We're excited to announce the launch of Hunting Club, the first of many North American Media Group video sites that will be powered by Magnify.net. Hunting Club is a personalized guide and highly curated publication that will feature video from various hunting vendors as well as hunting enthusiast as a personal guide to bagging trophy bucks, tracking monster elk, calling in water-fowl, and much more! You can check out the video site located here:

http://video.huntingclub.com/

With the Hunting Club using the Magnify platform for their online video delivered, they will be able to harness the power of curation through professionally produced content, existing video content on the web, as well as user submitted content. This launch couldn't come at a better time, as a recent Pew Internet article states “People use these sites for every imaginable reason – to laugh and learn, to watch the best and worst of popular culture and to check out news. And video-sharing sites are very social spaces as people vote on, comment on, and share these videos with others.” (http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Video-sharing-sites.aspx)

For more than 30 years, North American Media Group has excelled in creating and growing eleven distinct lifestyle clubs that thrive on the camaraderie we foster between our members and the clubs. Each club's magazine, e-newsletter and website is rich with articles and how-to features that inform, motivate, teach and inspire members.

Video Curation Requires Planning

Good curation of video content does require having a strategy. And by strategy, I mean deciding how much effort you’re going to put in doing manual research, viewing, reviewing, and vetting. Simply throwing up video content that might show up in YouTube or any search engine around keywords you’re targeting is not curation.

Why do I mention that? Well, recently I’ve seen some sites with an entire platform and advertising model around machine-only aggregated video content of others, with no unique human-based content of their own whatsoever. It’s sloppy, and solely done for the purposes of trying to show up in search results with other people’s work. (See the screenshot below from the video aggregator site “World News Network” for an example of what I mean.)

http://wn.com/private_publicity

Think of curation as a human editing function, before you can rely on any tool to take that over for you. “What there should be is a thoughtful gathering of material around the question that people will have,” says Steve. That requires context, which most of you already understand for your market given the combination of experience and expertise you have in your field.

Here are some basic planning tips for doing video curation for your website:

• Research sites that are producing their own unique video content (or are already serving as curators), and find out what content you can rely on from them that relates to your own business model and target audience interest. Also, pay attention to what types of video content on what sites get a lot of traction with sharing and commenting.

• Ask your own colleagues in your field what videos they’re putting out or finding success with.

• Ask your own audience what videos would they like to see?

• Ask yourself how much time you are willing to put into reviewing content that comes in? How often will you feature new content? How often will you add your own unique content? How much time will you work with others on curating their content for your website.

Video Curation – Content

• Feature videos that are interesting, relevant and valuable to the need of the consumer.
• Think more about how the videos tell a story, rather than being sales-y. This means you need to weed out videos that are just commercials for other businesses, or not really meant for a public audience. (A lot of videos online may just be posted for a particular individual or company, rather than something of general interest.)
• Include videos that are related to the theme of your brand, but not necessarily about your products.
• Add your own unique content to the videos. Adding your own title and short description is helpful. Also, consider opportunities for providing further context when you have something you think is particularly valuable. Commentary can work very well, along with a summary of the key points, and any high-level tip people can take from it. (Also, you can always add your own video content to a clip of an existing video, and point back to the original video.)
• Find recent content – look for sites that regularly update their video content around recent news or events related to your area of interest. Video curation can make you an excellent go-to source for news with both your target audience and professional colleagues.

Video Curation – Length

My recommendation is to have at least some videos readily available that don’t demand your audience devote a lot of their time. Good video curation should include finding short pieces as introductions to particular topics of interest, which you can include around longer pieces.

Video Curation – Quantity

How many videos should you have? How many should you present on a gallery page? How big should you make the main video, and related videos? What descriptive content should you have around the videos? All of that is going to depend on your audience preference, and your ability to present the videos in a clearly organized manner. Here are some general tips:

• Have a diverse collection of videos – some can come from you, some can come from other sites, some can come from the manufacturer or vendor, and some can come from users.
• Don’t have too many videos on one page – 5,10,15, 20 – all that may be good; but it really depends on how much you want to give your users to process.
• Make the presentation video easy to watch. If you’re featuring a lot of videos, having one large video in a player on a page around thumbnails can work. Or even just having text links to related videos, if you can’t provide thumbnails (although I do recommend having thumbnails for a nice visual balance.)

Video Curation – Organization

Whatever format you decide on, I recommend having clear thumbnail images, a title, and a short description for what you want to display. On our own ReelSEO Videos section, you’ll notice that we always include our own introduction text, unique titles, and our own short description for each video with some commentary. (You’ll also see it’s a blending of original video, distributed video, and sometimes user-submitted video.)

ReelSEO's videos page

Here are some more tips around organizing curated videos on your website:

• Create a subdomain (videos.yourdomain.__) or a “.tv” domain for your curated video collection to reside. Both of these are things that ReelSEO already does.
• Have a “videos” category in your site navigation scheme.
• Break up your videos into categories and series. Including targeted keywords around video categories and series is also good for search engine indexing, which brings me to my next tip section…

Video Curation – Findability

• Tag your videos so people can search your gallery (if you have a search feature). When embedding videos in your blog posts, use a “video” tag on the post, so when people search your site looking for content around videos, they can be more easily retrievable. (You can also use a tag system to distinguish between original videos, user-submitted videos, and 3rd party videos.)
• Include your own keyword-rich title tags and descriptions for each video. (Again, don’t duplicate what’s already on the original video site you aggregated the video from – search engines may treat that as spam and penalize you on their search engine results pages.)
• For blog posts, provide backlinks to the original video source, but also the content: Backlink to the person, company, or any theme in your video that has an authority website.

• Consider offering your own transcription to videos that don’t already have it included. (This can be rather time consuming, so even just getting some quotes from the video is sufficient most of the time.) Search engines need text to index, and transcriptions are an idea way to provide both visibility, relevancy, and being more-user friendly.
• Offer a “subscribe” feature to your video collection. A Media RSS feed is an excellent way of doing this. (If you have more than one video collection, you can have a separate MRSS feed for each collection.)

Video Curation – Contributions

• Encourage people to submit their own videos, or where they can point you to links online to where their videos reside. When I ask for user submissions, I require people to provide me with their own description of the video, some background info (if it’s their original work or something they were involved in), and what they consider to be it’s relevance to my audience. I also recommend providing an incentive, such as a backlink or special mention at least.
• Give people pointers on what video submissions you’re looking for. This can include guidelines on content, length, technical quality, and storytelling. Have a “contribute” page with copy specific to video submissions are worth considering.
• Consider investing in a UGC platform or service provider that makes it as easy as possible for users to submit their videos directly from your site. Some like vidstructor.com will provide the entire platform, or you can even use a service like yousendit.com or wistia.com, to create a page on your site for people to use the uploading feature.
• Be sure to give credit – always acknowledge and promote the people who do submit videos to you, so they have an incentive to keep submitting and sharing.
• Provide a comments section, so people can share feedback on your videos. (If you want to allow people to share links to their own videos, it’s also a good idea to have moderation of comments turned on.)
• Create the felling of a community. That means also responding to comments around your curated videos, asking and encouraging feedback and submissions, and helping people out with their own questions (and sharing those questions and responses around your curated video set in blog posts, or even with a new unique video!)

Video Curation Tools & Platforms

Why consider a video curation service provider? Well, if you’re doing professional work and are looking to feature lots of 3rd party videos on your website, it’s certainly worth considering curation tools or curation platforms, for many reasons:

• They can handle most or all of the grunt work for collecting and organizing videos from multiple sources.
• They can offer lots of tools to search the web broadly, and provide a curated collection of videos to their users.
• They can offer their own video player for organizing your curated videos.
• You can choose to place their own original videos in the curated collection of new videos, for your users can experience and engage with.
• Video curation service providers can provide realtime analytics and interaction metrics, to track the popularity of your video content to see how many people are watching and sharing.
• They are self-service and customizable.
• The are scalable, from a free starter module to paid packages, for increased levels of white-labeling, control of ads, degree of metrics, and monetization

Video Curation platform providers for professional purposes (such as publishing, marketing, training, and monetization) include:

• Magnify.net
• Yokto

Yes, it’s a very short list. Let me know if you’re familiar with others you can recommend, or just include it in our comments section on this page!

What More Video Curation Tips?

What, like I haven’t given you a lot already? Actually, I’ve only touched the surface here. For in-depth information and tips on making video curation a part of your own business model (and especially for your publishing and marketing strategy), I wholeheartedly recommend getting yourself a copy of Steve Rosenbaum’s book, Curration Nation. I also recommend checking out his book’s website at curration-nation.org, which itself features lots of curated video content.

Feature images provided courtesy of Steven Rosenbaum, some rights reserved.

Food Management is one of several targeted Restaurant publications from Penton Media.  The editorial is served up by industry experts that deliver exceptional trend analysis, timely news, peer-to-peer learning, food and new product information, and consumer insights, whether professional, managerial, culinary or operational.  Targeted at foodservice directors and managers, chefs and dietitians in the noncommercial foodservice market, their video library features topics that highlight news and trends that cover the gamete from kindergarden to college cafeterias, business dining and food service industry events.  With the national focus on healthy eating and better diets and eating across the spectrum, we bet there will be a lot of interest in watching their newly launched video library.

For the first time in my life, I was dropping the ball. Missing emails. Notes from friends on Facebook. DM's on Twitter. And I'm no slouch. I start early, am on the web all day, and answer my last email just before I turn out the lights to go to bed.

So, what was I doing wrong? And, was I alone?

Now, I know the answers -- and they're stunning.

After weeks of survey research, it turns out -- the bounty and abundance of web data is out of control. As Google's Eric Schmidt has been quoted, from the beginning of time to 2003, we created 5 exabytes of data. We're now creating that every two days -- and it's accelerating. Think of it like Moore's law -- for content. But unlike increased processor power, massive growth in unfiltered and un-contextualized content isn't a boon. It's a data deluge that's drowning us all.

The "Digital Lifestyle Information Survey 2011" asked respondents about how they receive, manage, and organize information -- and how it's impacting their lives.

A staggering 72.7 percent described their data stream as: "A roaring river," "a flood," or "a massive tidal wave." And 48.5 percent said that they where connected to the web: "from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to bed."

And the impact is more than just at work, people's personal lives are impacted as well. Personal time and work time have blurred, so much so that even the middle of the night is no longer of limits.

Perhaps most startling, 33 percent of respondents said they check emails in the middle of the night.

If there was a consensus, it was that the volume of data is forcing people to make painful choices between work and friends and family. 46.9 percent said "I am unable to answer all my email", and 41.4 percent of respondents said "I feel I miss important news." The personal impact was dramatic as well, with 39.9 percent saying: "I feel I ignore family or friends."

But most telling -- 62.5 percent seemed to hunger for a new solution, saying "I wish I could filter out the flood of data."

"What do you do to cope?" 79.5 percent said "I check my email all of the time." 76.6 percent responded: "I work weekends/evenings." And more than a third either gave up, or gave up sleep. 46.6 percent said "I admit I can't keep up" and 33.8 percent responded: "I try and sleep less."

It seems people have reached their capacity to manage data, impacting family, friends, productivity, and even sleep. Algorithmic solutions will in fact expand the problem, creating more undifferentiated data.

The future is not in better computers, or smarter algorithms, but in embracing the powerful human ability to find, sort, and contextualize information and ideas. It is the dawn of a new era for the web, the human filtered web. The curated web.

Survey respondents seemed to see their human connections and their best hope to stem the tide of data overload. People are engaged in 'social curation,' and see content publishing, linking, and re-tweeting as a key part of their emerging 'digital identity.' Individuals managing and sharing content no longer consider it a hobby, but part of how they define themselves in the digital and social web world.

The majority of respondents, 61.3 percent, said "I consider the content I share part of who I am." And 47.4 percent said "My followers on Twitter read my tweets and RT's for info." And 38.7 percent said "my co-workers follow me, and read my posts and tweets."

Human data management, shared and community filtering, and personal recommendations will fulfill individual's 'digital identity' as content curators -- while allowing content consumers to 'surf' less, and consume curated content delivered to them by trusted sources.

Increasingly "you are what you curate."

You can download the entire Digital Lifestyle Survey Here

Yuri Milner, the VC whose Russian Digital Sky Technologies (DST) group has put money into Facebook, Zynga and Groupon, was quoted at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit as saying, Curation is the next big thing.

Said Milner: "The question is, 'How do you select what's relevant for you?' And my guess is that it's probably going to be 50% driven by your network and 50% driven by algorithms."

Upon hearing Milner's prophetic words, thousands of PowerPoint decks were reworked overnight to find a way to edge the word "Curation" into executive summaries.

An understandable impulse. But perhaps premature.

What Yuri meant, and what venture is now scouring the incubators and business plan competitions for, is a way to manage the madness that is promiscuous production of data.

But first, let's look back at the history of why venture has been allergic to content.

In order for investors to be able to put a small number of dollars in -- and get an outsized return out -- businesses need to be able to grow very large with relatively little human intervention.

The portfolio theory of investing requires that the hits are big, and the misses are manageable.

Content hasn't ever fit into this equation. Studios tried to balance hits and misses, but the spiky nature of hits and the relatively large cost of failures has made hollywood a game that only those with money to lose could afford to play. VCs never liked those odds.

Now, along comes curation with an entirely different economic bargain.

Curation is the mixing, and re-mixing of content to create things that are partially or wholly new.

Quickly, venture took notice. Why? Because now content wasn't about 'creation' it was about finding, sorting, filtering, contextualizing. Sure, there was a human element to curation. But the venture economic could kick in, in ways it never could. Audiences and revenue could grow, and margins could grow while the costs of curation remained relatively fixed.

There are some early wins already. Huffington Post's $315 million exit to AOL was like a starting bell for venture sized returns.

So where are VC's looking in the curation space?

There are three categories that have the potential to attract venture dollars.

• Curation software. There are already a large number of software solutions looking to act as curation solutions. Many of them curate the growing twitter content stream, while others look to offer users a way to search multiple social networks, and produce a single curated content output. Venture would do well to look for a service that breaks out ahead of the pack - and bet the market leader.
• Curated content platforms. Sites like SBNation, a collection of over 290 individual communities, each with coverage and conversation led by fans. There's no doubt that the larger of these communities themselves will catch the eye of the Venture community. (Comcast Interactive Capital (CIC) and Accel Partners are in SBNation). Their move in to tech with the announcement of a deal with the former editors of Engadget is a sign of things to come.
• Platform Services. The rapidly growing nature of web content makes it critically important that curation and publishing platforms are SaaS offerings that have access to scale and support. This means that while some folks will try to build curation platforms, the large majority of content oriented entrepreneurs will choose to build on existing or emerging curation platform offerings.

Curation has come of age. The sheer volume of Web content, and the increasing demand of both content consumers and Web advertisers makes it clear that content without curation is simply noise.

There is huge value that will be created as the web shifts from content created for search to curation built to find and contextualize.

Stay tuned for big wins in this space. 

Now a number of the web's most trusted voices (and interestingly, deepest pockets) have started to embrace a concept that could have massive ramifications.

To manage, and make useful, the massive growth of content on the web, sites must embrace curation.

Fred Wilson, who's blog AVC often heralds the changing nature of the web, explored the trend yesterday in a blog post titled "Curation."

We largely invest in consumer web services with a large number of engaged users where the users create the content. Services like this can become messy and hard to navigate. There is always a signal to noise issue. I'm a big fan of curation in these services. Twitter has lists. Etsy has favorites. Tumblr has tag pages. These are all variations of curation in services that have a lot of noise in them. Recently Kickstarter launched their own version of curation called Curated Pages.

And, adding his voice to the growing chorus of investors who value curation, Russian Mega Investor Yuri Milner of Digital Sky Technologies (DST) told the Abu Dhabi Media Summit: "I think the next big theme is basically curation." Said Milner in the WSJ. "The question is how do you select what's relevant for you, and my guess is that its probably going to be 50% driven by your network and 50% driven by algorithms."

"In the beginning people found interesting things on the web, created directories of those things. That was the origins of the original lists and directories, from Yahoo on outward." writes investor and blogger Paul Kedrosky. The hand indexed web moved to algorithms, and Google emerged the winner. "Any algorithm can be gamed; it's only a matter of time. The Google algorithm is now well and thoroughly gamed. Google's ranking algorithm, like any trading algorithm, has lost its alpha."

"In short, curation is the new search." Kedorosky says the rise of curation is actually the re-emergence of the webs human roots. It "is partly about crowd curation -- not one people, but lots of people, whether consciously (lists, etc.) or unconsciously (tweets, etc) -- and partly about hand curation (JetSetter, etc.). The result will be a subset of curated sites that will re-seed a new generation of algorithmic search sites, and the cycle will continue, over and over."

So is curation the next big thing, what blogger and trendspotter Robert Scoble calls the next "billion dollar opportunity on the web." Or is it a buzzword on the verge of being overhyped?

William Mougayar says it's "overhyped" and cites Gartner Group's "hype cycle" and says we're at the Peak of Inflated Expectations, about to tumble down the cliff into the Trough of Disillusionment. That seems to me to be overstating the case. But given the scope of the problem, and the early stage of all of the curation solutions that are emerging, it seems to me that we're years away from a human-filtered web where the things that matter most to us find us, and noise is able to be filtered away.

That is a day worth striving for.

It wasn't that the web had gotten less important, in fact, very much the opposite. The web was, until the day before yesterday, a series of pages that could be viewed on your computer. Now it had somehow broken free of its bonds and sprung to life.

At SXSW - content has surpassed the technology.

The talk was about access and devices. API's were the new kings of content. The already brilliantly successful TED Talks were no longer restricted to a website - as TED's Media Director announced that TED would open-source its API. All around the world, you could hear laptops snap open with eager excitement to start building TED applications.

Apple, in a sly move that blurred the line between marketing and happenstance, released the iPad2 on the first day of SXSW, and magically opened a 'pop up' store just blocks from the convention center. But Apple didn't have the mobile browsing experience to itself. Samsung's Galaxy Tablet was all over the convention, with its Android powered shininess, causing Apple fanboys to have more than a few stolen glances.

Mobile. Realtime. Social. Open. Buzzwords to be sure, but punky new words that made Google's once stunning search results seem somewhat like last season's Prada pumps.

Google brought its best and its brightest - its new location recommendation service Google HotPot. A bit of 4square, a dash of Yelp, and some Facebook stirred in. But even as they tried to jump start social, Google executives still call the human 'signal' just one of the many they'll use to recommend a place to each.

It's as if Google is saying - if we know everything you do, every email you send, every place you check in, everything you buy, everything you put on your calendar, every photo you take and tag, and every product you scan - we can give you highly relevant recommendations. But at the same time, Google is first and foremost, an ad network, so how do they balance the 'best' algorithmic answer with sponsor willing to pay the most, to talk to you once you've bared your privatest data parts to the world?

At SXSW, the wind was blowing toward privacy, user control, and apps that talk to each other as you allow them to. Permission based data integration - rather than services that fondle your data without your knowledge or approval.

The other stunning shift, in just twelve months, was the growing movement of human craftsmen now fully engaged in finding, contextualizing, and publishing aggregated content.

One year ago - I presented a panel, "Curationism vs. Creationism. Who comes out on top" it was a fiesty and sometimes combative session with creators fearful curation would steal their work, and their living. This year, I presented Curation Nation - and expected another screamfest. But twelve months is a lifetime at SXSW. And curation is more than a buzzword, it's an emerging ideology.

I met people who curate kids events in Canada, a curator of car parts, a curator of community banking, CTO Tom Conrad told me they have a head of Music Curation at Pandora. Samsung was curating tweets and photos on a large screen on the convention floor. A year ago, creators feared that robots would steal their soul. But today - abundence has created a new opportunity for creators to become both makers and curators - and business models are emerging that will begin to filter the data flood, and create contextual meaning out of the content cloud.

It's not that search is dead, in fact, search is central to solving certain kinds of problems. Looking at Blekko, Wolfram Alpha, Bing, and others - it's clear that different search solutions are right for different queries. If you're looking to find out what's happening in Japan, real time search in Twitter may be the solution. If you're looking find your friends- then FourSquare maybe the best way to connect. But the emergence of the right tool for the right information is a cool new trend. If you want to see into the future, take a look at ToothTag - an app currently available for Android only, but soon on the iPhone. Can't remember where you parked? Tooth-tag can tell you. Looking for your laptop? Tooth-tag can help you. Not only that, it can tell you if your friends are at the same party as you...without either of you ever having to check-in. The best part? Tooth-tag does all this without any kind of GPS.

