try to incorporate a social networking factor into the online video experience. Content is also aggregated by interest, everything from music to education to celebrities, so communities could form organically via shared interests.

With some tweaks to the display, this beta might offer a challenge to other aggregator like Veoh and Truveo.

For more:
- explore the interface and make your own mind up, invision.tv

Cisco: Video to pump global IP traffic 6x by 2012

Doug Mohney — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:19:52 -0400

Cisco has created a report predicting global IP traffic will climb up to more than half a zettabyte (522 extabytes) by 2012, with growth being driven by video traffic and social networking in the consumer market. But, will it?

This reporter is having some déjà vu all over again back to those dot.com days where insane predictions of traffic doubling resulted in massive backbone and fiber deployments.

Cisco has generated a Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast over the next four years which dovetails quite nicely with the company's pronouncements at CES of visual networking - the combination of video, web 2.0 social networking and collaborative applications -- being the Next Big Thing.

According to Cisco's crystal ball, Internet video traffic alone will be 400 times the traffic carried by the U.S. Internet backbone in 2000. IP traffic is alleged to increase at a combined annual growth grate (CAGR) of 46 percent from 2007 to 2012, a doubling nearly every two years. Global business IP traffic is forecast to grow strongly at a CAGR of 35 percent from 2007, with increased broadband penetration in the small business segment and increased adoption of advanced video communication (such as Cisco's TelePresence product) as major drivers.

As much as this reporter would like to drink the kool-aid on this particular prediction, carrier grumbling to impose bandwidth limits and a general reluctance to buy capital equipment like it was 1999 is unlikely to provide the boon Cisco would like. Belt tightening due to a slowing U.S. economy and higher energy prices are also likely to place a crimp on this scenario.

For more:
- Cisco's not-fully-baked half zettabyte prophesy.

Related articles:
Zettabyte flood predicted for 2015
Comcast eyes bandwidth cap, overage charges
TWC tests metered Internet, Comcast tests traffic management solution

Comcast Has a Better Eye than CBS

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:45:26 -0400

By Carl Ford

While the world was complaining about the CBS purchase of CNET for $1.8 billion Comcast bought Plaxo for $150 million. This is probably the best purchase yet in social networking.

For those who have not been following the controversy between Rob Scoble and Facebook; Rob Scoble decided to part ways with Facebook for a variety of reasons and wanted to stay connected to his community. Given Rob's presence in the blogosphere when he gets upset, it can form a ground swell of support. So Plaxo enabled a functioning (but not ideal) tool for exporting out of Facebook into Plaxo's Pulse social network. Facebook cried foul and blocked the application. Rob ended up with more support and an offshoot has been the formation of the data portability forum.

The Data Portability Forum has become frenzied with activity and, thanks to folks like Phil Wolfe and others, I expect it to yield some good strategies. (Although I am not sure I would use all of them.) The forum is probably going to yield some agreements in formats and may be a good place to think about your own social network strategies.

From my perspective Plaxo stands to gain a lot from the controversy and the formation. I cannot describe Pulse well. It feels like everyone is posting to a common wall, but I am sure given the two million end users on Plaxo there is some discernment about "my" network. But the point is that Pulse has found a high ground in a world of social hysteria.

So what made Plaxo sell for $150 million now? After all, Facebook and MySpace are valued far higher. Could it be because of the Millenials? After all, I have been using Plaxo for at least four years. It has legitimately about 2,500 of my names (it claimed I had 10,000 but the dedupe killed off a 4-to-1 problem I had in Outlook). If I am part of the demographics so, probably, is the Lawrence Welk fan club.

We can take at face value Comcast (the buyers) investing in the growth opportunity, and the sellers probably have lots of ideas what they can do with the money. But in these days of widgets, is the money that important for development? What about for marketing? Where would you place the money?

And, as the buyer, what is the benefit to Comcast in buying into a still-to-be-separate social network.

Don't get me wrong, I can make a case. Comcast has embraced end-user video and one thing that Plaxo can be is a Personal Video Answering machine. It can also be used to build communities around Comcast content. Last year at this time, Comcast integrated Plaxo into their portal for Voice customers. Given the fact that no press release about the acquisition is on the Comcast side, maybe the cost of buying Plaxo was a wash given the payment for the services to their customers.

Meanwhile, imho its clear Comcast has a lively Pulse in Plaxo.

Carl Ford is Strategic Advisor and Community Developer for FierceMarkets. His words of wisdom can be found at www.carlford.net.