Rich Media News & Articles

Video content has revolutionized the web. It would take over 400 years to watch every single clip that currently exists on YouTube, as there are 13 hours of video content uploaded every minute. In addition, the customer demand for video is getting stronger with over 100 million of YouTube clips viewed per day.

Therefore, it’s no surprise that the business community has woken up to the power of video. With greater competition, more organizations have come under the increasing pressure to facilitate effective use of rich media content.

It may just be that in launching the Community Edition of its self-hosted online video platform Kaltura (news, site) has created a monster by giving everyone and anyone the ability to put their videos out onto the Wild Wild Web.

The announcement that the Community Edition is finally ready for download came at O’Reilly OSCON 2009 and now puts easily integrated, customizable, interactive rich-media functionality in the hands of anyone who wants it.

What’s more, Kaltura says that it is breaking the build-vs-buy and vendor lock-in conundrum by allowing users combine it with any other technology or services platform without being beholden to Kaltura.

Ah, numbers. The universal language. 500 million is an awful lot no matter where you go or what’s in question; hence, we think it’s safe to say that an awful lot of people use Microsoft Office—with totally appropriate italics for emphasis and everything.

The ol' suite is most certainly a seasoned player, which, so far, has proved its ability to keep up with the changing times. Lucky for Microsoft, especially considering how much the way in which we work has changed since the 2007. As Microsoft gears up for the Office 2010 release, we wonder, will it be another hit, or will half a billion people be disappointed? Let’s take a look at the breadcrumbs they’ve dropped so far.

Earlier this year in an interview, George Grippo, VP Media Asset Management at North Plains, indicated that many Digital Asset Management (DAM) vendors are struggling to cope with the special requirements of video asset management.

While he didn’t explicitly say in the interview that North Plains (news, site), a rich media and DAM solution vendor, was working on a solution to do just this, this week’s release of their latest version of Telescope Video Manager shows that they were.

Available as an on-site or SaaS solution, the Telescope Video Manager provides a relatively inexpensive solution that even novices can use in the creation, editing and distribution of short and long form video across multiple platforms like YouTube and other social networks.

It's been a busy few months for Autonomy Interwoven (news, site).Last week, it unveiled a new solution that provides analytics for social media.

This week, it's turn for MediaBin -- their Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution -- to get a once-over, which comes in the form of meaning-based Virage MediaBin 7, a solution that automatically retrieves, analyzes and processes audio, video and graphic content.

Amidst our declining economy, online advertising is taking it on the nose. Fairing better than print advertisers,  these advertisers are still struggling to capture attention and follow through. Hoping to remedy the situation, VideoEgg, a new kind of rich media ad network, has announced AttentionRank, an innovative ad delivery approach to optimize the placement of brand advertising and maximize user attention and engagement. 

Everyone wants to be in the movies – but not everyone has the cash to break in.

With this basic thought in mind, Qumu, a California-based provider of rich-media solutions for enterprises, came up with Qumu Kodiak.

The new suite, which has just been released, provides global enterprises with the ability to create, manage and distribute video communications without straining financial or network resources.

Today, Open Text (news, site) announced yet another acquisition. Not as material as some of the previous ones, this one falls in a different category -- a quest for "sizzling technology."

This time around, it's the Toronto-based Vizible Corporation, a maker of 3D technology and digital media interface solutions.

We talked to Scott Bowen, president of Open Text's Digital Media Group, to get the scoop on this deal.

Internet Information Server, or IIS, is Microsoft's free web server. The latest version of IIS - IIS7 - comes with some new features and functionality. Of particular note is the new integrated media services capabilities.

IIS Media Services 3.0 is an integrated HTTP-based media delivery platform. With it, you can now deliver richer websites and web experiences that include both web content and rich media. It has a number of extensions, including:

• Smooth streaming: IIS automatically detects and adjusts the video quality of a media file accessed in a Silverlight player, based on bandwidth and CPU conditions. This includes HD quality streaming for high bandwidth users.
• Live smooth streaming: Adaptive streaming for live events accessed via a Silverlight player.
• Advanced Logging: Extensions to report media usage from both the real-time client and server logs. Third party analytic providers can both extend the metrics measures and access the data for reporting purposes. There is an upcoming Silverlight analytics control that will track and report data to IIS.
• Bit Rate Throttling: Controls the rate the media is delivered across HTTP.
• Web Playlists: Provides both developers and hosts control over how media is delivered. For example, you can control the order and playback of media content, allowing you to insert advertising that cannot be skipped. You can also control whether your content gets cached or not.

You can view an example of live streaming and learn more about these new extensions to II7. IIS Media Services 3.0 is available via the Web Platform Installer.

They don't have SharePoint in the name of their new solution, but it is a solution for SharePoint nevertheless. Autonomy has announced a solution designed to provide SharePoint users the ability to get the most value out of the rich media assets stored within its repository. Called ControlPoint for Multimedia, the solution analyzes and retrieves the rich media stored within SharePoint without complete reliance on manually created metadata associated with the asset.

High-impact rich media is a goal of many companies in regards to their websites. Adobe is here to help solve that problem and keep it cost-effective to publish such media. They bring to you Adobe Scene7, a comprehensive SaaS platform that provides scalability, ease of use and the use of integrated technologies.

Zannel, the instant media network - otherwise known as Twitter with multimedia - has released an application for the iPhone called CityWatch. Now you can let people know what's happening in cities all around them, sharing your instant updates on your iPhone.

Digital asset management is coming to Europe. North Plains Systems, provider of digital asset management (DAM) and video asset management (VAM) software solutions, plans to expand its global channel of strategic partners over the coming months, including a European base of technology partners.

The expansion comes as a result of the increased demand of its TeleScope digital asset management platform, known for enabling securing access, management and distribution of all digital and rich media across an entire organization.

Wowza Media Systems, a software company that focuses solely on media servers, announced the availability of Wowza Media Server Pro Subscription Edition.

This new product features “friction-free” monthly subscription licensing for its industrial-strength media server. The goal is to make the process of streaming or hosting flash media services a “painless” and cost-effective option.

Interwoven released an enhanced version of Interwoven MediaBin. The company’s flagship Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution is now faster, more interactive and allows for better control for managing and deploying rich media assets. Some of the enhancements are quite expected, while others just don’t make much sense.