It utilizes Bluetooth capabilities alongside Near-Field Communications and wifi to offer you a variety of information. You're not limited to check-in to a venue; instead Tooth-Tag recognises your relationship to wi-fi signals and allows you to set up behaviors based on various locations. Ok, it's geeky - but it's damn cool.

What's the biggest lesson coming out of SXSW? A year is a VERY long time in the fast moving world of connected content.

Congressman Christopher Lee (R-NY) resigns because of a scandal even before the scandal is known to the public. On websites we get Tuesday's news on Monday. As online commenters, we discuss articles we haven't read and dis movies we haven't watched. Google anticipates the stories we want to see even before we know we want to see them. And as one person tweeted recently: "Tunisia's revolution took four weeks. Egypt: 17 days. Who's next and how much time do they have?"

When it comes to the news of the day, newspapers, websites, bloggers, cable networks and aggregators all trip over themselves to be the fastest and the first. The competition has always existed, but technology has ramped up the rivalries.

At this increasingly accelerated pace, is it inevitable that noteworthy events — and the news they engender — will rush lickety-split into each other? What happens when things just cannot occur any faster? What if the rapidity of the newscycle outpaces the news itself and we wind up in some form of warp speed — living life in a wormholish, time-wrinkled world?

James Gleick, author of the 1999 classic Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything, says, "Everybody thinks there's got to be a breaking point. But the breaking point never comes."

A Quantum Leap

As overwhelming as the rush of news — the comings and goings of despots, the rise and demise of movements — can be, there is some "comfort" to be found in the laws of the universe, says J. Richard Gott III, an astrophysicist at Princeton University and author of Sizing Up the Universe: The Cosmos in Perspective. For the news to outrun the event is an impossibility in this universe, he says. That's because of the "Planck time" — the smallest measurement of time possible, in quantum physics terms — that would occur between events.

"You can't change governments faster than the Planck time," he says. "Otherwise, you create a black hole and the events collapse into each other."

Phew. In that, one supposes, there's a quantum of solace.

Still, with news — and reaction to news — moving more quickly than ever, says Louis Gray, a Silicon Valley blogger who chronicles the ever-increasing speed of computers and companies, "it is safe to assume the public does not know about many top stories or issues, and cannot be assumed to have enough data to ascertain truth versus spin, and right versus wrong."

As a result, Gray says, "people are intentionally filtering the information they consume through sources they agree with, or are turning instead to entertainment and idle-time activities, becoming less informed."

News Finders, Not Makers

Steven Rosenbaum, author of Curation Nation: How to Win in a World Where Consumers Are Creators, believes we will learn to navigate the new world with the help of other navigators. He wrote in The Huffington Post that we are living in "a world where abundance is assumed in the world of content — there's no shortage of content makers of all shapes and sizes. But the avalanche of content makes finding the content you're looking for significantly harder."

By choosing to read a certain story or subscribe to a certain blog — and letting others know that we "like" the stories and blogs — we are saving time for those who trust us, according to Rosenbaum.

"The world of curation will have lots of brand-name, well-known curators you know and trust," Rosenbaum wrote. "The new media moguls won't be makers, they'll be finders, endorsers and presenters."

In an interview, Rosenbaum adds: "Curious people will have more of an opportunity to engage in curated and complex editorial mixes, and people who define themselves as a political party, or an issue, or any other narrow set of filters will embrace sources that don't expose them to alternative points of view."

Still, the problem remains: The news is coming at us so fast and furious, we don't always have time to be exposed to news we are not already interested in. Our horizons may not be broadened by this onslaught but narrowed. And it might become harder to experience serendipitous moments, those Holy Cow! instances of discovery.

Gleick thinks the solution is to adjust our speed when it comes to filtering the news. Though everything is accelerating, "we aren't going to invert the space-time continuum," he says. "We aren't going to live our futures ahead of our past. But we're going to learn — we are already learning — that faster does not equal better."

At the point at which we seem to be getting tomorrow's news today, Gleick says, "we just need to wave a red flag. Tomorrow hasn't come yet."

Gleick adds, "Some things — and news is just one of them—are worth waiting for."

By now we're all overly familiar with the term curation. The word might have lost its novelty, but its importance is only growing. Information overload has increased the need for curation ― both in the form of tools and a new way of thinking, explained Steven Rosenbaum, CEO of Magnify.net and author of the book Curation Nation.  

How do creation companies become curation companies?

So, what kind of background does it take to be a Curator in the new world? Well Sanderson began as a broadcast journalist, then tought journalism, then after four years traveling around the world on a sailboat with his wife, he began building web sites in the late 90's. That brought him to newspapers--where he grew a career that landed him as the Assistant Managing Editor at the Toronto Star. He joined Eqentia in 2009.

Today--Sanderson says the man / machine mix is critical. "The human element is extremely important, but it would be impossible to do the job well without good technology."

Machines may evolve, but they'll never have a human sense of relevance. "As curator, I need "gut instinct". As I'm scanning the web (with our tools), I sometimes find sources or articles that I think are valuable--even though they might not be a perfect match to our customers' specifications. In essence, the curator curates not only the content, but also the technology so that the results are always improving while the algorithmic rules are adapting.
 
Today Sanderson says he's never met another person with the same title he has--but he's quite sure that is going to change quicky.
 
"I can only see it growing in the next decade. Let's face it, there's an enormous amount of high-quality, interesting content being produced, and more of it all the time. But there's also a lot of mediocre material, not to mention the growing spam problem, showing up in search engine results. Expert curators are invaluable guides through the content jungle."

But first up, we have some news about what's been cooking at Magnify!

New Features available today!

- Monetization through Pre-roll Ads

We have greatly expanded the number of pre-roll advertisement providers to include services such as Adify, YuMe, and Acudeo (Tremor Media).  If you are a pro user, you will have access to these new pre-roll adnetworks at your disposal today in the "Ads" section of the admin.

New Features For Q2

It's a new year, and that means new features! 

- New 3 column layouts
We've been hearing a lot lately about some of the design functionality for users' channels and there have been requests for tools to make their site design a little more unique.  Well, we’re in the process of adding in a 3rd column template in the site layout for the homepage and custom pages. 

The important aspect of this feature is all users (Free, Pro, and Enterprise) will have the ability to customize the size of each column, allowing for a more customized look and feel of the site. 

- New audio player
In early Q2, we will be adding in a audio player functionality for the site.  The new audio player is going to tie in with our next new feature, which is the ability to upload and manage...

- New Slide Show
New slideshow functionality!  You will now be able to upload a collection of photos, and have the audio player play along side the photos.  This feature will be great for showing off a collection of pictures from a recent trip and placing narration or music along with it.

- New Bulk Uploader (multi-file)
Also on track for a Q2 launch is our new multi-uploader tool.  This will allow you to upload multiple videos and enter metadata for all files at once instead of uploading content one at a time.

Featured Customer:

www.iwasbornatstjosephs.ca

I Was Born At St. Joseph’s is a Magnify powered video site the hospital launched recently after more than 100 years and 100,000 deliveries.  Presently, St. Joseph’s is reaching out to those born at the hospital as well as those directly involved with the hospital to share their story.

One such story from those directly involved with St. Joseph’s are Shirin Hossain who has been a staff nurse for the past 27 years.  Shirin shares her story at the St. Josephs video site, saying it has been a place of exceptional growth and has advanced her career as a person.  Shirin has even had a personal experience with the staff at St. Joseph’s by having her son delivered at the hospital

We’re incredibly proud of the word St. Joseph’s has done to create a community, and use video in a new and powerful way.   There’s no doubt that hospitals across the country are going to look to this site as a unique and important way to create a connection with their community.   Magnify is very glad to be powering such an important and creative new initiative.

They were even featured in an article in the London Free Press:

http://www.lfpress.com/news/columnists/ian_gillespie/2010/10/31/15898186.html

Future of Curation
   
The last year has been an extraordinary one for the world of content Curation.  Now, we’re excited to announce that we’re about to launch our first book on the subject.  Magnify.net CEO Steven Rosenbaum has authored Curation Nation - a highly anticipated business book that will be published by McGraw Hill in March of 2011.

Already the buzz is building...

Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.com read it and said: “"In Curation Nation, Steven Rosenbaum provides a wealth of real-world examples of how businesses can use the web to give their customers a valuable curated experience."



Daymond John Founder, Fubu, Author; 'The Brand Within', Star; ABC TV's Shark Tank said:  “Curation Nation teaches you three key things; Be authentic, Be passionate, and Be Trustworthy. Rosenbaum's secrets can help you get your curation game up and be two steps ahead.”

Bonin Bough Global Director of Digital and Social Media, PepsiCo said:
"Curation Nation is a testament to the strategic mind of a genius.  Steven Rosenbaum really knows how to see around corners. Captured here is a road map of how you can develop engaging consumer experiences by curating content around your brand.”

So, join the movement today: www.CurationNation.org - and if you pre-order to book, you’ll get special access to the CurationNation video archive, and enrolled in the Curation Nation toolbox – free. 

And, if you’ve got a great Curation hero you want to nominate, we’ll be crowning a new King and Queen of Curation every week starting in January.

Nominate Here: http://curationnation.org/pages/curationkingsandqueens

The Year Ahead
2011 is going to be the Year of Curated Video – and you’re already ahead of the game!  So keep building, keep curating, and Happy New Year from the team and Magnify.net

And now, goats riding on ponies at the circus!

"Godfrey's deep experience in the media industry is complemented by her strong knowledge of retail/e-commerce, providing a vast asset base for Magnify.net," said CEO Steven Rosenbaum in making the announcement. "She honed her skill set at the top publishing houses, including American Express, Hearst, Primedia and Worth, before joining leading merchant bank Tri-Artisan Capital Partners. She works with preeminent private equity firms on media co-investment opportunities and, as an independent business advisor, provides expert advice on growth strategies and partnerships to nascent digital media and technology companies," he added.

Said Godfrey of the opportunities in the emerging web video ecosystem: "The business of media, publishing and technology are merging in a very exciting way; new revenue streams are opening up for those companies who embrace the changing landscape and bring new offerings to the market. Clearly, one of the most opportunistic plays for traditional publishers is in video; I see Magnify.net as having a unique set of technologies, reference customers and thought leadership that will directly benefit publishers. Their technology allows a publisher to maximize their video efforts in a way that is no longer a chore, or worse, a burden."

Steven Rosenbaum continued: "Missy is one of the rare media executives who has her foot in two worlds; she was involved early on in the development of the digital landscape, while maintaining a healthy respect for the power of traditional brands. This keen insight is beneficial to Magnify.net in positioning our product to fit the needs and metrics of leading publishers."

"Magnify.net uniquely offers publishers something that has always been of critical importance to their core business, the ability to curate specifically for the tastes of their audience. This control is one of the distinguishing characteristics that will bring success to all parties," added Godfrey.

Godfrey joins a star-studded group of industry leaders including:

Lisa Gansky, Entrepreneur and Author: The Mesh: Why the Future of Business Is Sharing.

Kim Garretson, Principal Ovative Group.

Jean-Philippe Maheu, Worldwide CEO, Publicis Modem.

Eric Schrier, fmr President, CEO, The Readers Digest Association.

Ava Seave, Principal of Quantum Media.

Cory Treffiletti, President of Catalyst SF.

Alan Webber, Co-founder, Fast Company Magazine.

"More and more, we find our members have cameras in their hands that they are excited to use," said Fiona Pietruski, Chief Marketing Officer of SheSpeaks. "Both video and still cameras are an important and visceral part of consumer feedback. Magnify.net's video curation platform is easy for our members to use, and flexible and powerful for us to provide solutions to many of our national brand partners."

SheSpeaks works with many of the leading national consumer brands including; P&G, L'Oreal, Unilever, Heinz, Haagen-Dazs, Glaxo-Smithkline, American Express and Rubbermaid.

"Consumers are quickly becoming creators," said Magnify.net CEO Steven Rosenbaum. "SheSpeaks has developed a unique and trusted relationship with their community that gives brands increasingly important insight into their customers' thoughts, and allows them to provide alpha leaders with exclusive looks at products and services."

Listening to customer dialogue, and nurturing brand advocates are increasingly becoming core missions for marketing organizations.

SheSpeaks was founded in 2007 to give female consumers "a seat at the table" via a direct dialogue with brands as well as to provide brands the tools to reach and engage with these important consumers. SheSpeaks believes that brands that earn the trust of today's consumer through open and honest dialogue will earn positive word of mouth and recommendations.

About SheSpeaks

SheSpeaks builds and operates online communities that drive consumer insight and advocacy. At SheSpeaks.com, women members gain access to products and services, and a forum to offer their honest feedback directly to the companies that create them. For more information, visit www.shespeaks.com/corp.

J. John Stevenson, President of North Shore Animal League America of animalleague.org, said, "We know that pet owners connect with us and our mission through the web. We wanted to offer a robust video collection that could provide information, pet owner education, and enjoyment for pet owners and prospective adopters."

"We knew that our visitors and members wanted to share their stories with us, and mixing professional video with user-contributed and web curated content was something that Magnify.net does with elegance and scale. We're excited to partner with them, and see this as an important way to reach new audiences and help protect animals," said Scott Makufka of NSALA.

North Shore Animal League America believes in the unique and loving bond between pets and their owners. Embracing video is another way to connect with owners, celebrate the special relationship, and share the mission of the Animal League.

"It's exciting to think about the impact this site can have on the lives of pet lovers, pet owners and animals," said Magnify CEO Steven Rosenbaum. "We believe in the power of the human, pet bond -- and in fact my family's wonderful, rescued Treeing Walker Coonhound, Louie, said it was about time that there was a web video channel dedicated to him."

NSALA's AnimalLeaguetv video portal sponsored by Purina One, will include a wide array of content -- including video created by the Animal League, video submitted by site visitors, and animal-oriented video gathered and curated from across the web.

About North Shore Animal League America
North Shore Animal League America, headquartered in Port Washington, NY, is the largest no-kill animal rescue and adoption organization in the world.

Brian Kroski, Chief Operating Officer of ARTINFO, explains the relationship. "Our visitors rely on us for accessible, dynamic and quality news and information about the art world. We see video as an intrinsic and necessary element of our website, which is engaged by an international community of subscribers that expands daily. Magnify.net's ability to give us curatorial tools allows us to provide our visitors with an exceptional interface experience."

Steven Rosenbaum, CEO of Magnify.net adds that "as the volume of video on the web grows every day -- visitors are looking for trusted sources to filter and validate video. ARTINFO is known as a trusted source, and their ability to curate and present video about the arts is a huge gift to the web community. We are very pleased that they chose to build their video experience on the Magnify.net platform."

ARTINFO's commitment to expand its online portfolio is further demonstrated by its growing staff of international editors and contributors. This announcement follows the company's recent addition of blogs written by celebrated writers including William Poundstone, Jason Kaufman, Tyler Green and Homa Nasab.

Louise Blouin Media is the leading global media company focused on art, culture, luxury and lifestyle sectors. Properties range from in-depth reporting and coverage of the art market in Art+Auction, to the insider art scene in Modern Painters, to the breaking news and analysis on ARTINFO. In addition to the media properties Louise Blouin Media owns and operates art publisher, Somogy; art market analytic tool, Art Sales Index; Global Consulting and Communications Services -- a global branding, consulting and communications group, and through the Louise Blouin Foundation runs the Blouin Creative Leadership Summit in New York, and the Louise Blouin Foundation Museum in London. The company's mission is to promote cultural understanding and acceptance beyond our borders through dialog and education.

About ARTINFO
ARTINFO is the online destination of Louise Blouin Media, the world's leading cultural media group. Their mission is to provide unparalleled access to the world of art and culture. Each day, ARTINFO.com offers breaking news, profiles of top and emerging artists, stories about collectors and collecting, gallery round-ups from around the world, the best of student art, market trends and analysis, and detailed coverage of art fairs.

Said Magnify.net CEO Steven Rosenbaum:  "This is a time of extraordinary change for both consumers and retailers.  We believe that customers want to connect with brands, know what they believe in, and support those companies that are engaged in work to make the world a better place. Since in 1972 Yvon Chouinard has been making great clothing and doing good work. As online video moves to the mainstream, Patagonia is embracing this medium to invite their visitors to view, and share stories about the world.  We’re very proud to be helping them build this world-class multi-media offering.”

Patagonia often features environmental campaigns in their catalogs and ads – including "Ocean As A Wilderness", and "Don't Dam Patagonia".

Said Bill Boland, Patagonia’s Creative Director, Online;  “We acknowledge that the wild world we love best is disappearing. That is why those of us who work here share a strong commitment to protecting undomesticated lands and waters. We believe in using business to inspire solutions to the environmental crisis.  Video, photos and audio are  powerful tools to connect people, ideas, and issues.  We went in search of a partner who understood our vision, and could power our multi-media strategy going forward.  We found Magnify.net – a mix of technology, curation solutions, and a passionate team.  Together, we expect to build a brand, lifestyle and ecommerce experience that will connect with our customers and provide both knowledge and entertainment for them.”

About Patagonia:

Patagonia, with sales last year of over $330M, is noted internationally for its commitment to product quality and environmental activism. Incorporating environmental responsibility in to product development, the company has, since 1996, used only organically grown cotton in its clothing line. With its most recent launch of synthetic fiber-to-fiber recycling, Patagonia is taking back worn-out polyester and nylon clothing and reincarnating it as new products, forever capturing the raw materials used in making virgin fiber. The company also advocates corporate transparency through its interactive website, The Footprint Chronicles, which outlines the environmental and social footprint of individual products. Patagonia was featured as The Coolest Company on the Planet on Fortune Magazine’s April 2007 cover.

About Magnify:

Magnify.net platform currently provides video discovery, upload, and encoding to more than 82,000 publishers, ecommerce sites, and communities. Users can immediately deploy a Media 2.0 strategy by enabling them to leverage their best assets and combine them with those curated and uploaded by their community from across the social Web. The Network provides a cost-effective and automated service that features and delivers a unique and engaging video mix. For more information, please visit the company web site at www.Magnify.net.

Minyanville creates and curates market commentary and produces Emmy Award-winning video that informs, entertains, and educates the professional trading audience as well as individual investors and families. The website strives to affect positive change through financial understanding by connecting with a highly desirable audience. Now, by engaging Magnify.net, Minyanville readers will be able to view relevant videos in real time throughout the trading day.

"We've seen our original video views continue to grow, with shows like 'Pop Biz' and 'Hoofy & Boo's News and Views.' It's been clear that our visitors want to watch more and more video as the web emerges as the future of business information and real-time data," said Kevin Wassong, the President of Minyanville.com. "We set out to find a partner that could support our significant video upload, encoding, storage, and delivery needs and seamlessly offer our editors a video curation solution. Magnify.net provides a brilliant market-leading platform - one that we know will allow us to increase our video offerings and grow our video SEO and give us increased inventory for our growing roster of advertising partners."

The partnership calls for Magnify.net to build and deliver video pages to the Minyanville.com site, and may expand to service other Minyanville Media partners and sites in the months ahead.

The Magnify.net Platform will allow Minyanville to search video sources for relevant content to add to the Minyanville channel, provide its readers the opportunity to rate and share videos, and join the Minyanville social networking community. These features will create a more dynamic experience and promote Minyanville's position as an ever-growing financial video platform.  

"This is an important partnership," said Magnify.net CEO Steven Rosenbaum. "As the noise on the web continues to grow, we're seeing algorithmic content sorting break down. Increasingly, visitors looking for information and editorial are relying on trusted sources. Minyanville's financial acumen is unparalleled, and visitors have learned to trust both their high-quality created content, and the contributors and curated content that Minyanville editors bring together."

Google Analytics reports that Minyanville.com was the second fastest-growing financial and business destination in 2008. According to Quantcast, Minyanville.com reaches the most affluent, college-educated, 35-64 year old demographic in the category, consistently ranking in the top five Quantified web sites.

ABOUT MINYANVILLE

Minyanville Media, Inc. Properties include http://www.minyanville.com,  http://www.buzzandbanter.com, http://www.minyanland.com, and cater to three audience segments: general investors, professional traders and families with kids. Minyanville has strategic partnerships with Yahoo!, MarketWatch, Dow Jones, MSN, AOL, Bloomberg, Fox Business Network and other premium financial information outlets and is the primary provider of financial intelligence and community tools for TD Ameritrade.

BlackBook is the insider's guide to where style and substance intersect in popular culture. BlackBook provides sophisticated, relevant, and visually stunning takes on restaurants, nightlife, travel, fashion, Hollywood, entertainment, and the arts.

