The Economics of Online Video

Below is a white paper on the economics of online video:

Summit on Climate & Faith Change Brings Global Leaders Together

Earlier this month, Faith leaders from around the world took part in a Summit without leaving their borders through use of client Zorap’s digital-rich collaborative technology.

One month after the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Summit leaders logged in from London, Washington, Nairobi, Jerusalem, Geneva and the Pacific Island of Palau, using Zorap, to discuss important issues around climate and faith.

Bishops and other faith leaders around the world encouraged people around the world to use Zorap to interact, discuss and collaborate on the topic of climate and faith change, rather than having to get on a plane to fly to London for the event. Zorap enabled countless more important leaders to join in a global discuss in real-time that couldn’t have happened otherwise.

Faith Climate Connect housed the various pieces of technology that were used during the event, including Zorap. Using tools like Zorap to engage on important topic matters such as the climate and faith, encourages leaders and the public to embrace technology to assist in decreasing their environmental impact, such as using virtual video conferences and media-rich chat instead of flying to events to meet with each other.

A facilitated video conference using Zorap was used for an interactive conversation between six significant leaders of the three different Abrahamic faiths located in different countries around the world.

The goal was to learn about, discuss and share their ideas about faith and information contained in the scriptures regarding caring for the environment. The Zorap conversation was projected onto a large screen for the audience in London and was live broadcasted through the Faith Climate Connect website for people to watch around the world.

There was also a question and answer session involving the audience posing questions to the faith leaders around the world. Each of these different elements highlighted how technology, particularly Zorap, can bridge geographical divides, bringing people together to learn from each other and decreasing their carbon footprint.

The Summit is the brainchild of the Bible Society, whose hope is to raise public awareness about the Biblical references and support for caring for the environment.

Zorap on Graveline America

Client Barry Spencer, CEO of Zorap talking to Dave Graveline at CES earlier this month.

Unveiled at CES, Zorap Clubs Increase Traffic & Fan Engagement on the Web

Incorporating all forms of digital-rich media to extend customer and fan engagement on the web, brands can now more effectively engage, communicate and collaborate with photos, videos, music, files, chat and more, using Zorap Clubs, unveiled by client Zorap today at CES.

Zorap Clubs are a group of custom chat rooms that are dynamically created and accessed by users through third-party websites.

Custom clubs are personalized with a brand’s look-and-feel and cancan be used to not only increase traffic and amplify fan and customer engagement on the web, but can offer audiences a streamlined, one-stop environment to interact with and around a brand’s message, services and their content offerings.

Whether it’s a new product announcement, an event, or a concert, Zorap allows you to put audio and video promotional content on stage in front of your audience in an exciting new way, so viewers can participate and engage with you in real-time from anywhere in the world.

Zorap Clubs enable social interaction and full audience participation around targeted content, while also allowing providing users with the opportunity to drag & drop their own personal media files into rooms, which ensures a more personal experience for them.

Individuals can also use Zorap by going to www.zorap.com. They can create and customize their own rooms, inviting friends and family to share rich multimedia content in real-time. An example of what a room looks like with shared content below:

They also support social media. Integration with Facebook Connect ensures timely and unique engagement experiences for Fans and Fan pages. Fans can invite friends from their social networks, make new friends, and remain active members of your community after their experience.

For bloggers and press in Vegas for CES, the Zorap team will be demoing Zorap Clubs and more at the Zorap booth at the ShowStoppers Media Event, on January 7, 2010 in the Lafite Ballroom at the Wynn Las Vegas, from 6 pm to 10 pm PST.

Loic LeMeur Interviews YouTube's Chad Hurley #leweb #tg09

Loic LeMeur interviews YouTube's Chad Hurley on LeWeb stage in Paris this morning.

Zorap Creates Traveling Geeks Virtual Geek Pad for France Blogging Tour

Zorap, which creates digital-rich media collaboration and group video communication experience experiences on the web, has created a Virtual Geek Pad for the Traveling Geeks team in France this week for LeWeb.

It is the only technology that lets you view and listen to music, video and photos with groups of up to 50 people anywhere in the world, using real-time audio and video communications.

While other real-time web communications tools like Twitter and Facebook provide value for active web users interested in quick soundbites, Zorap is the only service available that allows engagement using all forms of media in real-time, not just text, links and photos.

Check out the Virtual Geek Pad they designed for the Traveling Geeks.

Zorap allows individuals and groups of individuals to travel to movie sites and watch trailers together, listen to new music with their friends, sports events with their buddies, see wedding photos where everyone is viewing and sharing in real-time, shop for travel destinations with classmates or family, participate in a lively auction where you can see other bidders in real-time and more.

Traveling Geeks LIVE Video - Thanks for the Laugh Mashcast (#tg09)

Mashcast, a very cool company that does video mashups and much much more created a very creative and humorous video of Traveling Geeks heading to Paris. (Oh yeah and potentially inheriting the earth).

Below is a teaser and here is the video. Be prepared to laugh. A lot.

Mashcast's Scott Page Paints us a Digital Rich Picture

At the 140 Character Conference, Mashcast's CEO Scott Page (also former sax player for Pink Floyd), talks to us about mashing digital rich content, such as video under one platform to create incredibly creative personalization - mainly of brands.

Listen to what they're doing and where they're headed. Take a look at the customization they did for me, as an example of some of the things they can do - copy, paste and replay baby. It's very slick.

Mashcast: Customizable, Humorous, Slick.....

I had a chance to spend some time with the MashCast team at the 140 Conference this past week in LA. They refer to their video mashup as collaborative expression, a new category of communicating that allows for advanced levels of creative and collaborative interaction using video.

They can essentially drop photos into existing video templates or create new ones, updating statements or images daily depending on the situation.

Within a MashCast network, individual artists and businesses can own and manage exclusive online communities, giving them the power to connect their network to all social media outlets (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc) for one-button-push, net-wide distribution of select content; grant varying levels of rights, roles and permissions to members; distribute content securely to their subscribers real-time or “on demand”; customize and segment content for targeted communications to different kinds of users. The result? The ability to “own the audience” while opening up new revenue streams for their brand.

A proprietary rich internet application allows subscribers and network operators to pass creative content—video, audio, animation—back and forth to each other over the MashCast network in real time.

Take a look at two personalized videos they did inserting my photo into a video - and this is just one small piece of what they're capable of. You can also click play below.

Zorap: Share it All with Friends From Your Own Customized Room

I spent some time hanging out with the guys from Zorap last week since their demo pod was immediately across from ours.

The Maine-based CEO was incredibly clever - he brought his three boys into his demo in real-time so the audience could see them navigate features on the screen. And if you can't find something to say about that smart marketing call, what's not to like about Maine?

But let's get to their product. Cool, simple, easy-to-use, Zorap allows people to gather on web pages in real-time. You can see and hear up to 50 of your friends at the same time and you can also share media like music, photos, videos, or things from the web such as YouTube videos.

You can get your own room, customize it by setting up your own color scheme, uploading a custom backdrop and specifying a custom size. Here, you can share your webcam, talk to your friends using either Push-To-Talk or Auto-Talk audio modes and send text messages.

You can also share things by dragging and dropping directly into your Zorap room or click a sharing button in the sharing pull-out. This includes photos, videos, slideshows, files and music.