Tonight was the last NY Video Meetup of 2007. There were major technical issues throughout the evening which forced one presenter to next month and kept us focused on the Wiffiti board for half of the time and doing individual intros for another piece of the evening. Frankly I was bored so my recaps below are short and blunt. Below are the videos for each presentation. I will allow this as normally the Video Meetups are quite good.
ModMyLife
I could swear I've seen this demo for ModMyLife before. The basic idea. They have actors who they don't pay act out stunts in NYC that the audience decides on. It's cute, not sure if it's the next killer idea but it's a good time waster. They won't let the actors do anything illegal or "dumb" so not sure how far they will go. But they do have "digg-like" voting.
Redlasso
Redlasso lets you take clips from other sources and put them together and then save or upload the final clip. They also monitor stats on where the files are stored. Questions around copyright and monetization came up - he had no concrete answers on either.
OriginDigital
The sponsor of the event - they showed off their Odaptor product. You upload videos, it converts them, makes an xml, makes various formats and can send them to various providers. Didn't really see anything unique or new - though it seemed very smooth in interface.
Sportsbone.tv
The only content creator of the evening, Sportsbone.tv creates video shows about football with a "funny" twist using lots of props it seems. A couple bits were funny. A woman in the audience suggested they do the shows live as the football game is in progress, I thought that was a nifty idea. Ten friends from college create this - each one focuses on another aspect of the business.
In this extra special BigScreen LittleScreen Meetup on Tuesday, December 11th, we'll watch more short online video works and then discuss creative, production, and technical issues. Special guest screenings presenters include Matthew Carlin from Agency.com, Ranjit Grewal from jamstar.tv, Kirby Ferguson from goodiebag.tv and Paul Kontonis from For Your Imagination presenting a "Pink the Series" Success Case Study and Discussion. Welcoming and networking is from 6:30-7:30pm and the presentations begin at 7:30pm. This Meetup is moderated by Matt Semel from 10ton and hosted by For Your Imagination, 22 West 27th Street, 6th Floor - between 6th Ave and Broadway. Seating is limited and the event is BYOB. To reserve your spot, sign up here.
Amie Street founders Elias Roman and Joshua Boltuch discuss how their independent music social network functions as a fun and innovative community for discovering and buying music online.
What we learned about Amie Street:
A fun, transactional, online community for independent music
If users promote a song which becomes popular, they receive credit to purchase more music
Expanding with corporate sponsorships, and with animea nd manga in Amie Street Japan
This morning I sat down with Yoav Ilan at the 'Bucks to discuss his new startup, SeeToo. SeeToo is a peer-to-peer social video service which lets you share a video with a family member or friend in a real-time environment and chat as well. Yoav believes that some videos aren't meant to be shared on a public stage and sometimes you want to share the video and walk someone through it. We took a look at his new baby crawling on the floor and he spoke about how he shares the video with his parents in Israel and they can see their grandbaby crawl and chat at the same time.
So here's how the service works. After signing in, you select your video to share. SeeToo processes the video which takes seconds. Then you send the link to the video to your friend or copy it into IM. The other person joins in and the video syncs and you watch the video together. You can annotate the video by clicking on it and chat as well. The other person can take control and do the same things.
We tried videos over 500mb and they were ready in 15-30 seconds. The video plays using streaming from one pc to another pc - SeeToo stores nothing. In addition, the other party saves nothing as well. Yoav says it's much faster than uploading the video to a sharing service which could take hours (I agree).
Some comparisons will be made to Seesmic but they are different. Seesmic has simplified video sharing and SeeToo has simplified video interaction and collaboration. They have raised about $1 million from several people including Israeli investor Yossi Vardi.
We spoke briefly about the business plan but Yoav asked me not to post the details. He's also got some interesting expansion plans for the product as well coming in 2008.
It seems like a fun service and useful as well. I could see future expansion into B2B for product sales and more immediately usage with military members sharing videos with loved ones back home. Closer to real interaction than uploading a video to YouTube. The interface is simple and could probably use some more color and life -- perhaps they are holding that part back while in beta?
If you'd like an invite to the beta, use the code 'centernetworks' and visit SeeToo.