In making the announcement, BlackBook SVP of Content Chris Mohney said: "The Magnify platform gives our editors amazing curatorial mojo. We're excited to be able to collect, organize, and recommend video for our content-hungry users. A multitude of social functions will allow sharing and interaction across the site and, eventually, into our mobile apps as well. With video on the rise, it was only natural for us to align with a dominant partner like Magnify.net."

Magnify.net is the largest video curation platform on the web today, powering more than 82,000 sites of curated video content.

"The web is under construction," said Magnify.net CEO Steven Rosenbaum. "The old days of text and photos are fast being replaced by a real-time, video-enabled ecosystem. BlackBook's partners and users -- in particular mobile users -- will be excited to have full motion video as part of their BBook.com experience. And we expect that they'll contribute video to BBook.com as well."

Mohney explained: "Our users are early adopters. We see mobile as central to our vision, and mobile video is critical as well. The BlackBook audience will be able to watch and interact with our video curations wherever they are."

BlackBook's insider reviews of restaurants, bars, clubs, shops, and health & beauty extend across more than 20 mobile apps for the iPhone and Android, as well as several websites. A combination technology startup and profitable media business, BlackBook was among the first to integrate Foursquare into their guides. Adding video is the most recent effort by BMC to bring BlackBook's authoritative and irreverent guide listings directly to users in ways that best suit their digital lifestyles.

About BMC

BlackBook Media Corp. is the insiders' guide to style and culture. We deliver our fashion and entertainment guides through mobile applications, BBook.com, pocket-sized city guidebooks and a visually arresting monthly magazine. The BlackBook Guides on BBook.com provide highly configurable search parameters and are the ultimate curated source to find the best restaurants, bars & clubs, hotels, shopping and more in major U.S. and international cities. Check us out and get in at BBook.com, and watch for the site's major relaunch in November 2010.

About Magnify.net

Magnify.net platform currently provides video discovery, upload, and encoding to more than 82,000 publishers, ecommerce sites, and communities. Users can immediately deploy a Media 2.0 strategy. The Network provides a cost-effective and automated service that features and delivers a unique and engaging video mix.

Now the NWF is moving into video in a big way to inform its current and prospective members and support its ongoing campaigns - adding more than 11 video channels of video to the Federation's web site. Matt Schuttloffel, Vice President, Systems and Technology for National Wildlife Federation, explains: "We see online video as an extremely powerful way to communicate and engage anyone interested in wildlife or our mission. We're excited to partner with Magnify.net to build such a robust video experience on our website and we look forward to expanding our video offerings in the weeks and months ahead."

The NWF Channels are organized by relevant conservation topics and will include themes like Birds and Birding, Campus Ecology, Garden for Wildlife, and Kids.

Said Magnify.net CEO Steven Rosenbaum, “It is clear that the National Wildlife Federation’s mission is well-suited for video. Visitors looking for information, content, and engaging video will be assured of high-quality, accurate and compelling information.”

The National Wildlife Federation strives to remain “a national network of like-minded state and territorial groups, seeking balanced, common-sense solutions to environmental problems that work for wildlife and people.” Its mission statement is “to inspire Americans to protect wildlife for our children’s future.”

Magnify.net will provide the Federation with a powerful set of platform-based tools to publish, gather, and invite contributed content to their site. The Magnify Curation solution is quickly becoming an industry-leading solution as publishers, brands, and not-for-profits discover the power of video content curation.

Said Magnify CEO Rosenbaum: “For an organization like National Wildlife Federation, there is an enormous amount of knowledge that can be leveraged to make their site a valuable resource. With issues like climate, the ability for web visitors to get accurate and timely information is critical. NWF is able to leverage their academic and intellectual assets to both create video, but also gather and curate video for visitors. This model is efficient, and it’s essential — as unfiltered web content is often biased or inaccurate.”

“We take our responsibility seriously,” said Mr. Schuttloffel. “Providing a place that can present and filter video for visitors becomes increasingly important as the web emerges as the distribution platform for both videos and television more broadly. We’re excited to be leading the charge, and providing wildlife, conservation and education video to our growing visitor base.”

About NWF:

The National Wildlife Federation has been inspiring Americans to protect wildlife for our children’s future since 1936. We are America’s conservation organization, helping to confront global warming, safeguard wildlife and connect people to nature. Visit us at http://www.nwf.org

About Magnify.net

Magnify.net platform currently provides video discovery, upload, and encoding to more than 80,000 publishers, ecommerce sites, and communities.

Said Magnify.net CEO Steven Rosenbaum: "We see book publishing being in a time of momentous change. For publishers like Sterling, with a long-standing tradition of high-quality printed books, to extend its brands by building best-of-breed digital offerings is very exciting. We're proud to have been chosen to power video publishing, aggregation, and curation for Pixiq - and see it as a sign of great things to come."

According to Joseph Craven, Sterling's Director of Corporate Development overseeing the Pixiq launch, "Whether or not you're a photo 'gearhead,' there is no doubt that being fluent in the technology underlying digital photography is a huge benefit to your shooting. Here you can see the latest gear reviewed by trusted authorities, search for essential accessories to augment your shooting style, and learn what exactly happens when you press that shutter button. Pixiq experts are some of the most highly respected and technically astute professional digital photographers shooting today."

Pixiq is a product of Sterling Publishing Co. Inc., whose mission is to publish high-quality non-fiction books that educate, entertain, and enrich the lives of their readers.

Said Sterling's Craven of the choice of Magnify.net to power Pixiq's video: "We were looking for a partner who could provide a solid infrastructure for video hosting, storage, delivery, and mobile - and Magnify.net fit the bill. But then, as we knew we wanted pixel perfect pages, and the ability to mix Created, Curated, and Contributed content from multiple sources, Magnify.net stood head and shoulders above the rest. We are excited to be working with the Magnify.net team - and look forward to being able to share video with our visitors in an organic and immersive way."  

About Sterling:

For 60 years, Sterling has been one of the world's leading publishers of non-fiction books. We strive to publish high-quality books that educate, entertain, and enrich the lives of our readers. We have the reach of a major publisher with the passion and creativity of an independent press. Sterling Publishing Co. Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Barnes & Noble, Inc.

About Magnify:

Magnify.net platform currently provides video discovery, upload, and encoding to more than 80,000 publishers, ecommerce sites, and communities.

In announcing the deal, Magnfy.net CEO Steven Rosenbaum said: "We are huge fans of the Big Apple Circus, and deeply believe that Web video can help to spread the word and invite a new generation of families to come and experience this magical group of performers."

Said Gary Dunning, Executive Director of the Big Apple Circus: "We were looking for a partner who could help us provide visitors with a video experience that would be exciting. While we considered a number of technology providers, we found the Magnify.net solution to be elegant and content friendly. In the end, we want people to enjoy our videos on line, and then come and experience the Circus in person. Magnify understood that, and is working closely with our Web team to implement that solution."

For 32 years the Big Apple Circus, New York's original one-ring circus, has been delighting audiences of all ages under its Big Top, presenting the finest in live family entertainment featuring world-class circus artistry. Experience the instant connection between audience and artist as your family sits less than 50 feet from the ring. The Big Apple Circus is a not-for-profit performing arts and outreach institution committed to invigorating the communities we serve with the joy and wonder of classical circus. The spectacular Big Apple Circus leaps into its 33rd Season with a thrilling All-New Show, Dance On!

Now, Big Apple is a tradition - and fast becoming a TV phenomenon as well. Circus lovers everywhere will have twice the excitement, fearlessness and artistry to look forward to this fall -- courtesy of New York's own hometown circus, the not-for-profit Big Apple Circus (http://www.bigapplecircus.org) and PBS public television. "The PBS documentary marks the first time in our 32-year history that we granted this level of backstage access to anyone," said Artistic Director Guillaume Dufresnoy, who is featured throughout the "Circus" documentary and worked hand-in-hand with every department of Big Apple Circus and the Emmy Award-winning Show Of Force producers on the extensive coordination needed to create the extraordinary series.

Magnify will power original video produced by the Circus, as well as give the Circus website video aggregation and curation capability and invite user-generated video as well.

From an audience perspective, the ability to embed videos on other sites is what expands their viewership and makes them go viral. But from an advertising perspective, most of that video is the Web equivalent of dead air. “Nobody sells embedded video because nobody knows where it is going,” says Magnify.net CEO Steve Rosenbaum. He has a partial fix for that, a new video advertising product he calls Elastic Inventory (more on that below).

Magnify offers a video aggregation platform that powers the video sections of mid-sized Web publishers such as New York Magazine, Bicycling, and The Week. Magnify lets these publishers upload their own video and mix that with video from more than 20 video sites across the Web such as YouTube, Metacafe, and Dailymotion.

The problem is that those publishers can’t run any pre-roll ads against those “curated” videos. But Magnify is starting to broker deals with the large video-sharing sites, starting with Metacafe, to allow publishers who use Magnify to insert their own pre-roll ads in the embedded videos. Magnify negotiates for the ad inventory on a wholesale basis across its network, allowing a publisher to buy video ads at a $5 CPM, for instance, and sell it at the $15 or $20 CPMs their own video ad inventory goes for. They pocket the spread in between (Magnify does not take a cut, it charges for its white-label video platform instead). The product is called Elastic Inventory because publishers don’t have to commit to buying any of the video ad space until they’ve already sold it. If they don’t sell it, they can continue to run the videos without ads.

The thinking is that advertisers are willing to pay higher CPMs for safe video inventory on what they deem to be high-quality sites. They don’t care if it is user-generated video as long as they’ve been vetted, which is what the editors on these Magnify-powered sites do. They are buying the known audience which visits these publishers and the controlled context in which these videos are shown.

Rosenbaum wants to cut deals for Elastic Inventory across all the major video-sharing sites. Dailymotion is probably next, but I doubt YouTube would ever agree to an arrangement where they lose control of the market for their video ads. And YouTube represents the lion’s share of embedded videos across Magnify-powered sites and elsewhere. Now, Magnify publishers will have an economic incentive to choose videos from other video-sharing sites instead.

Magnify "PRO" is off to a fast start.

Yes, we had a few bumps in the road – and we appreciate that many of you reached out.  Overall,  we think that the new Free/Basic is the right product for folks who want to build small sites or just have a curation hobby site.  And PRO is built for business builders who want to have their costs start very modestly ($9.95 a month is pretty much the best deal in town)  and then grow as traffic grows.   We’re continuing to look at our partners and we’ll consider adding new categories and features once we’ve gotten a few more months under our belt.  But you can expect great things from PRO – we think our PRO customers are doing amazing things.

Curation trend continues to build across the web, sites big and small.
Magnify.net CEO Steve Rosenbaum has been preaching the gospel of Curation at conferences, panels, and in company Board Rooms.  If you haven't read his controvertial blog post:  “Content is no longer King,  Curation is King” take a sec and read it HERE.

Well, now big media is taking notice.  McGrawHill Business books has signed Steve to write the definitive book on Curation – coming to bookstore near you in the early spring of next year.  The title is Curation Nation… so keep your eye out for what is sure to be the biggest business book of the spring.

YouTube Syndication Revamped
Those of you that are fans of the YouTube syndication feature are in for a treat.  Previously, you were able to syndicate videos to your YouTube channel only at the meta-data entry page.  We have now made it possible to syndicate that uploaded content at any time you like.  To see what has changed in action, check out our tutorial video HERE (By Joseph Ng, more on him later!)

Elastic Inventory
Recently we announced an initiative that will help bridge the gap between publishers and video web sites by providing contextually relevant video to site specific advertisers.  The first partners to jump on the bandwagon are Metacafe and Dailymotion, both of which provide excellent original content that some of our bigger clients can use, and receive a slice of the revenue.

To read a little bit more about the announcement, you can find it HERE at TechCrunch.


New Magnify Partnerships and Enterprise clients

Smart content platform Daylife announced the launch of its new Ignite Technology Partner Program. The program enables content creators, software vendors and service providers to integrate Daylife-powered functionality and technology into their product offerings.

Upendra Shardanand, Chief Executive Officer of Daylife, commenting on the announcement.
“In the former content economy, everyone produced their own content and built their own applications, with limited syndication,” Shardanand continued. “Now we are witnessing innovation in content production, and an explosion in content applications. Daylife is pleased it can make it easier to curate, discover, and integrate content.”

"We're seeing an evolution in the way sites both create and curate content," said Magnify.net Chief Executive Officer Steve Rosenbaum. "Daylife has proven itself to be the leader in content for sites looking to add multi-source text and images to their video offering. We're excited to partner with Daylife to offer their services to the 70,000 channels on the Magnify network."

To read the full release, check it out on our blog HERE

News Enterprise Clients
Gaycast.net – The leaders in the online advertising vertical targeted towards the gay and lesbian community. Gay Ad Network is gearing up to be the leaders in the online video space of alternative lifestyle and has chosen Magnify.net as the premier platform for their video content.  Gaycast.net will feature content based on entertainment, music, fashion and much more within the gay community.

Boise Weekly
We’re proud to announce a new enterprise client, Boise Weekly, a locally owned alternative newspaper that serves the local community in Boise, Idaho.  To start their new video site off, they are running a contest for users to submit their best video about Idaho in less than three minutes.  They’ve got some interesting entries so far, check them out here!

Contests Galore!
Our friends are Roc4Life have just finished up receiving entries for their contest series called "Who's Next" and are now moving into the voting stage.  The contests are calling for all who think they have what it takes to be the next big thing in sports, music, community activist, visual artists, models and stylists.  Head on over to the contest page at Roc4Life's site to check out the entires and vote on your favorite video or photo for each category!

Featured Channel for August
For all of you cheese fans out there that love the smell a block of Stilton, you’re in for a treat!  Our featured site for August is video.allthingscheese.com and has a remarkable curated collection of the finer things in the cheese world.  Need some help on how to cook Paneer cheese?  Well, this channel has you covered from Anari Cheese to Zamorano!

Mouse internship program
In a partnership with the New York Tech MeetUp, Magnify is proud to be participating in the Mouse internship program.  Magnify is one of the 9 companies participating in this years' program, and we’re happy to have Joseph Ng on board and helping us out this summer.  Joseph has been using his expertise in video editing and motion graphics on our Curation Nation site, as well as curating vidoes for our client sites.  Joseph has been a great candidate so far, and we hope his next few years in college will be just as productive!  Here’s a couple of words from the little rascal:



What’s up! My name is Joseph Ng and I’m glad you’ve bothered to read more about me! I am a young Asian American teenage planning to major in Graphic Arts hoping to do both film and design. As you know I’m interning at Magnify.net, learning the platform and actually helping out a bit unlike other companies who make their interns do coffee runs.

My dream is to become a famous big shot editor but to get to that goal, I’m going to need to start somewhere. Magnify.net is a perfect stepping stone since they do web and video site creation for many clients. Praying that their wisdom will pass down to me I hope to become successful in my goals while interning at Magnify.net!

And that about does it for the latest round of updates here at Magnify.net.  If you have any questions about any of the items mentioned in our newsletter, you can reach out to Filip by e-mailing him at Filip@magnify.net.  We hope everyone enjoys their last month of summer remaining!

Steve, Magnus, and the entire Magnify.net crew

New York, NY (PRWEB) July 21, 2010

Smart content platform Daylife today announced the launch of its new Ignite Technology Partner Program. The program enables content creators, software vendors and service providers to integrate Daylife-powered functionality and technology into their product offerings.

By supporting the creation of more content applications based on the Daylife platform, the program expands the number of publishers and people Daylife’s technology will serve. Inaugural partners include Brainient, Cell Journalist, Demotix, Internet Broadcasting, Magnify.net,, Parse.ly, Redlasso, Sailthru, WebMynd, and Zemanta.

“We’re witnessing the maturation of the content space,” said Upendra Shardanand, Chief Executive Officer of Daylife, commenting on the announcement.

“In the former content economy, everyone produced their own content and built their own applications, with limited syndication,” Shardanand continued. “Now we are witnessing innovation in content production, and an explosion in content applications. Daylife is pleased it can make it easier to curate, discover, and integrate content.”

Partners benefit from access to the Daylife API, a platform that enables developers to source, analyze and query a variety of media types from thousands of sources. Partners use Daylife’s technology to build products that are interoperable with a wide network of media applications, and reach Daylife’s high-profile client base of major publishers and digital brand destinations.

Technology partner Zemanta's Founder and Chief Executive Officer Boštjan Špeti
stated that, "Zemanta recommends content to bloggers through easy to use tools. We are excited to be working with Daylife to bring more diverse, multi-format, high-quality content to the 30,000 bloggers using Zemanta today."

"We're seeing an evolution in the way sites both create and curate content," said Magnify.net Chief Executive Officer Steve Rosenbaum. "Daylife has proven itself to be the leader in content for sites looking to add multi-source text and images to their video offering. We're excited to partner with Daylife to offer their services to the 70,000 channels on the Magnify network."

In addition, Jeff Kimball, Internet Broadcasting's Chief Operating Officer, commented that, “Internet Broadcasting’s mission is to engage consumers on behalf of our local media partners. Daylife’s technology allows IB to build those experiences in a new and easy way. The end result is that IB’s partners win with better online experiences and consumers win by getting more of what they want online.”

Daylife’s current clients include USA Today, ABC News, National Public Radio, Dallas Morning News, Forbes, and Time Warner Cable Road Runner. The Ignite Technology Partner Program will significantly expand Daylife’s client reach to hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized bloggers and publishers.

Daylife is now accepting new partner applications. Interested parties are invited to contact partners@daylife.com or visit http://corp.daylife.com/partners to learn more.

About Daylife

Daylife (http://www.daylife.com) is the leading smart content platform for the world's biggest media companies and consumer destinations, including USA Today, ABC News, NPR, Forbes and Time Warner Cable's Road Runner. In 2009, Daylife was named one of Business Week's "FIfty Best Tech Startups" and a Top 50 Real-Time Startup by ReadWriteWeb. With its SmartMedia suite, Daylife helps publishers source, manage and compose high quality content at massive scale, turning material from their own catalog and from the best of the web into highly engaging reader- and advertiser-friendly web pages, apps, and widgets. Daylife services include Platform API, SmartSections, SmartTopics, and SmartGalleries. Founded in 2005, Daylife is headquartered in downtown New York City and recently closed a strategic investment from Getty Images, Inc.

Steve Rosenbaum, our CEO, has written an in-depth analysis of the things to come in the future of online news.  In his analysis, he looks at Print Dailies, News Weeklies, News Aggregators, Cable News Wire Services, and Entertainment Destinations and shares the hard facts on who's getting it right - and who will be suffering in the coming months.

Download the white paper here

Ok, I hear all the content-makers sharpening their knives to take me on.

I'm ready.

First, why content is dead:

Content used to be the high quality media that came out of the very pointed end of the funnel. Articles in the New York Times. Movies from Miramax. Thursday night comedy from NBC. Books published by Simon and Schuster. Creative folks wrote pitches, treatments, sample chapters, pilots, but only the best of the best got published.

Then, the web came along and blew that up. Kaboom! Now content has gone from being scarce to being ubiquitous. Bloggers make content. Flickr photographers make content. Facebook posts are content. Tumblr publishers make content. Content isn't King because it isn't scarce. It's everywhere, it's overwhelming, and it's gone from quality to noise.

Which isn't to say that this is a bad thing -- it's actually very very good. It's freedom. It's public discourse. It's new communities that were previously silenced by their inability to access broadcast distribution outlets now getting to have their chance in the spotlight.

As someone said to me a few weeks back: "Andy Warhol was wrong. We're not going to be famous for 15 minutes. We're each going to be famous for 15 People." Indeed.

So let's look at the relative explosion in content and why this trend is only going to continue to grow massively:

Devices: Everything makes media now. Cell phones, laptops, digital cameras, iPads, web cams, as well as location aware software like Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp and a zillion others. The combination of where we are, what we like, what we're doing and what we're saying all creates micro-media. Content is being exuded out of our digital pores.

Bandwidth: 3G is here, 4G is around the corner. Wifi is slowly but surely being pushed out and shared, though it's currently strangled by passwords and firewalls. But just watching the 'check in' phenomena of Foursquare is a clue about how quickly content creation is becoming an everyday part of what we do.

Sociology: People like sharing. They like sharing bite size info about what they're doing, where they are, who they're with, what they're buying. They massive influx of consumer created crowd content shifts content from scarcity to abundance, and then to an overwhelming fire-hose of undifferentiated data.

So, what institutions does this 'Content Tsunami' put under pressure?

