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.
I attended MatchupCamp tonight. It was an idea Eran mentioned to me when I first met him at Startupcamp awhile back and thought it was a great idea. It finally came into fruition.
The idea behind it was that it was going to be an "open-space networking event where everyone you meet is a potential match for your talent or idea."
It was basically a nextNY networking event. Unfortunately one that was short on drinks.
They had some tools to facilitate the networking
Color-coded nametags
Demospace: If you brought your laptop you can show off your goods anywhere
Pitch wall= physical job board.
The name tags were a nice touch. But I still felt that more could have been done to facilitate interaction between job providers and job seekers Three ways of possibly facilitating the group 1. Either having a speed dating deal. Where startups looking for people would sit on one side and people looking to join a startup on the other. Every 5 minutes ppl would switch, etc... 2. Placing tags around the room and ppl would congregate in areas of interest. (ex. php, ruby, music, video, advertising, etc) 3. Have people go around the room announcing their names this way people could put faces to all the names that were posted on the wiki.
However I'm not really sure if the people attending tonights event would have benefited from these types of structure. Since there were more people looking for hires than people looking to be hired.
All in all, I had a great time chatting with fellow nextNYers in person, thanks to Eran and everyone who helped organize and promote the event. I look forward to the next Matchupcamp. If you attended I would love to hear your thoughts and experience.
Tonight was the first MatchupCamp in NYC put on by the NextNY crew with Eran Hammer-Lahav and Charlie O'Donnell leading the crew. The event was held at the For Your Imagination studios and Silicon Alley Insider provided the funds.
Turnout was great with about a 70/30 mix of startup/marketing and developers. Didn't see many designers but there were a lot of startups representing. I tried to capture all of the request flyers below. My suggestion for next time is to have people put their pictures with their flyers for easy identification. Someone else also suggested that startups get 5 minutes on a mic to go over who they are and what they are looking for. I would say shorten it to 2 minutes, no demo.
Thanks to everyone who stopped by and said hi - I grabbed many cards and will have more reviews coming as the products and services move into actually functioning prototypes.
I’m extremely excited to announce that I’m officially a chef. Well, not a chef you’d find in a typical kitchen, but more like a chef that you’d find over at The Media Kitchen. MediaWeek and PaidContent have released the news and I guess I can go public with my new role.
For those of you who know me well, I’m infatuated with the white space that exists between marketing, technology, and media. In my past entrepreneurial endeavors, I have innovated within this white space almost exclusively. Whether it was working with some of the original architects for the DART advertising server, executing a campaign across one of the top student websites in the 90s, helped land one of the largest online-only accounts in ‘96 to an interactive agency in Silicon Alley, or co-founding a world leading in-game advertising company with several other amazing co-founders, my experience has always been around brands and how they should interact with digital media.
Corporate entrepreneurship is what is next for me. I’m tasked with joining the senior ranks of The Media Kitchen to build out their entire digital media practice, from start to finish. I’ve got some incredibly talented and gifted individuals who have paved the path so far and they’ll be teaching me the ins/outs of the agency. As Mike Shields worte in the MediaWeek piece, I wanted to have the ability to help mold digital media when the opportunity is still around. By participating in the multiple conversations occuring now between the tech giants and the emerging startups, I can gain invaluable insight into the space and help The Media Kitchen position themselves as one of the most agile and forward thinking agencies.
I do bring an entirely different perspective than most agencies would staff in my rank. The perspective I am bringing to TMK is my entire thesis going forward: you cannot accurately and adequately plan digital media without understanding technology and emerging companies at the lowest level. Innovation creates new technologies and touchpoints where marketing can intersect, but unless you know how to harness these technologies and what they can do for your clients and the greater community, it’s a mute point. I am going to attempt to lead the charge at The Media Kitchen to understand this and build an entire group that believes in this at it’s core.
With this all said, I encourage ANY startup or emerging company to contact me through this site and I’d love to hear from you. My team is always on the lookout for new opportunities to join the marketing conversation and if your startup or emerging company has opportunities, we’d love to chat. If you’re passing through New York or wanted to know how an ad agency works, I encourage you to reach out.
To an amazing future and much more to come in the coming weeks,
Snooth announced $1 million in angel funding from the company’s initial backers as well as a new group of international investors. The New York-based wine review site plans to spend the money on international expansion.
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.
Comments Off
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 
Tonight was the first 
I’m extremely excited to announce that I’m officially a chef. Well, not a chef you’d find in a typical kitchen, but more like a chef that you’d find over at The Media Kitchen. 
Snooth