Last week I had the chance to sit down with Darren Herman who recently joined NY-based The Media Kitchen as the group director of digital media. The Media Kitchen is part of the kirshenbaum bond + partners family. You might already recognize Darren as he has authored several popular articles here on CenterNetworks.
Darren oversees the digital media group internally and all external strategy as well. His team manages approximately $1.9 billion in media spend annually. They work with clients such as Mike's Hard Lemonade and Panasonic. And I am sure you are asking why I am covering this on CN. It's simple. Darren's company is looking for quality startups to spend those $1.9 billion in ad dollars on.
Darren thinks of his job as "corporate entrepreneurship" where he gets to invest ad dollars into startups. Most media companies take Comscore reports, pick the top x number of sites and spend their client's advertising dollars on those sites. Because Darren understands the startup world (he's been through several), he can help clients join the conversation and help expose them to sites and services earlier than other (larger) media companies.
If you have a startup that is advertising-based for revenue creation, what ad networks do you use? Have you considered using an ad partner like The Media Kitchen? Or are you using Google AdSense or a typical ad network including Burst, Tribal Fusion, Casale, etc?
Lastly, Darren asks that you contact him via his blog if you looking for advertisers for your startup.
GroundReport Founder and CEO Rachel Sterne discusses how citizen journalists use the website to share news stories and images while also receiving revenue.
What we learned about GroundReport:
Provides citizen journalists around the world a platform to publish their stories
Distributes international news that most mainstream media outlets do not
Business model is based on geographically targets advertising and revenue sharing
So, I’ve succesfully installed Apple’s new OS, Leopard, rebooted, and I have in front of me “Aurora,” OS X’s new desktop wallpaper. Striking. My first thought is, new toy. My second thought is, OK, where do I start?
Many of you are more than extremely Mac-savvy. But for those of you who are less experienced, or [...]
Nowadays, that person sitting on the bench next to you engrossed in their cellphone screen is more likely than ever to be watching videos or reading a newspaper. This is especially true now, with AT&T’s announcement this week (via CenterNetworks) of their expansion of broadband cell phone service in Brooklyn, Queens and Northern New Jersey. 200 new cell sites will offer high speed, third generation technology, or 3G, joining downtown Manhattan and the airports, which have enjoyed the technology since June last year. Users will need to subscribe to a plan to use the new technology, and they must have compatible phones. (The iPhone is not compatible, by the way.) While users can enter any web address, not all sites are formatted for mobile phones. Verizon, the national leader in 3G technology, has offered the service here since 2005. Maybe one day soon the person on the bus next to you will be reading the Eye Opener mobile edition?
Andrew Monfried’s presentation was the most interesting at tonight’s Ad Club Meetup. The founder/president of Lotame talked about advertising in social networks.
Tonight was the last NY Video Meetup of 2007. There were major technical issues throughout the evening which forced one presenter to next month and kept us focused on the Wiffiti board for half of the time and doing individual intros for another piece of the evening. Frankly I was bored so my recaps below are short and blunt. Below are the videos for each presentation. I will allow this as normally the Video Meetups are quite good.
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This morning I sat down with Yoav Ilan at the 'Bucks to discuss his new startup, 
Last week I had the chance to sit down with 
Darren oversees the digital media group internally and all external strategy as well. His team manages approximately $1.9 billion in media spend annually. They work with clients such as Mike's Hard Lemonade and Panasonic. And I am sure you are asking why I am covering this on CN. It's simple. Darren's company is looking for quality startups to spend those $1.9 billion in ad dollars on.
Darren thinks of his job as "corporate entrepreneurship" where he gets to invest ad dollars into startups. Most media companies take Comscore reports, pick the top x number of sites and spend their client's advertising dollars on those sites. Because Darren understands the startup world (he's been through several), he can help clients join the conversation and help expose them to sites and services earlier than other (larger) media companies.
If you have a startup that is advertising-based for revenue creation, what ad networks do you use? Have you considered using an ad partner like The Media Kitchen? Or are you using Google AdSense or a typical ad network including Burst, Tribal Fusion, Casale, etc?
Lastly, Darren asks that you contact him via 
Andrew Monfried’s presentation was the most interesting at tonight’s 