Publishing: In a world where everyone makes content, publishing is no longer able to lay claim to being the 'best' maker of quality content in their field. In fact, content creation is costly and painful though this may be, may not result in measurably better content than content curation. Mixing creation and curation is essential for survival. Check out Huffington Post for a mix of created, curated, and crowd-sourced content.

Experts: It used to be that there were a handful of folks who where thought of as experts in their field. So the folks who owned the publishing platforms got to determine who was an 'expert' and build their brand. Now, that's upside-down. Social media superstars are able to create visibility though leadership and personal brand value with ubiquity of voice. The new Expert is the leader with the most twitter followers, not the person on the speed-dial from CNN.

Advertising: We're standing at the end of an era. "Mass Media", the ability to reach large segments of the population with a single message is essentially over. For advertisers, the need to find content in context, and to have that context be appropriate for their message and their brand is critical. So, Curation replaces Creation as the coin of the realm for advertiser-safe environments. No longer can advertisers simply default to big destination sites. The audience is too diffuse and the need to filter and organize quality crowd-created content is too critical.

Search: Search was a critical solution to bringing audience to the web. But today the vectors that you can "search" on don't reflect what audiences need to know to find what matters to them. Search provides the name, date, and other algorithmically chosen variables. But what makes an article right for Huffington Post, but wrong for News Max? The voice of the content and the context, which require human curation and crowd collaboration.

We've arrived in a world where everyone is a content creator. And quality content is determined by context. Finding, Sorting, Endorsing, Sharing - it's the beginning of a new chapter. And not since Gutenberg have we seen such a significant change in who's able to use the tools of content creation to engage in a public dialog.

The emergence of a new King -- a Curation King, reflects the rise of the new Aggregation Economy. It is an exciting time to be in content, and the best is yet to come.

Our intern, Samantha Kirschberg, said it best when describing the booths at the Internet Week Headquarters:

Taking a walk around the IWNY Headquarters you could see people using a realistic spray can to draw graffiti on a digital screen, Corbis taking black and white polaroids of attendees, Maker Bot Industries showing off their machine that made plastic bottle openers in front of your eyes, all among several other companies discussing what they do and giving away freebies(which no one can deny).


Blip.tv party

Photo courtesy of Matt Caldecutt

Tech MeetUp


Ryan Lawler interviews Steve Rosenbaum on "Content Creation vs. Content Curation"



And lastely, The Webby Awards, where the Magnify street crew was out in full force handing out SWAG.  Magnus even made a couple of appearances throughout the week.

CAMBRIDGE, MA – MAY 3, 2010 - Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leader in powering video, dynamic transactions and enterprise applications online, today announced that  Magnify.net has chosen Akamai as the primary video delivery network for its 68,000 web video channels Magnify.net chose Akamai’s global distribution platform for its performance and scalability to ensure uninterrupted, high quality, buffer free streaming of hundreds of thousands of videos during peak times. 

Magnify.net is the leading platform for publishers, brands, and ecommerce companies looking to add Curated Video Content (CVC) to their web-publishing offering.  Digital video curation is a new model publishers are embracing by aggregating relevant video content from various web sources and offer it to their viewers. Magnify provides publishers with a unified solution for video upload,  encoding, storage, and delivery,  along with the ability to offer user generated content alongside web aggregated and curated content.  In the past twelve months, Magnify.net has added almost 20,000 channels, and now provides services to best-of-breed partners including New York Magazine, Jay Z’s Roc4Life, Dennis Publishing’s The Week, and Rodale’s Bicycling.com.

“We're seeing curated video, which is more personalized and valued, shift the balance of power back to brands and publications,” said Magnify.net CEO, Steven Rosenbaum. “Customers are uploading their videos to our platform, and reliability, quality, and scalability are now mission-critical to a high quality consumer experience.  The growth of online publishing platforms and higher quality content, as well as the proliferation of connected and mobile devices opens up new opportunities for video, but requires the distributed architecture and scalability of Akamai’s global network.”

“Video ad revenue is tied directly to audience and viewership and one of the big challenges in the publishing industry is driving more video impressions and growing audiences,” said Robert Hughes, Executive Vice President of Global Sales, Services and Marketing at Akamai. “Publishers need to find ways to drive audiences to their video and increase impressions and that’s what Magnify does – they offer an easy way to increase video content libraries, make it easier to find relevant content, and help publishers grow their video businesses. Video is at the tipping point, from premium content to user generated content to live events, and users expect smooth playback, a buffer free experience and fast start up times. We look forward to working with Magnify to ensure their customers deliver on this experience to their viewers.”

About Magnify.net
Magnify.net platform currently provides video discovery, upload, and encoding to more than 68,000 publishers, ecommerce sites, and communities. Users can immediately deploy a Media 2.0 strategy by enabling them to leverage their best assets and combine them with those curated and uploaded by their community from across the social Web. The Network provides a cost-effective and automated service that features and delivers a unique and engaging video mix. For more information, please visit the company web site at www.Magnify.net.

The Akamai Difference
Akamai® provides market-leading managed services for powering video, dynamic transactions, and enterprise applications online.  Having pioneered the content delivery market one decade ago, Akamai's services have been adopted by the world's most recognized brands across diverse industries.  The alternative to centralized Web infrastructure, Akamai's global network of tens of thousands of distributed servers provides the scale, reliability, insight and performance for businesses to succeed online.  Akamai has transformed the Internet into a more viable place to inform, entertain, interact, and collaborate.  To experience The Akamai Difference, visit www.akamai.com.

 iPad-video.com - The month of April has brought about it the birth of the iPad; the very capable tablet that sets its goal to making news publications and online media a more intimate experience.  Two people in the Magnify office currently have an iPad but they’ve been hogging it all day, so I have to resort to watching videos about it on this channel.  IPad-video.com has a nice collection of videos that cover the several platform exclusive apps so you will know where to spend your hard earned cash.  I have to say though; my favorite clip is the folks at “Will It Blend” sticking a shiny new iPad into a blender. 

RC Planes – I remember during my childhood years going to the park with my parents and watching people flying their RC planes.  I always said to myself that I would get involved with that hobby when I was older.  However, I have yet to find time to set aside for said hobby.  When I stumbled upon the RC Planes channel, I was immediately flooded with my childhood memories of watching “pilots” flying their very expensive “hobbies” in the air.  This channel showcases quite beautifully the different kinds of RC Planes from Jets to Gliders and even airplane crashes!  These things aren’t cheap either, so it’s painful to watch so much money going away when a pilot makes a mistake in landing or worse, colliding into another plane.

 Video Sangha - The last site I would like to show you is an interesting niche community that deals with Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO).  The one thing that I would like to point out is how well designed this site is by using our free platform.  These guys are obviously skilled in some CSS wizardry and have successfully adapted the channel to feel like an full fleshed out video experience, even though they are just linking you to custom pages and playlist pages.

If you think your channel is up to snuff to be featured in our monthly featured channels segment, please send me the channel URL to Filip(at)Magnify.net.  I would love to see what you have built!

By Rob ORegan

Video is hot. Curation is hot. So why not combine the two?

That’s the premise of Magnify.net, a video publishing platform designed to help publishers build libraries of videos culled from a variety of sources. The company claims a customer base of 69,000, including publication websites such as New York Magazine and associations such as American Business Media.

A few key themes emerged from a phone interview I had with Magnify’s founder and CEO Steve Rosenbaum. 

Three sources of content

First, unless you’re a broadcast or cable company whose business is creating video content, you’ll never have the resources required to create enough original video to scale – at least to the point where the cost of making it is less than the revenue you draw from it. Rosenbaum doesn’t discourage publishers from making their own video content, but he sees it as just one component in the overall video mix, complemented by video that exists broadly on the web (e.g., on YouTube, Hulu, or on corporate sites) and video that your audience submits directly to you. 

Those three sources address the volume issue. The differentiator, Rosenbaum said, is a publisher’s ability to curate those videos in a way that’s contextually relevant to its audience. Simply aggregating video is not enough, considering all the banal or inappropriate content that would be scooped up as part of a fully automated solution. Which means no cute cats – unless those suit your audience. “It is possible to have Magnify put videos on your site without human interaction, but we do not recommend that,” Rosenbaum said.

Magnify automates the feeds but lets the publishers decide which trusted content sources to pull from, and those sources can be set up with different levels of permission. Some videos, for example, might require approval before being posted, while others can be published directly to the library.

Monetization options

Another key element is how Magnify can help publishers monetize their video libraries. By embedding videos on their own video channel instead of on YouTube, publishers will see higher CPMs. In addition, those videos will likely draw additional traffic as they are syndicated across the Web. “Once a video through Magnify is brought to your page, everywhere it goes from there, all that traffic comes back to you,” Rosenbaum said. “We’re crediting value to the curator.”

Publishers are also creating an additional revenue stream by integrating sponsored video into the Magnify platform. New York magazine has done this with a series of videos from Target (scroll to the bottom of the page on this link). 

Filling a niche

Another key point: Rosenbaum believes there’s enough video content on the Web to make curation a viable option for even the nichiest of publishers.

“Niche magazines are looking for new revenue sources. And in some ways, the further you get into the niches, the more surprising the level of quality [of video] you get back,” he said. “If you’re ‘Industrial Bedsprings Weekly,’ there are videos that every one of the suppliers and manufacturers in that industry have made that are sitting somewhere on a server, waiting to be aggregated.

“The ABM has a very narrow, long tail,” added Rosenbaum, “and we have no trouble finding content for them.”

Warming up to UGC

Rosenbaum also noted that publishers are warming up to the concept of publishing user-generated videos. “If you’re Golf Digest, and every reader has a camera that they’re taking on their golf vacations, why wouldn’t you want them to share those videos with other passionate golfers?”

There’s a clear economic benefit as well, because the publisher now can directly monetize those videos.

All the more reason, he says, for wary publishers to begin cultivating user-submitted videos. “If you’re not raising your hand and inviting visitors to send you video, you can bet that someone else is,” he said. “And once users commit to doing that for another site, it’s much harder to steer them back to you.”

Magnify charges a monthly licensing fee for its enterprise platform, which encompasses a full content management system for locating, retrieving, uploading and organizing videos, embeddable players and thumbnail widgets, advertising and campaign management tools and  analytics (there are also free and pro versions for smaller sites). The company also takes a cut from any revenues derived from the videos.

“We want our pricing model to reflect your revenue model,” Rosenbaum says. “You sell on a CPM basis. We charge on a CPM basis. We don’t believe publishers want to buy bandwidth.”

Rob O'Regan runs the editorial operations for eMediaVitals. A longtime journalist and editorial consultant, Rob has written extensively on media, marketing and technology topics for a variety of publications and corporate clients. In 2006, Rob founded 822 Media, a consultancy that advises clients on editorial strategy and content development. 

Previously, Rob worked at IDG's CXO Media, where he served as general manager of online operations and as the founding Editor in Chief of CMO, a critically acclaimed monthly magazine and website targeted at senior marketing executives. The publication received numerous awards during O’Regan’s tenure, including the ASBPE’s Magazine of the Year award in 2005. He was named one of Min magazine’s “21 Most Intriguing People” in 2005. 

Prior to CMO, O’Regan was a senior editor with McKinsey & Company, the global consulting firm. Before McKinsey, O’Regan spent 14 years at Ziff-Davis’s PC Week (now eWeek), where as executive news editor he directed print and online news coverage for the award-winning tech newsweekly.

With all the talk about changes in web video, we thought it would be a good time to have a chat with our resident expert - Kimberly Peterson, our VP of Technology. Certainly the release of the iPad has generated a lot of excitement about the new platform - but also for sites some questions about what new technology they'll need to embrace in order to serve pages to the new iPad. The word we hear being thrown around a lot is HTML 5.

We wondered,what exactly is HTML5?



What if you've got visitors who say they're looking at your video and it doesn't work right? What can you do about that?


Ok, so we get that HTML5 isn't that scary - and in fact most sites that are built that work on the iPhone are already HTML5 ready. check with your developers - your experiences may vary. But, what if you want your site to work on the iPad, do you need to build an 'app' or an you need to build an iPad Site?



Ok, so you've done it. Your video is in H264 - it works on the iPad. How? Is it code? Is it Magic? What's the deal?

Today - magazines are watching their multi-media offering take a giant step forward with the launch of Apple's new portable,  full motion,  full color tablet device.   While many publishers have been committed to flash-based players,   the early implementation winners can be seen in magazines that embraced the HTML5 format and search friendly metadata and page layout that  come from that format.

One of the leaders in the digital magazine space is New York Magazine (videos.nymag.com),  who provide visitors with both an on page,  and in blog video offering.

Looking more to breaking news - a site like Dan Abram's Mediaite.com is doing fast turn around of media news from across the video landscape.  They're finding,  editing, organizing, and publishing - fast.  Here is a place where the of HTML over flash is of paramount importance... making your pages and your video content visible and findable to the major search engines as they're published.

Another major national magazine that is using the Aggregation and Curation model to provide readers/viewers with a powerful compendium of political news from across the spectrum is the editorial team at The Week.   A quick review shows that The Week is doing something that you can't find on television,  a cross-network editorial filter that brings together the weeks Sunday news shows into a bite sized editorial package.   Text and Video,  seamlessly integrated.

Web video on the iPad is a godsend for breaking news in video - but that's hardly the only use for a hybrid publication of text,  photo's and video. Take for example the Readers Digest publication Taste Of Home.   TOH is a deep and rich collection of 'how to' videos for a family cook who's looking to put wholesome dinners on the family table.  But for anyone who's tried to use a laptop in the kitchen or read recipes from the computer in the den,  the iPad is going to change the use of Kitchen video forever.    Now you've got the videos that have been collected and approved by Taste of Home cooks is ready to be sitting by stove...

It's clear already -  web video is going to be a huge driver of both sales and use for the iPad.  It's bright,  it's light,  it has more than 10 hours of continuous play battery life,  and it mixes text and video and interactive features i a way that seems like it will engage readers and advertisers alike.  Among the feature that can't be overstated is the importance of portability in the use of video that can break free of the office or the living room and be right where you need it to be.  

As one final example,  the tips,  tricks,  and repair help that is offered by Rodale's Bicycling Magazine will give pro cyclists and passionate amateurs alike  a new hands on guidebook of video that can sit comfortably by your bicycling while you adjust the Derailleur or review the proper settings for the breaks.

The iPad is a game changing device for publishers.  It makes content more personal,  gives advertising the ability to be responsive and interactive,  and turns desk bound video into a portable and pleasurable experience.   It's clear that video needs to be part of every magazine experience now,  and as the Curation ecosystem emerges, and more and more sites can embed and embrace video that is contextual and appropriate for their site without having to incur the substantial costs of massive content creation endeavors,  this space is likely to grow rapidly.

First, many of you know or have worked directly with Alan Medvin, our VP of Operations and Strategy.  Alan just passed his two-year anniversary with the company, and has been taking on more and more responsibilities throughout his tenure at the company. 

We're very excited to announce that Alan has been named Magnify.net's Chief Operating Officer.  This is the first time we've had someone in the role, and it means we're growing not just in terms of the size of the business, but also strengthening our leadership team to help guide future growth.  Alan joins CFO Chuck Johnson and CEO Steven Rosenbaum in the 'C' suite, helping to plan the Magnify's technology, business, and customer acquisition growth strategies.

Alan's diverse background includes a degree from the prestigious Babson College in Boston, product and strategy work at Telecommunications firm IPC and Behavioral Advertising technology shop [x+1].  Oh, and did we mention he started and ran his on ice cream shop while in college?  We can't help but think that serving cones of ice cream to screaming children and being the COO of Magnify.net seem to require similar skill sets.

Welcome to your new gig Alan, it's great to have you here to help grow the platform.

In other changes, our long time and much loved Community Manager Billy Linker has wrapped almost two years of work with our customers, partners, and orange mascot to take on a new job at Cake Group NYC.  I'm sure they've heard all the "Let Them Eat Cake" Jokes so we won't try and top those.  But, suffice it to say - Billy makes a terrific icing... and we're proud of all his accomplishments during his tenure here at Magnify.net and we all wish him the best in his new role.

Hard as it may be to top Billy's act, he's trained and handed the Community reigns to his able former intern turned Magnify.net Staffer, Filip Szymanski.  Filip is an expert in the ways of the Magnify.net platform, a charming and outgoing advocate for video curation, and most importantly; the company's most skilled Magnus handler.

As evidence of Filip's unique skill set, we present a reprised edition of the Magnus Birthday Song video that Filip produced while an intern:

http://frisbeegolf.magnify.net/video/Magnus-Celebrates-His-Birthday

And, with that now back in the air - it's time for a new Magnus Global Sprint!

We're looking to find Magnus a few places to visit over the summer (he likes warm weather, beaches and beer).  If you have a Magnify channel and would like to adopt our lovable mascot for a few days, let us know by e-mail worldtour(at)magnify.net.  Just let us know your location, and the great things you'll take Magnus to see, and the places he can experience with you.  We've got a limited number of slots for the Global Sprint, so stake your claim now, or you'll miss the best Mascot visit EVER!

We already have a couple of places lined up, so keep your eyes pealed for where we send him next!

Happy Spring All!

The Magnify Team

So, I've been thinking about the changes in the way the business world is wired today.

Smart, fast, emerging companies are running circles around their bigger forefathers. And of course there are consequences when that happens.

The other day a publishing partner told me that his four-week budget process has become six, and now eight weeks of budgets followed by having forecasts re-cast and re-calculated. Think about that. Almost two months of thinking about the future, while the future continues to spin at a fervent rate around them.

So this leads me to ask the question: Is your company "Agile" enough to survive the new digital pace of the world? And who invented the word "agile" anyway?

Before you answer, let me clarify some terms.

"Agile" is a word that has been used to describe a particular kind of software development process. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development). Dr. Alistair Cockburn is a leader in the field of Agile development.

I decided to reach out and ask him to explain if "Agile" is a programming philosophy or more about humans. Cockburn explained, "It is a general worldview, one of granting importance to person-to-person interactions, of quick feedback, of collaboration, of recognizing that changes in the world can change the goals we set. This worldview is as important in business as it is in software development, as it is in human relations."

He should know, he's credited as the co-author of the Agile Manifesto, which reads in part:

"We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more."

Let me translate for those of you who don't spend tons of time with developers. It means people are key, beta solutions that improve are better than old fashioned 'shrink wrapped' software, customers can teach you a lot, and listen to the market - it's changing as we speak.

Wow. Ok, so it seems like those software guys and their "everything is in beta" mindset may be on to something.

Now, take those rules and try holding them up to your current process.

When you look at Twitter, and someone is tweeting about a problem with your company, or ad campaign, or brand - do you:

a) Put it on a list of things to discuss at the next company off-site?

b) Call someone and yell?

c) Fix it?

(Clue: according to the Agile guys, it's 'c' all the way).

Because Twitter isn't a complaint hotline, it's real-time real-world customer feedback. It's a GOOD thing. If you know something is broken, you can fix it. So, thank whoever is on Twitter taking the time to help you refine your product - the alternative is silence that can kill you.

So does Cockburn see Agile as more than a tech solution? "Absolutely," he says. "In fact, 'agile' was a business term years before we used it in software development, and had almost the same definition or purpose. Perhaps it was just that the software industry said how to pull off the agile approach. But close interaction, tight feedback, collaboration, and dealing with changing circumstances should be core business values and capabilities."

Ok, next. You go to a Meetup, or a demo, or a trade show, and some little company shows a cool innovation but they're unfunded and just working out of their garage.

Do you:

a) Ignore them. It will be YEARS before they are big enough to show up on radar.

b) Try to buy them - heck you've got cash to burn!

c) Partner with them and see if you're able to use their creative edge to build your future business.

Again - 'c.' The whole "when they get real we'll buy them" mindset just doesn't work anymore. Things move too fast. And ignoring good teams that are small is the best way to find yourself facing a fast moving and nimble competitor.

Ok, last question. You're a company with physical assets. You've got stores, shelf space, a product, and a trusted brand. Now you're seeing a digital version that costs less to make and sell, but it's also not as sexy as your glossy, touchable, physical thing. Can you really turn your thing digital? Or do you need to compete in the world of objects?

This is a tricky one. People love products that smell, feel and sound the way they've come to expect. So turning a publishing company that loves the smell of a bound book into a digital e-book company means finding a way to re-focus the passion back to the ideas in books, and away from the object. Hard to do.

The answer is - embrace the now and the future. Make hard choices. Be 'agile' about how you test, try, innovate and discard failed ideas. Above all, be honest. If you were Jeff Bezos would you hang on to the black and white e-ink on the Kindle in the face of the impending iPad? Would you increase prices and go full-color, full-motion? Would you create a flanker brand for an alternative media device? You know he's going to do something, and fast. Because Amazon has been Agile almost since its inception.

There's a new world order emerging around media and publishing. Producing original content is simply too expensive to sustain alone for all but the largest media companies. New models are essential -- and emerging.

The solution that is emerging is known as curation. There's been plenty said about the emergence of professional curation. These are content hunters and gatherers who are increasingly scouring the web for contextual content to publish and amplify.

But professional curation isn't the only trend that's rapidly on the rise. Chances are, you're already a curator, and you may not even know it. New mobile applications, sites, and consumer driven content discovery are feeding the emergence of the accidental curator.

The urban game of human bingo known as Foursquare is the red hot center of accidental curation.

Less than a year old, the New York startup known as Foursquare became a 'thing' at the South by Southwest Internet conference in Austin in March, 2009. Foursquare is part game, part social tool, and part low profile advertising engine. It's a mix of media, community, and commerce.

It's a location-based game that allows mobile phone users to 'check in' at locations like restaurants, bars, workplaces, and other public spaces. You earn points and badges as you alert friends to your current location. It's a game with goals, the member with the most points at a location is the "mayor" -- so you can be the "mayor" of your favorite bar or restaurant until someone else checks in even more times than you have. It's a race of sorts.

The result of this change is a shift that puts power back in the hands of the customer, and no longer allows products or brands to ignore unhappy customers because they've got so many more. Subtle shifts, as return visits on Foursquare decline for a national chain or brand will surface quickly -- and other unhappy customers will vote with their feet or their wallets.

We're rapidly becoming a Curation Nation, a world where abundance is assumed in the world of content -- there's no shortage of content makers of all shapes and sizes. But the avalanche of content makes finding the content you're looking for significantly harder. Applications like Foursquare provide new filters that turn media on its head.

Accidental Curation is passive, anonymous endorsement. It's curation for the crowds.

Philip Kaplan -- the famed founder of F*ked Company, has a new site called Blippy that is inviting users to register and share their credit card purchases -- publicly. The site describes itself as: "A fun and easy way to automatically tell people about your favorite purchases." Or, if you want to share your stock trades, then StockTwits says it's "an open, community-powered investment idea and information service. You can think of it as Bloomberg for the little guy and gal." Publish your purchases and you're providing data that creates curation data.

The trend toward sharing personal finance data goes even further -- with Twitter-driven StockTwits -- the site that investor and co-founder Howard Lindzon touts as the future of finance. Howard's Twitter sharing solution takes your private stock trades and makes them public. Really, yup -- if you're a superstar trader, show us what you've got. Lindzon explains: "Contributing to the flow is incredibly easy, fun and valuable. You will receive feedback and have the chance to exchange market related ideas with a multitude of great minds."

Share your location? Share your favorite bar or restaurant. Share your credit card statement. Share your stock trades? Really? Are you read to share your naked data with the world?

The chances are with Facebook, LinkedIn, tweets, and blog posts, you're already an accidental curator and just didn't know it.

Here's a way to think about it: have you ever had a great meal and posted about the experience to Yelp? What about getting slimed by a hotel on a vacation and ranting on Trip Advisor?

If you've added data to the web, positive or negative, about a book, a movie, a restaurant, or an airline, then you've added your curatorial '2 cents' to the wisdom of the web. For lots of folks, adding this data is a rare experience. It will take an experience that is either exceptionally great or terrible for you to add your vote.

But there are other, less purposeful ways that you're already an Accidental Curator. If you tag a photograph in Facebook with any of your friends names, you're building their collection of photographs and their web reputation. If you post photographs to Flickr, allow sharing and include a location or key word, you're building a public database of images that help the world see more clearly.

In fact, any time you provide an implicit endorsement to a person, place, or thing, you're building not only that place's digital identity but your own.

Here's a personal example.

My younger son decided a few months back that he wanted to learn to play the trumpet. I was tasked with finding a trumpet teacher. So, I did what we all do: used a search engine. I found a number of names in my city, and then I was stuck trying to find out which one would be the best fit with my son.

A list of names -- and no way to know which of the many trumpet tutors were skilled and well liked. I did something I'd never done before, and put a number of names into Facebook. Sure enough, one of them was a friend of a friend of mine. I reached out to my friend: "how do you know him? Is he good with kids? Would you recommend him?" What came back was a glowing recommendation for a great guy. Sold. As you might expect, he was a great fit and remains working with my son.

What happened there? Is my friend a trumpet expert? Clearly not, nor did he 'friend' the trumpet tutor expecting to become a recommender, yet there he is, the accidental curator, helping me sift through a list of choices to find the right one.

While Facebook has been around for a while, there are new technologies and applications that make curation a part of your life without you even knowing it.

But each time you log a return visit to an establishment, you're registering a de-facto vote in favor of that good or service (an endorsement). Chances are you're not checking in at a restaurant that served you undercooked chicken last week. So establishments with the highest ratio of return visits by the same person are being collectively curated as well liked.

Now that you're thinking about your actions as endorsements the number of emerging applications that capture and aggregate your behavior starts to make it clear that you're putting data into Curation patterns whether you want to or not.

The world of curation will have lots of brand-name, well-known curators you know and trust. The new media moguls won't be makers, they'll be finders, endorsers, and presenters.

But you'll be a curator too. You'll find that you're endorsing products, places, and people in both public opt-in forums and in a crowd-sourced anonymous data driven click-stream stew.

We're an entering a world where curation will be the critical differentiating factor in purchases, preferences, and identity.

Curation, whether accidental or intentional, is rapidly becoming the future of media and publishing.

We are a rapidly becoming a Curation Nation.

Target is creating long form content that ties their brand to the concept of cost-conscious and fashionable. Using attractive on camera talent, and an in-store location for the shoot - Target is able to create a straight forward presentation that is breezy and fun. Rather than trying to shoe-horn the message into a :30 spot - they're doing mini-documentary style pieces that stand on their own as useful and fun. And then, working with New York Magazine,  they're presented a Sponsored Video Playlist that provides a collection of videos to New York web

site visitors within a Target Branded player

See it live here: http://videos.nymag.com/playlist/Target-Frugalista

Kraft's Famliy Phavorites Campaign

Over at the Readers Digest Site TasteOfHome.com  they have put together a really delicious looking sponsored collection from Kraft brand's Philadelphia Cream Cheese. With cooking recipes like Marble Brownies and Salsa Roll-ups... Taste Of Home is able to offer the expertise of Kraft in a branded environment called  Family Phavorites. Kraft gets to share long form content directly within a cooking community - and Taste of Home gets both revenue and quality content.

See it live here: http://www.tasteofhome.magnify.net/playlist/New-Family-Phavorites-By-Philly

Nissan's Master The Shift

Auto maker Nissan is bringing it's brand message to Rodale publishing's Bicycling Magazine.  The Sponsored video playlist has Nissan sponsoring third party content from Chris Carmichael. The result, Nissan gets home page logo positioning around high quality and editorially approved Bicycling content.

See it live here:  http://video.bicycling.com/

What does all this mean? Well, for one thing - advertisers are beginning to understand that they can get more 'mindshare' if they provide longer and more valuable information to their customers and potential customers.  And at the same time, that there's a new option emerging that sits squarely between the old model of interruption advertising for video (putting ads in front of content)  and destination pages (asking audience members to come and find your content).

Sponsored video content playlists are a powerful new model,  and sure to see new and innovative uses emerging in the months and years to come.

Media curation has been blowing up lately and we couldn't be more pleased to be on the front lines of the movement. It's always exciting when something you believe in starts to gain real public support and you get recognized as one of the early adopters (or creators!). Magnify CEO Steve Rosenbaum was recenetly invited on the TV show Digital Life with Shelly Palmer to talk about curation and the overall state of online video. It's an excited interview with some good tidbits of information - you can watch the video below (the interview starts at the 8:55 mark if you want to jump right ahead). You can also check out the transcript below the video. 

In my role at Magnify.net, I sit at the nexus of content, technology, and business strategy with regards to online video. In the past few months there have been some very exciting developments in the video space that all web publishers should be aware of. There are two types of online video business models that seem to be taking off. I'll refer to these models as "aggregators" and "sitewide video".

The Aggregators

In the past year, I have found myself increasingly consuming a news and information diet dominated by content aggregators. A couple of my favorites are the Alleyinsider.com group of websites and the Huffington post, both of which feature a very high percentage of aggregated content including blog posts, big media news articles, and most importantly to the context of this post, video.

While aggregation is not a new concept, either with video or with print content, the idea that web destinations can build successful business models entirely based on aggregated content is creating a seismic shift in media consumption habits. Using the AlleyInsider as an example, I find myself increasingly consolidating my time spent reading news online there, as they cover the key topics I’m interested in personally and professionally. The hyperlink is not a new invention, so how come this has all of the sudden this has become a business? The answer is that content has been unleashed. This effect can be seen most powerfully with the ability to embed video. Several times a day you will see embedded video on the AlleyInsider site coming from any number of sources, all of which provide content for the blog, and advertising opportunities, traffic volume, and branding back to the content creator.

As more and more content creators embrace the idea that allowing their content to be freely embded is good for business, the role of aggregators will continue to grow, and their businesses will continue to thrive, as they begin to sell the quality of their audience, rather then the quality of their content, because they don’t create any. The aggregators will continue to see outsize gains in audience as compared to old media publishers that continue to create the majority of their own content.

Sitewide Video

Back when online video first started to become widespread 4 or 5 years ago, it was popular to create a fenced off section of your site as a home for video. The logic behind this went something like this; give users a link to a place where they can find video. At that time, video was thought of as a separate medium that needed it’s own separate user experience, indecently, many of which were modeled off of the viewing experience of television. As the video space has matured, many publishers have recognized that there is still an important place for a “video” section of their website, but increasingly, publishers have placed their emphasis on making video contextually relevant within the rest of their site. The next evolution of this process is that some cutting edge publishers are starting to make their sites video driven. The best example of this trend is ESPN. In 2009 ESPN undertook a major site redesign that, for the first time, put video front and center as part of a major information driven site. To the user, the page seems slightly more interactive, but the major difference really comes on the business side of things, where almost every page view now carries an additional pre-roll inventory opportunity.

To understand the order of magnitude of this opportunity, let’s look at a hypothetical example. If a publisher is getting $5 CPM for their banner ads and they are running 2 per page, their gross revenue per page is $10 per thousand. Adding a video pre-roll to that same page at $30 CPM triples the value of that page. Now, not every video play is going to have a pre-roll, and not every video is going to auto-play, or be initiated by the user, but the addition of video on even 50% of pages still doubles, on average, the value of the average page view.

As video continues to mature as a business I think it wise for publishers to keep in mind the power of aggregation and to increase the prevalence of video on their site whenever possible. As these business models continue to develop, there will surely be more innovation, but it will be the innovators like AlleyInsider and ESPN that will be best positioned to extend their leadership position and capture increasing advertising dollars.

Today is one of those days when the future seems remarkably clear. In fact, it feels to me like I can see around the bend and start to talk about the future of news with some certainty.

Take a look at the news sites that are gaining traction and you'll see that one of the fastest growing is Mediaite.com

If you haven't gone to take a look at Mediaite.com, take a moment and check it out, I'll wait.

It's the brainchild of Dan Abrams, one of the smartest and best known legal minds on television today. As an MSNBC host he was always able to keep conversations and subject matter smart and provocative. And there's no doubt that his TV gig was high profile and well paid. So why is he building content Web sites? More on that in a moment. Dan's right hand on content is Colby Hall, who also comes from the TV world. So, when you look at Mediaite.com, you see a channel that feels like it's being programmed (to use a TV term).

What you'll see at Mediaite is a site edited for media folks. People who care about TV, news, publishing and other new media related things. There's a top of the fold big story, sometimes written by Mediaite, sometimes a headline and a line from a major news organization or publication. Below the fold there are more links, more editorial, and more bloggers. Here too some staff, and some folks writing to the platform. Sound familiar? It's the Huffington Post model, but rather than politics, it's media. And it's spot on. Why? Because Abrams and his team 'get' media. They know what matters. They do fast, updated and edgy editorial. They curate what their audience is hungry for. And it works.

So it shouldn't come as a surprise that Dan Abrams was voted by FishbowlNY as the Most Influential New Yorker in 2009. Why? Because he's a guy with TV Mojo who has jumped into Web media feet first. By the way, Rupert Murdoch was second and Arianna Huffington was third. The site also hit on a gold mine by creating lists of Media folks called the Mediaite Power Grid. People love lists. It's kind of like a human stock market. Is Jeff Zucker up or down today? What about Ann Moore at Time Inc. or Andrew Ross Sorkin at the Times? It's like popcorn, addictive. And Abrams knows it.

What Abrams knows is that the future of content isn't about content creation, it's about content curation. Create, Collect, Curate - it's the new mantra of successful Web content destinations.

And Mediaite isn't the only site that's embracing the Collect, Create, Curate ethos. Dennis' publication The Week, and New York Magazine (winner of the Magazine Publisher Association's Digital Magazine of the Year award in 2009), are all about aggregation. And now video aggregation too. Three major media players, each embracing the new content mix. Its' what Arianna calls the Link Economy - but in fact is really more of the Curation Economy.

To be fair, we love these guys. We love them because they get curation. And we love them because we've partnered with them to bring a new revenue model to Web video. It used to be that you put video on your Web site and then crossed your fingers that you could sell the inventory. But those days are long gone. Now a positive ROI is critical for survival of a Web video solution. And being focused on performance brings a new seriousness to the space. Colby Hall, Managing Editor of Mediaite.com, explains it this way: "Magnify's lift is helping us drive new revenue, new visitors, and expanding our advertising options."

Ok, blush. But Media is about Curation and that's a mission I've believed in long before you could get anyone to spell curation.

"We've seen extraordinary growth in both page views and engagement in the past three months and there is no question the Aggregation and Curation tools from Magnify have been instrumental in helping to spur and power that growth."

The future of news can be found in the three C's. Create. Collect. Curate.

Repeat after me.

Friends of Magnify.net may click here to receive a Special 50% Discount on a full Registration to "OnMedia NYC," or by contacting Marc Sternberg atmarc@alwayson-network.com or 310-403-3330. (Don't forget to tell him who sent you!)

3 Rules to Remember as you Navigate the Transformation of the Magazine Business

In a year filled with challenges within the magazine world—both consumer and trade—it was particularly gratifying to see the level of innovation that some publishers have mustered. Whether in the area of lead and demand generation, virtual events, e-commerce, social media, rich media, etc. savvy publishers are exploding the boundaries of media formats and getting to the heart of what good publishers have always done, namely; providing audiences with valuable information while enabling marketers to connect to the customers.
 
One of the most encouraging experiences in the space actually came from a non-profit association, American Business Media (ABM). “Innovation” is certainly not a word one typically associates with, um, associations. This isn’t a charge that can be levied on the ABM. Since my early discussions with ABM President Gordon Hughes, the team there has been determined and aggressive in leading the way for publishers who are evaluating online video and social media as a way to serve and engage their audiences. They've had their hiccups along the way, but they are not deterred.
 
For those media companies who really seek to innovate, they would do well to remember fundamental principles of publishing--serving audiences great information. The biggest difference today, when compared to when the predominance of the business (i.e. revenue) was driven by the ink and paper of the physical magazine, is that this information needs to be served whenever and wherever the audience wants it.

When I was running a group of  magazines and Web sites as recently as 2005, we knew we still had a captive readership for our print publications. Sure, we were competing for ad dollars and readers with other titles, but knew that if we did a decent job in selling and producing each issue, we'd stand a good chance at maintaing and growing readership and market share. Today these traditional metrics have been rendered nearly irrelevant since audiences and marketers are connecting in so many new, and disparate environments online.

Here are three simple, but powerful pieces of advice I share as a "grizzled" magazine veteran who was fortunate to have bitten the "digital apple" early on:

Empower and engage your audience - There are myriad new, easy and inexpensive ways to elicit knowledge, and value from your audience. Don't be afraid of the letters like UGC.

Leverage existing content - No matter how niche your market is, trust me when I say that there is a treasure trove of content in all kinds of formats about it. People want to share their thoughts, opinions, expertise about the things they're passionate about. There are more outlets available for sharing online every day. Don't be afraid of aggregating this content or that your readers won't value it because it's "not created here". Part of the value publishers bring is that they understand their markets and audiences and will be discerning about the relevance and quality of aggregated content.

Lead your market - Or someone else will. I have had countless conversations with my publishing brethren who have said something along the lines of, "my market just isn't there yet". Meaning (I guess) that their readers and/or suppliers aren't new media savvy.  In most cases, I've learned that a publisher just hasn't cracked the code and divined a genuine need or problem that new media is uniquely capable of addressing (that can also drive advertiser dollars). Even if it is truly the case that you're serving new media-phobic market, rest assured that the situation is temporary and that you'd better be thinking of where needs are bound to arise and how you can help meet them.

Magnify also officially proclaimed 2010 the Year of Video Curation - who would of thought this idea of Curation we've been pitching for a couple years would turn into the hot topic in media circles these days? Well, you did! So give yourself a pat on the back.

Magnify also mentioned in the announcement that we will soon deploy a free 30 day trial of Magnify Pro (if you are a channel owner look forward to an official email with details about the offer).

We want to thank the community again for all the great work you have produced and for the continued success of Magnify.

Below is the official release as seen on Business Wire yesterday:

Magnify Proclaims 2010 Year of Video Curation; Offers Free 30-Day Deployment of Magnify Pro

Revenue Growth of 253% in 2009;Number of Magnify Channels Increased 270%

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Magnify.net, a leading provider of Social Video Solutions for Publishing, eCommerce, and Communities, today proclaimed that 2010 will be the “year of video curation,” as publishers , brands, and individuals develop video strategies that incorporate relevant user-generated, professional, and referenced video content. Magnify experienced massive revenue growth of 253% in 2009, as its customer base, page views, embedded players, and overall traffic all reflected an insatiable appetite for the company’s free and premium video offerings.

Magnify’s customer base grew by 270%, and now includes more than 65,000 channels and, most dramatically, it has seen a rapid emergence of a video sharing ecosystem that has seen a tremendous shift towards embeddable video players being shared across the web. In 2009 the company extended it’s leadership in multi-source video by rolling out the Magnify.net Enterprise offering to major brands, including New York Magazine, The Week, Cirque du Soleil, and Mediaite.

"We've seen extraordinary growth in both page views and engagement in the past three months and there is no question the Aggregation and Curation tools from the Magnify.net platform have been instrumental in helping to spur and power that growth" said Colby Hall, Managing Editor of Mediaite.com.

"Magnify's lift is helping us drive new revenue, new visitors, and expanding our advertising options."

To further enhance the growth of the sector, and to facilitate customer adoption of the feature rich 'pro' platform, Magnify.net today announced that it will issue a 30-day free deployment of the company’s Magnify PRO™ services to all 65,000 customer sites. Customers will then have the opportunity to continue with the service for $24.95 per month.

"We've seen remarkable growth in the free, professional, and enterprise services in the last year. We're pleased to see that Curation is fast becoming the video coin of the realm for brands, sites, and publishers who seek to leverage the content knowledge with the Curation tools that Magnify.net provides,” said Magnify.net CEO Steven Rosenbaum.

The personal video channel has – even with the user-generated content revolution now heading into “Internet middle age” – been a problematic issue for most video consumer-producers. With U.S. online video spending projected to reach $2.9 billion this year, Magnify.net provides for easy search, sort, and delivery of video based on a site’s niche interests – whether Native American videos, real estate, travel, gardening or skateboarding – and enable discovery and ranking for both relevance and entertainment value.

Magnify PRO is an extension of the Magnify Network, which enables websites – including Weather.com; Zappos.com; New York magazine, LiveEarth.org, BlogHer.com - to curate video in a way that is relevant to users’ specific interests. The company has deep roots in television and documentary film production, and the Magnify PRO platform combines the best approaches of user-generated video content with online publishing and advertising tools.

I recently graduated from Sarah Lawrence where my studies included photography, economics, video art, art history, and literature. A school without majors was the right choice for a renaissance gal like myself, but I knew practical application for those interests in a job market demanding specification would require me to be more creative than ever.  

I have to be honest, when I began interning at Magnify.net back in September the concept of a video curation platform was a bit abstract to me, but once I realized what I got myself into, my mind reeled with ideas for channels.

One day I was reviewing photos and videos I'd taken on my iPhone and realized (with the exception of the embarrassing number of pictures of my dog) many were of people I found interesting while riding the subway around NYC.  I searched a few video sites and realized there was an incredible wealth of content in need of a home.

Queue extreme a-ha moment!

I made a Magnify.net channel, bought PublicTransitAllStars.com, and hit the ground running.  Since video taken in the NYC area was the decided focus, geotagging seemed to be an exciting way to visually classify content.  I also used playlists to categorize different content based on subject matter. I'm excited for launch and hope users will enjoy uploading content to the website from their phones as well!

In retrospect, I realize the Magnify platform and I have so much in common. We want to satisfy so many interests without compromise; Magnify.net gave me the blank slate to do just that. 

I will probably finish this internship just as uncertain of what I want to do, but it's comforting to know the future of media has a place for those as 'interdisciplinary' (read: unspecified) as myself.

For this year's party we stepped it up a notch and got a fire eater/juggler, a fortune teller and some really good beer. If you weren't able to make it, there are some great pictures from the night and some awesome video (you have to watch the fire eater videos). Take a look at both the pictures and videos at the Inside Magnify channel. You can see more pictures on our Flickr page as well as the Magnus the Mascot's facebook page. 

You can register now for FREE here: http://nakedmedia1.eventbrite.com/

For more information on the show visit the official site: http://live.scribemedia.org/

About This Webcast
Live from the offices of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the 
trade association for interactive marketing in the United States, Dorian Benkoil of Teeming Media sits down for live video discussions with IAB president and CEO Randall Rothenberg, Magnify.net CEO Steve Rosenbaum and Blip.TV co-founder and COO Dina Kaplan.

Topic
We’re excited to do our first show from the IAB offices as part of our new partnership with the organization. We’ll first sit down with IAB president and CEO Randall Rothenberg to get his take on why “advertising is creepy,” as the IAB says in its new campaign to fend off privacy legislation, and talk about other industry trends and news. Then we’re joined by the founder and head of video platform Magnify.net, Steve Rosenbaum, and Dina Kaplan, co-founder of Blip.TV. We’ll talk about what is and isn’t working in video, about trends in curation and aggregation, details of sponsorship and revenue,  and, of course your questions.
Plus, as always, Dorian’s “Shallow Thoughts”  on the media, and recent coverage and interviews from industry trade shows.

About Naked Media
Through interviews with cutting edge leaders and thinkers from the media industry, Naked Media explores the nexus of content, advertising and technology — all with an eye toward measurable goals in the digital age. Naked Media peels back the covers to show in stark reality how it’s done, what media managers are doing even as the landscape shifts beneath their feet. The show may attract some media stars but will not be about their stardom. Rather it’s the goals they are trying to achieve and how they get there. The show’s guests are as likely to be dynamic speakers from small- and medium-sized media influencers as from the behemoths.
Hosted by award-winning journalist and media veteran Dorian Benkoil of Teeming Media, and enhanced through viewer participation, Naked Media cuts through the bloviation, challenges the conventional wisdom and gets at real issues that provide “aha” moments for the executives who are watching and participating. Whether in one-on-one interviews or panel discussions, it will explore a wealth of issues, everything from making money from the latest ad technologies to the privacy issues surrounding behavioral targeting to the buzz around social media and widgets to the financials of media deals.

The Susan Boyle Fansite has been around since the early days of Susan Boyle's emergence as a pop super-star and continues to grow as the largest and most active Susan Boyle fansite on the web (currently at 40359 active members). Spend some time on the channel and you will catch a glipse of why Susan Boyle has the biggest selling album of the year. You will also see the most complete Susan Boyle video collection on the web - ranging from Susan's performances to hundreds videos sent in from fans around the world. This is really video curation at its best!

We want to give a special shout out to site creator Paul Wood for building an amazing channel and leading such a great community. Well done Paul!

For more information on Ms. Seave and other members of the Magnify.net Board, please visit our Board information page.

(Article originally appeared in the The Huffington Post)

Each year, the milestone moments remind me that things are changing fast, and digital is emerging as the new way we learn, share and engage the world around us. Now, Thanksgiving may seem like the least likely of the Digital Holidays. After all, for Christmas we've been tracking Santa on the Web for years, and e-commerce has replaced the slog to the mall for many of us. But Thanksgiving, how can that be digital? After all it's about tastes, smells, family and food -- right? Well, for those of you just discovering a Digital Thanksgiving, here's a beginners guide to going digital for the Thanksgiving Holiday.

1. The Food Unless you're one of those folk who's going to eat Thanksgiving dinner at the local diner, chances are you're going to end up cooking something. For some that means a side dish, for others it's the whole turkey (or vegan Thanksgiving alternative). So, the question is, just where does this knowledge come from? It used to be it was handed down from generation to generation. Now, as families are spread around the country and the globe, it's harder to get a cooking lesson from Grandma. So the Net arrives to fill the gap. Video is fast becoming the teaching tool -- and entrepreneurs are filling in where Grandma once was. One such foodie-entrepreneur is StreamingGourmet's Amy Wilson, a San Francisco-based former journalist. For her Thanksgiving Video Roundup, Wilson has assembled collections of the best videos from across the Web in the following categories: Turkey, Stuffing, Sides, Apple (pie ) and Pumpkin (pie ). Wilson's site offers scrolling thumbnail selections on Thanksgiving Turkey Video Collection; Stuffing; Side Dishes; Apple and Pumpkin Dessert. Wilson is not alone in her culinary online video world. The number of Internet entrepreneurs and mainstream magazines making the move to web video is dramatic. Other great User-Generated food sites include Reader's Digest Taste Of Home site, as well as culinaria.net and epicurious. And of course, Vegan Thanksgiving Recipes can be found here

2. The Experience If you can be in New York, there's no better way to enjoy Thanksgiving than standing in the cold and watching the Parade, the marching bands, and the balloons float by. But if you can't be there in person, here's a way to experience the Parade live from street level: it's Earthcam's Times Square web cam view: If you're looking for a bit of pre-parade activity, you can start here for a great collection of videos and highlights from last years parade. In addition to Miley Cyrus, the following are among the 2009 Macy's Day Parade Performers:

Julie Andrews
Laurie Berkner
Chris Brown
Cheyenne
Ciara
Diana DeGarmo
Gloria Estefan
Renee Fleming
Grandma from the Big Apple Circus
Natalie Grant
Hall & Oates
The cast of Disney Channel's High School Musical
Jonas Brothers
Josh Kelley
Darlene Love
Barry Manilow
Sarah McLachlan
Miss U.S.A 2006-Tara Conner
Sandi Patty
John Tartaglia

3. The Sports Associate Content reports that On Thanksgiving Day itself, there will be several different football games to view. As per the Thanksgiving tradition, the Dallas Cowboys take to the field battling the New York Jets. Currently, the Cowboys have a 6-1 record under new head coach Wade Phillips. Tony Romo brings great life to this team as he leads the team down the field. Terrell Owens has also opened up possibilities for this team. That combination of offensive force makes for some great football. (for complete data)

4. The Family Far Away And The Recovery Of course, not everyone can drive or fly to be together for the holidays. So here's a chance to put your web cam and iChat or Skype account to use. While it may seem a bit like sci-fi, the fact is that grandparents and grandchildren can connect via the Web -- and it's the next best thing to being there. So log in and start video chatting. And after all that visiting, and eating and sports watching, odds are you're feeling sleeeepy. About.com reports: "The turkey is often cited as the culprit in afterdinner lethargy, but the truth is that you could omit the bird altogether and still feel the effects of the feast. Turkey does contain L-tryptophan, an essential amino acid with a documented sleep inducing effect. L-tryptophan is used in the body to produce the B-vitamin, niacin. Tryptophan also can be metabolized into serotonin and melatonin, neurotransmitters that exert a calming effect and regulates sleep. However, L-tryptophan needs to be taken on an empty stomach and without any other amino acids or protein in order to make you drowsy. There's lots of protein in a serving of turkey and it's probably not the only food on the table. " Each year, the traditions and connections of our lives and holidays make the transition from analog to digital. This year, having a Digital Thanksgiving is easier than ever. So use the links above, gather round the laptop -- and start cooking!

Magnus spent the last couple of days attending events, meeting new fans and visiting old friends around New York. Make sure to check out the pictures of his recent adventures and even better, the below video. It has also been announced that Magnus is looking for the next location of his World Tour adventure. If you would like to host him for a couple days, write into to billy@magnify.net for details.

Beyond the grandprize, The Weather Channel will also be giving away a bunch of smaller prizes for the contest - there's some good stuff, so get those cameras ready and start shooting.

You can see the official contest page at www.weather.com/whitechristmas

I have to say that after looking through the network to find channels to feature, I was plesently impressed with the different ways channel owners are using video aggregation and curation in the space. It always makes us happy to see original and innovative work from you guys!

greatamericans.com

video.vfwwebcom.org

vetfriends.magnify.net

veteransday.magnify.net

Have a channel you want us to feature? Send me an email at billy@magnify.net

Hi everyone, I'm Lewis Rapkin. Upon graduating the University of Vermont, I left the heady organic mountains of groovy UV and headed to the neon-saturated mega-metropolis of Tokyo to shoot a documentary on the underground music scene. Next stop was New York City where I continued with documentary productions. On top of helping out at Magnify, I also work the night shift at a documentary production company assisting PBS television series and HBO documentaries.

I don't have cable TV in my apartment, but I do have the Internet and the potential for online video seems pretty clear. Without being longwinded about my optimism towards the future, I’ll just say that it’s an exciting time to be involved in online video and that’s why I’m excited to be at Magnify.

I also play in a zany band called Enban that performs with projected video on a troupe of performance artists dancing in white jumpsuits.

Hello! My name is Rachel Cantor. I'm a recent graduate of Sarah Lawrence College where I studied way too many things (film, photography, art history, economics, literature, etc; ie everything and nothing, ie liberal arts)

I am an aspiring internet video aficionado, bubble tea connoisseur, and All Of The Above. I have a quasi-burgeoning Magnify channel you should check out called The Geocities Fan Club. 
My free time is spent making video art, watching tv shows of The Real Housewives of Atlanta caliber, and coming up with strange uses for Twitter.

If you remember a time when telephones had a rotary dial, then you remember the phrase, "Shhh, he's on the phone looong distance!" Long distance was expensive, and precious, and needed to be rationed and treated with care.

That was then.

Today - long distance, short distance, global distance - it's all the same thing: cheap. Because as the network has matured, competition came in and costs came down. And today almost everyone is on a fixed price plan and many folks are using their broadband connections for free audio and video conversations.The simple point is: bandwidth continues to get cheaper and faster, and that means you need to be looking at the cost of video on your Web site in a whole new way. Video should not cost anything. Rather, it should power revenues, pages, engagement and profits. If it isn't, it's time to rethink your bandwidth bill and turn video from a cost center to a profit center. Folks are doing just that.

So here's a quick five-point checklist as you rethink your cost of bandwidth:

1. Can you tie your costs to revenue?

2. Does your editorial/content creation team consider your current solution a help or a hindrance?

3. As your traffic grows, do you fear that your investment will outstrip your income?

4. Could a 'hit' viral video be a cost containment disaster for you?

5. Are you locked into a "walled garden" eco-system in multi-source world?

Here's a 'cheat sheet' for the checklist:

1. Can you tie your costs to revenue?

This is a tough one, because odds are you can't understand your bandwidth bill. Your eyes glaze over. Megs and Gigs and Encoding and HD and blah blah blah. The bottom line is - like most folks - you probably get your bill and go "ouch." It's never less than you imagined, and it's often more - sometimes much more. That's because bandwidth bills are always backward looking, which means by the time you get the bill there's not a whole lot you can do about it.

Tying cost to revenue is essential - and that means that if you know that you're selling pages at a remnant rate of a $2 CPM and you've got 3 ads on a page, you need to spend less than $6/CPM (cost per thousand pages) in order to have your video costs be at breakeven.

2. Does your editorial /content creation team consider your current solution a help or a hindrance?

This is one of those questions you don't want to know the answer to. But you do. Because the truth is, people don't use tools they don't feel comfortable with. Or if they do, they use them with a level of fear and trepidation that means that content is being deployed slowly, and conservatively, and perhaps in a way that doesn't match your visitors' appetites. Think of it like a word processor. Would your team write well if they had old manual typewriters rather than good quality word processing software with spell check? So ask the questions: Is it easy to get a video encoded? Is it easy to get a video uploaded? Does a video get live on your site in 5 clicks, or 10, or 20? Because every bit of effort that it takes to find, organize and publish content is effort that isn't going into making and curating editorial. You're looking for a clean, easy to implement solution that can be deployed with speed and a bit of joy. Heck, fun even.

3. As your traffic grows, do you fear that your investment will outstrip your income?

One of the challenges of bandwidth billing is that it's often invisible till it's out the door. So you may have a great month of page views, and even a great month of revenue, but if folks watched tons of long videos (or worse yet, downloaded a progressive stream but didn't watch them) you could have a bandwidth bill that will blow your mind. With a CPM billing relationship, you've got control of your costs right out of the box. If there's a 'runaway' video on your site that is costing more than you're going to earn in ad revenue or useful audience engagement, you can simply take it down, or re-direct the traffic. In the fast moving world of Web video, you want to be able to make decisions about traffic and costs in real time, not in hindsight.

4. Could a 'hit' viral video be a cost containment disaster for you?

The good news is that it shouldn't be, not if you have real-time reporting. By having a unique CID (content ID Number) you are able to take incoming link traffic and point it where it needs to go. So, if a video created by you and your team has a pre-roll in front of it, you can drive traffic till the cows come home. If the same video isn't generating income, then why not point traffic to YouTube, or one of the third-party video hosting sites that are willing to cover your traffic? Often providers will 'split' traffic with you, and give you the ability to generate some income, and share some pages - but not have to cover costs.

5. Are you locked in to a "walled garden" eco-system in multi-source world?

Now you're asking yourself, should I bring traffic to my videos on my site, or put my videos out in the world so they can be found and viewed by Web searchers? The answer is "yes." You should do both. Think of it like a clothing brand. Should Levis be in Wal-mart, or only in Levis Stores? Or in the Levis area of Macy's, or in the Discount Outlet shopping center? The answer is clearly, you must go where the customer wants to find you. Sure, you'll get better margins if you bring customers to your store (your home page), but that isn't going to be the only way to reach customers. So, upload, host, share, distribute - but get your videos out there... walled gardens are so 1997.

Times are changing. Bandwidth shouldn't be a cost center, it should be a profit center. The more you invest in making, curating, and publishing content the more your customers will connect with your brand and your message. Video is no longer a 'nice to have' option, it's fast becoming a core offering for marketers and sites -and the good news is it only ads value.

This year, the Magnify Halloween channel halloweenchannel.magnify.net features collections of some of our favorite Halloween videos from the web, including costume tips and ideas, scary movies, music and more.

The contest asks users to upload their favorite costume for a chance to win a Magnify Prize Pack - consisting of a bunch of Pro goods and some cool schwag. So lets see those costumes!

And of course lets not forget that Halloween is Magnus, the Magnify Mascot's favorite holiday (they both excusively feature orange). Anyone who can dress up as Magnus and send in a picture or video to the channel will automatically win a prize.

Also make sure to check out some of the other Halloween channels on the Magnify network:

http://creepytv.magnify.net/
http://halloweencrafts.craftfinder.magnify.net/
http://halloweenvideos.magnify.net/
http://halloween.magnify.net/
http://scarystories.magnify.net
http://halloweenday.magnify.net

­­­­­­

Can you share with us what you were doing with video before you engaged the Magnify Multi-Source Video solution?

Prior to Magnify, we used Feedroom for video encoding, hosting, content management and display. Prior to our shift to Magnify.net we had three sources of video:

o    Video we created ourselves. This typically was from one to four videos per week.

o    Video we licensed from content providers; roughly 5-10 per day during about 6 weeks in Feb-March and 6 weeks in Sept-Oct each year.

o    Video we found on other sites like YouTube, Hulu, etc and embedded in blog posts; one to three videos per day.

With Feedroom, we averaged about 150,000 video plays per month on created and licensed video. We had no way to track video plays for videos embedded from other websites.

When we switched over from Feedroom, we had about 1,200 videos that had been accumulated in the course of 2 years. In the six months we’ve been live with Magnify.net, we have doubled the number of videos we offer on the site, with the vast majority of those new videos curated from other sites using the Magnify aggregation capabilities.

How have advertisers responded to your offering of video from both 'created' and ‘curated’ collections?

We sell pre-roll ads with created and licensed video. We are displaying banner ads on curated videos, but not pre-roll. The issue hasn’t come up with advertisers. 

How has the addition of Multi-Source Video impacted your traffic (page views, time on site, return visits, organic search)?

In the 5 months from May to September, since launching on the Magnify Platform, NYMag.com has seen an increase of 150% in total video traffic, showing the value of adding video aggregation.

The added traffic comes from two-sources, the first is the added video views created by adding discovered video to the site, which accounts for 40% of video plays. The second source of traffic is from NYMag produced videos; this is the hidden benefit of Magnify's platform - that in fact creates significant and measurable value. NYMag produced videos saw an average of 43% more plays each month than with their previous vendor.

The addition of discovered content dramatically increases total video plays - for this example the customer saw lift of 140% on average

The addition of more video content lead to deeper engagement, driving an avg. of 42% more video plays for produced content

 What have you learned from providing more content to visitors?

The big impact has been to allow us to offer much more brand-appropriate video on the site and to drive more video views as a result.

How much effort does the curation process take (head count, hours, days etc?)

We’ve been able to double the number of videos offered without any significant additional work. It fits very well into current workflow for our bloggers, editors and video producer. It's required no additional headcount.

How would you compare the Magnify.net CDN to your previous vendor?

Overall the Magnify service has been very reliable. With our previous vendors we would have an outage every 2 or 3 months.

Do you prefer the CPM based pricing to a bandwidth bill? If so, why?

CPM pricing is easier to forecast, and can be tied directly to our CPM advertising model. Bandwidth pricing is much harder to model.

What insights would you share with others considering a Multi-Source Video Solution?

I would strongly recommend (and have recommended) Magnify as a great solution for content companies looking to expand the amount of video offered through a combination of produced, user-generated and curated video.

To Learn More About the Magnify Solution Contact BusinessSolutions@magnify.net

Make sure to read the article here.

(Article Originally Appeared at JackMyers.com)

It's almost Halloween. A time to face scary demons and put a stake in their heart. So I thought I'd use this time to scare up some frightening video "Boogeymen" and see if we can bury them once and for all. When I talk to website owners about video, they generally have three reasons that they haven't embraced video. I hear them every day; too expensive, too hard to manage user-content, and web content is too low quality.

- Video Content is too expensive to make at scale.

- User-Created Content will damage my brand.

- Sorting and filtering web-wide content is too much work.

The issues are pretty simple: can I get an ROI on my investment? And can I leverage my niche and my visitors so that I can embrace outside sources but protect my brand? And, is all this effort around video worth it?

Well, there's good news to share in regards to these three questions, and in particular there's new data and new solutions that make the ROI on video less murky overall.

So, let's dig in to the three big misconceptions about web video - and see if we offer some clarity and a way forward for brands, ecommerce companies, and retailers.

Boogeyman #1: Video Content is too expensive to be made at scale.

This is one of those understandable old wives tales; "In order to have search engines find my collection, I'll need to create a large number of clips each week. Even if I invest in a team of video creators and build a set and a format, I'm going to spend thousands of dollars a clip to make what should be tens or hundreds of videos a week. This is a budget busting scenario that sends my CFO and me both running for the exits."

That thinking is right, as far as it goes. But try thinking of your created content in a new way. If the videos you make are the standard-bearers of your brand or site experience, the big upfront statements that set the tone and the message, then you don't need to make hundreds or even tens of videos a week. Instead, you could make a handful of videos a month, dramatically reducing costs and allowing content creation to be a minor rather than major budget item. Using the power of the web to Aggregate and Curate content, and you are able to provide visitors with a rich and deep experience around content, and you're not exposed to the same costs of high-cost content creation.

Boogeyman #2: User-Created Content will damage my brand.

In part because of YouTube's "Everyone Can Upload Anything" open platform, it's easy for brands to think that opening up a channel that allows user-submission will create a Wikipedia style environment that is out of their control. This couldn't be farther from the truth. YouTube's brand promise is "Publish Anything", but for ecommerce companies, brands, and packaged goods companies, keeping their brand in a 'clean well-lit space' and inviting and curating user-contributions so that only brand appropriate videos are published is critical.

So - brand marketers - let's bust this myth. Just because you invite user-contributions doesn't mean you have publish everything. In fact, as long as you are transparent with visitors about what kind of video your site accepts, you can filter submissions and only post what works for you and your brand.

Boogeyman #3: Sorting and filtering web-wide content is too much work.

At some point, sites have grabbed an embed code and put it in a blog post. Maybe you've even done that a few times - it's a pain. So the idea of doing that 10, 20, 50 times a day is mind-boggling. Scouring the web for content that is appropriate for your brand isn't something you want to do by hand.

So for many branded sites, while the idea of Aggregating and Curating web content that is brand-safe seems interesting, the actual looming effort scares them off.

As video sharing sites have proliferated, the "Embed Ecosystem" has grown to support the syndication of content from central sites to contextual pages. Now, with automated tools that can search, approve, and publish videos to your pages - the effort is minimal, and the impact is significant.

Now - on to the future of video with those Boogeymen appropriately dispatched!

Description: So what happened? Last year everyone told me I should be making Web videos and I’d be rich. I didn’t do it because I was too busy and didn’t know how to start. Did everyone get rich besides me? If so, who and how and is there still time for me to jump on board?

Location: Room 233

The contest received an amazing 177 submissions and was one of most creative and dynamic we have seen here at Magnify. 

Watch the winning entry here:

Make sure to check out the video of Magnify CEO Steve Rosenbaum talking about the deal and what it means for curation.

On a larger level, the partnerships represent a general industry shift by larger sites like Rodale's Bicycling Magazine and Reader's Digest Taste of Home Magazine towards aggregating and curating content from 3rd party video sharing  sites - and the growth of a cottage industry that can provide quick access to as  many content pipelines as possible and then further, offer branded display options (players, channels, etc.).
 
"We're seeing a rapid increase in not only the number of sites, but also the types of sites that are embracing Multi-Source Video", said Magnify CEO Steven Rosenbaum of the new pipeline additions. "For large insurance companies like Hagerty to video bloggers like StreamingGourmet.com and now publishers like The Week Magazine, aggregation and user contribution are becoming central to the web video experience".
 
The new partnership deals come on the heel of Magnify launching its Enhanced Analytic package, giving users unique insights into video use, engagement, and drop off rates as well as a free iPhone application, empowering sites to invite video contributions from visitors via their mobile phones.

Magnify Aims the iPhone's Video Camera at Business Use

Could an iPhone be your company's next video camera? Magnify Mobile might just make it so

Troy Dreier - StreamingMedia Magazine
September 24, 2009

Magnify.net, which has already won large clients such as the Weather Channel and New York magazine for its simple video channel creation tools, is now expanding into the mobile world. Naturally, its starting with an iPhone app, Magnify Mobile.

Magnify.net's options let clients choose from three tiers of service: a free account (limited to 20 50MB uploads per week), a pro account (which adds advertising and watermarking options), and an enterprise account. The service lets clients easily add video to their sites and also present relevant videos from other sources on the web.

The Magnify Mobile app, which is free and only works on 3GS iPhones, expands on that by allowing people to shoot video and send it to their sites in one step. The app includes simple start and end point editing, and even lets users upload to any Magnify site. That means you could solicit videos from your readers, then view them through the Magnify client as they come in. Controls let you publish the ones you want and delete the rest.

Video for the free and pro levels streams at 400Kbps (that's a 336Kbps H.264 MP4 video with 64Kbps AAC audio). Enterprise clients get both that standard stream and a 908Kbps stream (consisting of 780Kbps H.264 MP4 video and 128Kbps AAC audio).

 
Adding Video to Business
While Magnify's free option will no doubt attract many who are simply curious, Steve Rosenbaum, the company's CEO, says medium and large businesses are the target audience.

"What we really want is to help businesses make money with video," Rosenbaum says. "If we can add value and add stickiness and help you make money, then you're not going to have any trouble paying us every month."

There are already plenty of companies doing well in the consumer sharing space, he says, but there's a need to fill in easy professional video. The typical client might be a real estate agent videoing a new property, and then instantly putting it online for clients to view.

Talk to business owners about video and you see them wince, Rosenbaum says. They instantly think that it's too expensive or complicated. But when you tell them that it's neither, he adds, they lean in to hear more.

An Army of Cameras
As companies get more media-enabled, Magnify and its iPhone solution are well-positioned to capture a fast-paced and connected readership.

"I think that this type of app is likely to appeal to many media organizations (such as CNN and ESPN) to allow reporters to easily upload video on the go from their handset to the media room," says Julien Blin, principal analyst and CEO of JBB Research. "Citizen journalism has been growing in popularity over the past few years, so they should benefit from this trend."

The surprising development, however, is that the camera-enabled mobile phone, which has already supplanted the camcorder for many people, seems poised to do the same for business.

"This type of mobile app has a couple of advantages," notes Blin. "One, it is the first 'free' mobile video publishing app. Two, it will be able to leverage the growing appetite for video-based mobile user-generated content apps and mobile social networking apps."

If businesses can get their clients to download Magnify Mobile and enjoy sending in their own videos, they'll have constant streams of video at little extra cost.

Magnify Mobile Enables On-the-Go Video Upload and Sharing;

RELEASE ON: WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2009

            NEW YORK - Creating a Mobile Video Channel is now fast, easy, and free. Magnify.net, a leading provider of Social Video Solutions for Publishing, eCommerce, and Communities, today announced the official release of its Magnify Mobile solution, which enables iPhone users to shoot, upload, store, and share their personal videos on a Magnify-hosted channel for free.  Magnify Mobile enables users of iPhone 3GS devices to Instantly submit videos to channels that they create - for free - on Magnify.net and create playlists, make comments, reviews, and integrate design templates, content controls, site reporting, and monetization tools.

"Personal video syndication is now a mobile experience, like taking a still photo, and truly captures the lives and interests of users," said John Fletcher, analyst with SNL Kagan. "With iPhone video recording capabilities improving, we project that the mobile video creation category will explode, and the Magnify Mobile platform is an ideal way for relevant content to be delivered across vertical networks in a seamless manner."

    Get the App Here:  http://itunes.com/apps/magnifymobile

    Learn More Here:   www.magnify.net/iphone/

The personal video channel has – even with the user-generated content revolution now heading into "Internet middle age" – been a problematic issue for most video consumer-producers.  With U.S. online video spending projected to reach $2.9 billion by 2010, Magnify.net provides for easy search, sort, and delivery of video based on a site’s niche interests – whether Native American videos, real estate, travel, gardening or skateboarding – and enable discovery and ranking for both relevance and entertainment value.

Magnify Mobile is an extension of the Magnify Network, which enables websites – including Weather.com; Zappos.com; New York magazine, LiveEarth.org, BlogHer.com - to curate video in a way that is relevant to users’ specific interests.  The company, which counts more than 62,000 customers, has deep roots in television and documentary film production, and the Magnify Mobile app combines the best approaches of user-generated video content with online publishing and advertising tools.

"I got into television twenty years ago to create video communities, and tools such as the iPhone are truly democratizing video publishing in a way that was never before possible," said Steve Rosenbaum, founder and CEO of Magnify, who was a creator of MTV’s ‘Unfiltered’ show, a precursor to the Internet-age video community.  “The Magnify Mobile app, we feel, is an ideal solution to on-the-go video publishing and management. Now video publishing is in the hands of experts, enthusiasts and consumers, essentially; we are creating a more rewarding experience for video publishers and viewers alike."

iPhone 3GS users can submit videos from other sources to their Magnify channels.  Magnify Mobile provides users with greater levels of customization than traditional social networks, such as Facebook, as users design and layout their individual channels to fit their personal tastes.  Whether for a personal hobby, club, sports team, or hobby, users can also customize – for free - their Magnify channels for syndication on their home TV or personal media center, such as Boxee.

Magnify Mobile is available on the iTunes App Store today.

                           
ABOUT MAGNIFY.NET

Magnify.net platform currently provides video discovery, upload,  and encoding to more than 62,000 publishers, ecommerce sites, and communities. Users can immediately deploy a Media 2.0 strategy by enabling them to leverage their best assets and combine them with those curated and uploaded by their community from across the social Web. The Network provides a cost-effective and automated service that features and delivers a unique and engaging video mix. For more information, please visit the company web site at www.Magnify.net or contact Billy Linker at Billy@magnify.net.


# # #


EDITOR’S NOTE: If you would like screenshots of Magnify Mobile; video of Magnify Mobile, or screenshots from Magnify customer sites, please contact Chris Pfaff at chris@chrispfafftechmedia.com or 201-218-0262

Magnify partner and friend Live Earth has just rolled out an impressive campaign encouraging Senators to take action on important environmental issues currently on the radar in Washington. What we love about the campaign is not only the original use of online video and social media to promote a good cause, but also the overall positive message - this is not a typical "gloom and doom" awareness campaign, but a fun and intelligent way to encourage government action. They are really hitting all fronts to give people in the community ways to get inolved and we of course love the way they are using video.

To read more about "Love, the Climate" (the campaign) and get involved, go to http://liveearth.org/en/LoveTheClimate (They are also giving away some really sweet prizes!)

Let me start with this admission - Etsy.com isn't like every other consumer web site or brand. Etsy members are hyper-creative, engaged, passionate makers of amazing things. Etsy - for those of you who don't know - is a site that offers a community of hand-made crafts makers the ability to share and market their good to buyers around the world. It's a special place, and I've found some truly amazing things there that i've bought as gifts for friends and family.

So when we were brought in to power the Etsy.tv make your own etsy :30 commercial project back in the spring, I had high hopes for the kind of quality submissions we might expect to see.  Despite my expectations - I've been blown away.

It seems that all those folks that used to use clay, and fabric, and thread, and paper, and wood and jewels to make special, unique, beautify things are now teaching themselves how to make special and unique video pieces as well.   Boy oh boy are they treasures. So now, the Etsy team of judges has helped narrow down 305 initial submissions into a selected group of the 10 best of the best - and now they're ready to be viewed and voted on.

The judges are interesting in and of themselves:

The Donnas' Brett Anderson
ThreadBanger's Corinne Leigh
Mark Elijah Rosenberg from Rooftop Films
Casey Safron of Animation Block Party
Film director Brett Simon
ReadyMade editor Andrew Wagner
Actress Olivia Wilde
And from Etsy: MaryMary, Anda & Eetzee 

Here's how Etsy explained the contest to their community:

"Etsy wants promotional videos, and since our community is creative, artistic and unique, we're turning to you.  For the next few months we will be accepting submissions for :15 and :30 (second) videos promoting Etsy and the handmade movement. This is your opportunity to express your passion (or is it an obsession?) for Etsy. "

The guidelines are simple: your ad's theme must be "A Handmade Moment" and must legibly display the text "Etsy.com".

We will select 10 finalists from those submissions which surpass a minimum score based on a variety of criteria, and then invite the community to vote on a winner. The winning submissions will receive a total of $10,000 (and we'll use the video, too)!

First Prize: $3,250
Three Runners Up: $1,250
Six Finalists: $500

So, go and check them out for yourself - www.etsy.tv, and vote!

Video Analytics: We know that data matters - so we've been hard at work this summer developing new analytics tools to give you deeper insight into what users are doing on your site. Effective today, all Magnify.net channels (Free, Pro and Enterprise) have a new suite of analytics. This means more data, and more ways to review data in a new, easy to understand graphical format.

In addition, we're rolling out an Excel download feature that will allow you to export your channel data into a spread sheet for even more complex data analysis. You can check out the new analytics in the same place you found site stats previously.       

Advanced Analytics: We are currently beta testing an advanced analytics package that will provide tracking of video views, engagement, and even provide information about which parts of videos viewers are watching. With these tools, you can now see whether site visitors have watched a video all the way through, got bored 60% of the way and left, or backed up and watched the end again - a great tool for analyzing video engagement on your channel and improving the quality of your video content. There will be a charge for Pro users (Enterprise will get the Advanced Analytics as part of their current contract). Stay tuned, should be online and ready for you to explore soon.
 
Boxee Flatscreen Distribution: Magnify has released a Boxee App! With the release, Magnify continues down the road of connecting fans to high quality niche content on multiple platforms (using Boxee, you can watch your favorite Magnify channels on your TV!) For more information on the Boxee App or to sign up for Boxee and start watching Magnify channels on your TV, see the official release or go directly to boxee.

Omniture Integration: As you may know, we've supported Omniture for awhile - but now there's an even more powerful Omniuture ingegration for our Enterprise Customers. You now have the ability to get even more detailed in video analytics via Omniture. Read more about it here. 

CSS Help: As many of you are skinning your own sites, here's a great support resource - a CSS 'cheat sheet'

Multi-Source Video: In a post by Magnify.net CEO, Steve Rosenbaum, Mutli-Source Video is put on center stage and discussed as it related to content creators, brands and websites today. This is a must read for Magnify users and hits right at the heart of the Magnify mission: content aggregation and curation.

New Partners:

We are excited to announce our newest partner in the publishing field, The Week Magazine. A branch of Dennis Publishing, The Week is recognized as a leading international news source, offering some of the best commentary and analysis in the news business. With Magnify, The Week has implemented an innovative video strategy, combining the best of aggregated content from across the web with in-house video. The design is absolutely top-notch and with the amazing team they have at The Week, we are excited to watch video become an entertaining and integral part of the site.
 
The second partner we would like to highlight is Dan Abrams’ fast-growing Mediaite.com and cousin GossipCop.com. The two well known sites will use Magnify for video aggregation and curation and will be doing some fairly original and exciting work in the video space. The sites will roll out the new video integration in the next couple of weeks, so keep an eye out.
 
 
EventCaster Shines Again:
 
Magnify partnered with Affiliate Summit to use EventCaster for their August east-coast conference. The event drew thousands of attendees to NYC and was a huge success. The media channel powered by Magnify, which provided a dynamic one-stop destination for event goers to upload, watch and share content from the event, drew amazing traffic and got great reviews.
 
For more info on the EventCaster, visit http://www.magnify.net/solutions/events
 
Other News:
 
Magnus Visits Africa

They say it couldn't be done! They say he wouldn't survive the arduous journey! But it has now been confirmed that Magnus the Magnify Mascot has successfully traveled to the far reaches of Eastern Africa!
 
Magnus spent two weeks exploring the island of Madagascar, where he had a chance to visit a couple of excitable Lemurs, catch a relaxing boat ride and hang out with his new friend Hery Zo Rakotodramanana of Madafan. An awesome trip and a new record on the World Tour! For pictures, visit the World Tour channel.

Were Hiring!

Magnify is growing quickly and we are looking for people who share our passion for online video and beer. For open positions, please go to visit our job listings.

Steve, Simon, and the whole Magnify.net team

Mediaite, GossipCop Select Magnify for Video Aggregation and Publishing

Dan Abrams' fast-growing Mediaite.com and cousin GossipCop.com (co-founded with Michael Lewittes) announced today a major initiative to provide marketing leading video aggregation and curation in the media and entertainment categories. Abrams and his team have partnered with the Magnify.net platform to power the endeavor.

Said Abrams of the decision: "We've experienced tremendous growth in our first two months of Mediaite, and first month of Gossipcop. Together the sites are already doing well over five hundred thousand unique visitors a month and growing quickly. But this is just the beginning for us. We know that our readers and advertisers are media-savvy and hungry for multi-media content.  

"Finding content, encouraging user generated videos, organizing it all, and managing the process of aggregation, curation,  and web publishing is a complex effort and we needed to find a best-of-breed solution" said Abrams. "Magnify.net is an extraordinary platform - editorially friendly and technically elegant.  It lets us leverage our knowledge and editorial efforts and add a robust video offering with minimal effort."

Magnify.net will power the fast growing sites end-to-end video solution. The platform services will include a page level video library offering, customized and branded players for both Mediaite and GossipCop, video upload and encoding, storage, delivery, and CDN services.  Magnify.net will provide both Mediaite and GossipCop with its patent pending Multi-Source Video aggregation solution. 

"Dan and his team have gotten traction fast in a crowded and noisy space by providing an editorial edge that is uniquely engaging" said Magnify.net CEO Steven Rosenbaum.  "The editorial teams at both GossipCop and Mediaite are based in the new world of editorial, and they understand that providing context and curation is a critical part of what readers are hungry for.  We're incredibly excited about what they're doing, and how they can leverage the power and technology that Magnify.net provides cutting edge publishers."

Magnify Multi-Source video provides publishers with an integrated solution to deliver high quality professional video, web-discovered and curated video, and use generated and uploaded video. The result is robust sites with large collections of advertiser friendly, editorially curated video. Magnify.net powers web video for a large number of publishers, media companies, and ecommerce sites.  As more and sites seek to expand video offerings, and control and even lower video costs, Magnify.net is the platform of choice.

About GossipCop.com:

In the crowded landscape of celebrity reporting, GossipCop.com stands out. It is the first site of its kind to highlight and correct the slew of untrue rumors that spread each day on the Web, in print, and on the airwaves. GossipCop.com patrols an industry that has gone unchecked for too long – and is changing the way it operates. In its first month, the site broke multiple exclusive stories featuring A-list stars and has quickly established itself as a destination for celebrities and fans alike. In just a few weeks, Gossip Cop has been featured on The Today Show, Good Morning, America, and MSNBC, while also appearing in People, US Weekly, and The New York Times.

About Mediaite.com

Mediaite has quickly become a must read for anyone interested in the latest assessments of tv, magazines and the web. People are more interested than ever in who in media is winning and losing, succeeding or failing, fair or unfair and Mediaite is there to make the calls. Its opinionated and catchy writing and headlines make it a fun read while its proprietary ranking system of all top media names immediately distinguishes it from anyone else in the space. Who else can boast being cited by everyone from the White House to Perez Hilton, Bill OReilly to Martha Stewart, Anderson Cooper to ESPN's Bill Simmons all in the first month. For more information please contact Ruthie Friedlander at rfriedlander@abramsresearch.com.

About Magnify.net:

Magnify.net powers publishers, ecommerce companies, and web sites, looking to deploy a Video 2.0 Curation Solution. By offering an integrated video publishing solution, Magnify.net gives online businesses the ability to leverage their knowledge and sector expertise by providing market leading video search, aggregation, and curation technology. Curated video has editorial value and it is this credibility that permits Magnify’s customers to leverage any video content to drive audience engagement, brand awareness and, for media companies and publishing customers, higher advertising revenue. The  Magnify platform currently serves 61,000 web publishers.

There are positions open in a couple different areas and we are always looking for enthusiastic and smart folks in the space.

It wasn't that long ago that web sites had no video at all, or if they had video, it was "Single source".

Single source video is best described as video made by the site's staff and with site resources. This is often described as 'premium' video, and generally speaking it is premium both in terms of price and quality.

Single source video was the domain of companies that were already in some significant way in the video content creation business. So, for cable networks who were using existing resources to fuel web content,  single source video made sense.  Playing the same content more places was a good economic way to spread resources.

But for sites that were primarily text,  the decision to become major creators of video was was costly and labor intensive. Certainly for magazines, newspapers, education and and informational sites - the decision to embrace video was a good decision - the question was,  could they invest the necessary resources to create enough video to become relevant in the fast moving world of web video?  Sites attempted this in a number of ways,  pushing to grow multi-media creation resources, but the costs of creating high quality video remained high -and didn't come down significantly even at volume.

So, in the past 12 months - websites that have been seeing increased demand for video content have been exploring a variety of new sources for video.  Some have experimented with user-contributed material via contests based on user contributions.  Others have begun finding video via embedding. The result has been a variety of hand-built 'multi-source' solutions for sites,  but a confusing mis-mash of log-ins and experiences for users.

The need - and the future - requires a coherent single solution that provide both site administrators and site visitors with a seamless multi-source video  experience.

Video from the sites pro-content makers
Video from site visitors
Video aggregated and curated from across the web.

Multi-source content,  but a single unified and seamless player experience.

Multi-View video is more than a technology, it's a philosophy that reflects what users expect from the web broadly and from web video in specific.  When a visitor arrives at a site that specializes in knitting, or yoga, or fly fishing - they don't want to just get the three 'perfect videos' made by the site, the want a content collection. The best of the best. And they want to be able to contribute their content too.

The future is simple, and important.

Video will come from wherever the most relevant and useful source is. For weather video,  the people nearest to the weather images will be the best source of content.  How it's sorted and presented will be best handled by professionals.  But proximity will be paramount here. So UGV will grow as more devices that gather video are in the hands of average consumers.  For other content types - the mix of pro, UGV,  and Aggregated/Curated will be a changing game.

But counting on any ONE source of video will be a mistake - since more sources means more variety and more choice,  and will give sites with the best editorial options the ability to build content collections and topical and timely content presentations quickly,  often in near real time.

As portable devices become more video friendly.  And video cameras increasingly are embedded in all manner of phones,  computers,  and tablets - the Multi-Source video era is ready to take center stage.

Magnus spent two weeks exploring the island of Madagascar, where he had a chance to visit a couple of excitable Lemures, catch a relaxing boatride and hang out with his new friend Hery Zo Rakotodramanana of Madafan. An awesome trip and a new record on the World Tour! For more pictures, visit the World Tour channel.

None of this would have possible without Magnify enthusiast and Madagascar tourism expert Hery Zo Rakotodramanana. Hery, who runs the Magnify channel Madafan and works with social media to promote Madagascar as a tourism destination, volunteered to host the little orange guy and show him the town and wildlife (amazing pictures with Lemures!). Madagascar has been one of the best trips yet and we are exciting to see who in the Magnify community will host him next.

Beyond being a wonderful host, we also have to single out Hery for his excellent job building on the Magnify platform. Hery has created a dynamic and entertaining destination for people interested in Madagascar to watch, share and upload their own content. The channel is a great example of a site using content aggregation and community building around video to successfully foster interest and promote a cause or a brand. Well done Hery!

If you are interested in hosting Magnus on his next leg of the world tour, please send us an email to Mascottour@magnify.net

We just rolled out our new Boxee App! We're really excited about what we built and believe it will open up a new and exciting frontier of connecting fans to high quality niche content on multiple platforms (using Boxee, you can now watch your favorite Magnify channels on your television!) For more information on the Boxee App and watching Magnify channels on your TV, see the official release below or go directly to boxee.org.

Magnify.net opens to Home Networks

Boxee App represents new viewing alternative

New York, NY - Magnify.net today announced the release of an application that will allow users of Boxee to explore and view videos from over 60,000 Magnify.net web video channels on their home televisions. The new outlet is the next step in Magnify’s strategy to provide cross-platform access to its diverse selection of content.  

With more than 600,000 installs and 90% of subscribers connected to flat screen televisions, Boxee is the web's fastest growing software for the living room. With the release of the Magnify application, Boxee users will gain access to Magnify’s large selection of content, including video from New York Magazine, Bicycling.com and Tasteofhome.com and wide variety of community and niche video channels.

"We think that Boxee is the fastest, most elegant highway to the living room video experience" said Magnify.net CEO Steve Rosenbaum.  “We watched them launch at Digital Hollywood '08, and we've watched them grow and build a great product with a passionate and engaged user base."

Said Avner Ronan, CEO of Boxee: "We're excited to see Magnify.net bring it's network of publishers and channel builders to the Boxee platform. Content creators, video aggregators and entertainment curators building on Magnify.net now have a way to bring their work to the living room with Boxee."

Magnify powers an extensive collection of high quality community and niche video sites and giving home viewers access to these channels on multiple platforms is a large step towards connecting users with content they have traditionally been denied. Some of Magnify’s most popular sites include RCU Videos, the largest collection of Radio Controlled Model airplanes, CambodianMusic.tv, a Cambodian outlet for the latest and greatest Cambodian Music videos, and CarsonDaly.TV, a growing fan site. 

"We see multi-source video channels as the future of video communities.  Channels that both offer video discovery and video sharing, with a quality curation component that means that niche sites can be both very narrow and high quality" said Rosenbaum.  "Premium niche channels are a new phenomenon, but a fast growing one."

As consumers increasingly expect video on multiple platforms, new applications like Boxee are providing important and necessary outlets to take web content into the living room – an experience Magnify.net sees as a natural evolution in online video and an important step towards allowing smaller publishers to improve the viewing experience for their audience.

First, we want to congratulate our friends at Cookstr.com on the launch of julia.cookstr.com, a Julia Child themed site celebrating the 10th anniversary of Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home and the release of the book Julia Child's Kitchen Wisdom. With the film Julie and Julia now in theatres and a resurgence of interest in Julia Childs, the site is drawing a lot of attention. The channel is a great example of a site using video and the Magnify platform to effectively propel e-commerce.

The second site we want to shine a light on is Hagerty.com. While we all know video is expanding beyond publishing and media our new friends at Hagerty are proof positive of the value video can bring to a site. The Magnify team worked with Hagerty to create a striking and dynamic video channel that has added a fresh new layer to their already impressive site for classic car and antique boat collectors. We are proud to count them as partners and encourage you to take a minute to check out the site (especially if you are a fan of classic cars).

Stay tuned for more partner announcements and channel features.

New Features

As usual, the development team at Magnify has been hard at work, cranking out new and innovative features. Here are a couple we’re excited about:

iPhone: There is a lot of enthusiasm surrounding the iPhone in the video community and at Magnify. Keeping on track with the latest advancements in mobile technology, Magnify recently gave users the ability to watch and playback all videos on the iPhone. Stay tuned for some very exciting news in the near future about the iPhone and Magnify.

Highwinds CDN: Magnify recently partnered with Highwinds CDN to deliver video for all Magnify channels. We are really excited about Highwinds, which boasts a powerful, industry leading CDN solution and provides faster video delivery, points of presence in North America, South America and Europe and also leaves room for the future inclusion of more advanced video delivery features.

YouTube Syndication: Videos uploaded to your channel can now be syndicated to YouTube at the same time! This is a great option for channel owners to syndiacte their content to YouTube with little effort, while maintaining an original content collection on their Magnify channel. All you need to do is add your YouTube username and password and choose the category you would like your YouTube videos to be published in (Music, News and Politics, etc.). Every time your channel admins and editors upload a new video, they will be offered the option to syndicate the video(s) to YouTube as well. Here's where you can set it up. 

CSS: Magnify is continuing to open the platform to give developers and designers greater freedom to customize their channels. For designers, who wish to explore and work on the CSS layout of their Magnify channel, we have created a high-level guide (tip sheet) to give you the lay of the land.

Skinnable Widgets: Widgets can now be skinned on a widget-by-widget basis using your own CSS. It’s a great way to create branded widgets to fit specific campaigns or content collections. Here's where you can find it.

Ad Campaign Manager: For Magnify Enterprise customers, the Ad Campaign Manager extends Magnify's standard ad management features with new capabilities to manage multiple ad campaigns running simultaneously. ACM allows the delivery of new advertising experiences including co-branding sponsorships and full-page ad unit takeovers.



OTHER NEWS:

Magnify.net Wins AlwaysOn Global 250 Award: Magnify.net has been named a winner of the prestigious and highly competitive 2009 AlwaysOn Global Competition. The award, in the Digital Media category is given to private, emerging technology companies creating new business opportunities in high-growth markets. We are thrilled to receive the award and to be recognized as leaders in the digital media space.

Summer Interns: We were fortunate to have an amazing group of interns at Magnify Headquarters this summer, helping with everything from building channels to joining us at events to spread the Magnify word. We want to give them a shout out on the newsletter, letting everyone know how wonderful and amazingly employable they are. In order of height: Dhruv Sharma, Ben Joseph, Martina Kajanova and Filip Szymanski (sorry Filip!). Great job this summer guys.

 
Steve, Simon, and the whole Magnify.net team

It was just announced that Magnify.net has been named one of the AlwaysOn Global 250! We are thrilled to receive the award and to be recognized as leaders in the digital media space. Read the official release below.

Magnify.net Named AlwaysOn Global 250 Winner

Company Selected as Technology Innovator for 2009

New York, NY, July 29th, 2009 - Magnify.net today announced that it was winner in the prestigious and highly competitive 2009 AlwaysOn Global Competition. Magnify was a winner in the Digital Media catagory. The AlwaysOn Global 250 Award is given to private, emerging technology companies creating new business opportunities in high-growth markets. Magnify.net was selected by the AlwaysOn editorial team based on demonstration of growth, market opportunity, and quality of innovation and customer traction.

Magnify.net  will be recognized at the AlwaysOn & STVP Summit at Stanford, taking place at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA, on July 28-30. The conference is co-presented by the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and highlights the significant economic, political and commercial trends affecting the global technology industries.

"Tony Perkins and his team continue to scour the glob for the leaders in technology and digital media. In a highly competitive field with serious and technologically brilliant competitors,  we're honored and appreciative that the AlwaysOn team has selected Magnify as market leaders in the Digital Media category" said Magnify.net CEO Steven Rosenbaum.

"It’s no secret that technology and innovation are vital to bringing our country out of economic recession," said Tony Perkins, founder and editor of AlwaysOn. "The companies on this year’s list have not only created innovative technologies that solve real business problems, but have stimulated economic growth through the generation of new jobs. I congratulate every winner selected for this year’s award and wish them all tremendous success in the future."

The AlwaysOn Global 250 winners were selected from among hundreds of other technology companies nominated by investors, bankers, journalists and industry insiders. The AlwaysOn editorial team conducted a rigorous three-month selection process to finalize the 2009 list.

About Magnify.net

Magnify.net lets publishers immediately deploy a Media 2.0 strategy by enabling them to leverage their best assets and combine them with those curated and uploaded by their community from across the social Web – all in one place through one easy-to-deploy video player, uploader and viewer. It provides a cost-effective and automated service that features and delivers a unique and engaging video mix. The platform currently serves 59,000 Web publishers.

For more information about Magnify.net, please visit www.magnify.net or contact Billy Linker at billy@magnify.net.


About AlwaysOn

AlwaysOn ignited the open-media revolution in early 2003 by being the first media brand to launch a global blog network. In 2004, AlwaysOn continued to lead the media industry in innovation by introducing a social network where members can connect and engage. AlwaysOn is also revolutionizing the media business by applying its open-media principles to its executive event series (Summit at Stanford, OnMedia, OnHollywood, OnDC, GoingGreen East and West, Venture Summit East and West) and quarterly print “blogozine” by empowering its members to post and share their ideas and meet each other online. As our loyal readers know, AlwaysOn is committed to the free-market, merit-driven approach to reporting and event programming. No other media brand has dared to create such open interaction with its readers and event participants.

Exciting news announced today! Magnify has selected Highwinds CDN to deliver video for all Magnify channels. We are really excited about using Highwinds, which boasts a powerful, industry leading CDN solution. Read the official release below.

WINTER PARK, Fla., July 22, 2009. Highwinds Network Group, Inc., a multiplatform IP services and content distribution provider, today announced a content delivery partnership with video publishing platform developer Magnify.net. Magnify.net has selected the Highwinds CDN to deliver the video assets of its 60,000 customers to online audiences. Magnify.net's extensive customer roster includes a number of customers currently running on the Highwinds CDN, including New York Magazine, Bicycling Magazine, Zappos.TV, Etsy.TV, Reader's Digest Taste of Home, BlogHer, and Cookstr, among others.

These customers benefit from a comprehensive video solution that integrates Magnify.net's video management platform and consistent player controls with Highwinds' reliable and efficient video delivery services.

"Magnify.net's fast-growing customer base increasingly requires video delivery solutions that can be customized to meet individual publisher needs. Searching for a best-of-breed CDN solution that was built on the latest self-serve technology, we determined that Highwinds had a unique combination of services and capabilities," said Steve Rosenbaum, CEO of Magnify.net. "In particular, the strength of the CDN's global points of presence, combined with powerful reporting and analytics, made it the best choice for our fast-growing network." The Magnify.net platform powers the multi-source video publishing experience for all content producers and the playback experience for all online viewers regardless of where video originates: professional, web-discovered or user-generated. It offers tools for uploading, reviewing and sharing videos, creating playlists, reporting on usage, and monetizing video conten

t. One consistent video player environment, including easy-to-use controls, together with comprehensive video management features are used for all types of online video through the Magnify.net solution. The platform encodes all video in H.264, and through this new partnership, delivers customers' videos over the Highwinds CDN, with the high level of quality users expect in today's Video 2.0 world.

Highwinds enables Magnify.net to provision their own accounts on its CDN, while tailoring all accounts to the delivery needs and requirements of its individual customers. Highwinds is known for providing this unprecedented level of command and control over its CDN, which is enabling Magnify.net to propagate all video from its entire customer base across the Highwinds CDN at its own pace and discretion. With the Highwinds CDN backing all video managed and syndicated through Magnify.net's platform, Magnify.net's customers benefit from an all-in-one, truly streamlined approach to creating a high-quality online video community.

"As video moves to center stage, Magnify.net has provided a best-of-breed platform for premium publishers. We've monitored their growth, and have watched them continue to offer market-leading solutions around multi-source video aggregation, curation and publishing," said Steve Miller, president and CEO of Highwinds. "Their customers now have access to the global reach and massive scalability you would expect from a top-tier CDN. And we also bring to the table intuitive self-service controls to effectively manage accounts, robust reporting and analytical tools to gauge video effectiveness, and complete invisibility to Magnify.net's customers." About Magnify.net Magnify.net provides publishers with a robust platform solution that allows them to deploy a Video 2.0 strategy by enabling them to leverage their best assets and combine them with those curated and uploaded by their community from across the social web - all in one place, through one easy-to-deploy video player, uploader and viewer. It provides a cost-effective and automated service that features and delivers a unique and engaging video mix. The platform currently serves 60,000 web publishers. For more information, visit www.magnify.net.

About Highwinds Network Group, Inc.

Highwinds is a leader in multiplatform IP services, file replication and content delivery software and services. Since 2002, Highwinds has provided for the advancement of a variety of technologies - including messaging bus architecture, network management, distributed file systems and content routing methods. The Highwinds CDN leverages the company's high-performance RollingThunder((R)) network and user-friendly StrikeTracker((R)) media manager and reporting dashboard to globally deliver content, videos, live events and other media. It sets the pace among content delivery networks by offering advantages in data center peering, real-time analytics, instant account provisioning, complete content control and massive scalability. Highwinds is headquartered in Winter Park, Fla., and maintains data centers throughout North America, South America and Europe. For more information, visit www.highwinds.com.

You can find the option via the following:

1) Sign into your channel and go into your site admin

2) Go to the "channel" tab

3) Click "Manage YouTube Syndication"

We have also created a video tutorial to show you how it is done.

New Custom Sidebar Navigation

For sites that are building lots of cool custom pages, and want to be able to share navigation across their site, we've built a new way to organize the content on your channel.

Global navigation gives you the ability to use a sidebar module that displays categories such as playlists, members, and more; with each category taking visitors to a custom page.

Thumbnail Capture

Ever upload or discover a video and wish you could change the thumbnail image before you put it live? We have now added a thumbnail capture in the upload process - so when you upload a video and are at the meta data page, you’ll now see the option to upload a new thumbnail image. A great tool for improving the look of your page (a good thumbnail image a day, keeps the visitors coming your way).
 
If you are a user of Magnify Publisher, you can also take advantage of the thumbnail capture tool when using embed codes that don’t produce the thumbnail image you desire.

Tweetcaster Goes Viral

After receiving an overwhelmingly positive response to the Magnify Tweetcaster module (which gives you the ability to search twitter in real time and display the results on your page), we thought to ourselves, why not make the module embeddable for others to use? When you add the module to your page, you will now see an “embed this” link on the lower right hand corner. Site visitors can now take the module and put it on their own page. This means that you're filtered tweets can now reside on the other pages of your site as well (not just your Magnify.net hosted pages). 

Global Controls for SVP and MVP

As web video gets more pervasive, you need to be able to deploy more custom players to more places, and control those players with a Global configuration page.

It is now possible with a single stroke of the keyboard (ok, we made a configuraton page) to set the default values of all your channel's embeddable players. (Embed capability, autoplay, mute, adverising options, and utility toolbar).

You can still customize individual players, but if you are a channel that frequently uses embeddable players, this is a great way to set a standard format you are comfortable with.

Magnify Sponsors Major Events

So, you say you're having a conference? Well, what are you planning to do to provide a multi-media feed to attendees and web followers?

Magnify.net can be your solution with our custom built EventCaster real-time curated content pages.

In just the past month, we've powered media content for some of the best events in the web content world. Twitter feed, uploading video, RSS feeds, forums, content aggregating tools – wouldn’t those be perfect tools for events such as conferences and concerts? We thought so!

We have recently powered media channels for large events including the Personal Democracy Forum, The 140 Conference (the first twitter conference), The Open Video Conference and Internet Week 2009. The channels have done great, giving event goers and those who couldn’t make it a place to watch and share aggregated content, upload videos and pics, comment on the event and more (the Tweetcaster has been the real star!) 

Iran Live on Magnify

Recent events in Iran highlighted the unbelievable power of technology to influence and empower communities. With the huge influence of news via blogs, newspapers, Twitter and video uploads, trusted curation is a necessity.

From multiple Twitter searches and feeds, photos and videos, RSS feeds and translation capability, we watched, as the Magnify channel, iranlive.magnify.net, became a nexus of information and a true example of the influence of technology on politics.

New Partners

In the past few weeks, since our last newsletter, we're proud to annouce that we've grown to 58,000 channels. Wow. While lots of them are amazing, we wanted to share with you the incredible work being done at Etsy.tv. The site just launched to allow visitors and sellers at the coolest crafts site on the web to create and upload Etsy.tv commercials. The Etsy folks have kicked in almost 10k in cash prizes, so that is sure to help some creative crafters makes some great vids. Make sure to watch a few and vote for the winner.

Magnus World Tour Continues!

Thank you to everyone who wrote in and offered to host Magnus on the next leg of the Magnify Mascot Tour. After some heated debate and logistical planning, Magnus has decided to go to Africa! (Pictures and videos to follow.) He has a couple visits to make, but if you would like to host the little orange guy, write to worldtour@magnify.net.

Steve,  Simon,  and the whole Magnify.net team

CHANNEL FOCUS

By Ben Joseph (Magnify.net Intern and Certified Botanist)

I'm still amazed at the number of outstanding Magnify channels I stumble upon every day.  Since beginning my internship at Magnify in May, I've already seen the creation of roughly 3,000 new channels. While I particularly enjoy channels focusing on recent trends or events (iranlive.magnify.net, swineflu.magnify.net, susan-boyle.com), I've also seen incredible sites revolving around general interests and hobbies.

The channel guide is an excellent place to filter out your own personal tastes, with categories ranging from entertainment, business, travel, health, and even animals.  Just browsing through the various categories, I've discovered so many great communities building around my own interests.  Furthermore, the way in which these sites take advantage of the Magnify platform is astounding.  It's now easier than ever to incorporate Twitter feeds, Flickr modules and even RSS updates into your page.

Check out some of the channels I’ve found:

http://video.bicycling.com/

As an avid cyclist, I’ve found this site to be one of the best biking sources on the web. This Magnify powered page, accessible from the home page of bicycling.com, contains every type of video you can imagine. With a great global navigation module, users can easily direct themselves to videos about training, maintenance and repair, crashes, and even Lance Armstrong. Of course the site also contains a Twitter feed, where users give their up-to-date commentary on everything related to the biking site. 

http://bonnaroo.magnify.net/

After attending Bonnaroo last month, I’ve eagerly searched the web for videos surrounding the festival. YouTube was a great source, but I felt the content to be rather scattered and limited. This particular Magnify site features over 400 Bonnaroo videos and further organizes them into some great playlists. Not only can I find content revolving around this past festival, but the site contains individual playlists for news, bands, and even shows of years past.  As a bonus, there’s a great Flickr module that showcases thousands of photos from the event.  Also, be sure to check out the hilarious spotlight video of Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog.

http://cruiselines.magnify.net/

Last spring break I got hooked into the whole cruise experience. Now, whenever planning a vacation I find myself searching for new cruise deals. While most sites offer a great deal of information and detail, they are usually missing one crucial element – video.  I've found this site to be an amazing source when planning a trip. Not only does it contain navigation to all the large cruise lines, but it offers information on numerous destinations as well. This site differs from others, however, in that it features over 100 videos covering everything from tours, destinations, tips, and even trip advice.

http://classicalguitar.magnify.net/

What this site may lack in design and features, it absolutely makes up for in content. As a music enthusiast, I’ve found myself browsing through these videos for hours. The admin has done an incredible job of aggregating this content, and really succeeds in sticking to the theme of the site. You can find anything from Bach, Mozart and Haydn to more modern artists such as The Beatles, Clapton and Nirvana. The site features mostly fan covers; all performed surprisingly well, but also showcases some original music as well.  As an extra feature, the site also includes lessons, guitar advice, and even interviews with some of the original musicians. 

http://applyforjobsonline.magnify.net/

It’s no secret that the national economy is suffering. Each month we see new statistics emphasizing the break down of the financial structure and the failing job market.  As the unemployment rate continues to rise, hundreds of thousands of Americans search for jobs every day.  While most use sources such as Monster, Careerbuilder and Craigslist, others feel unaided in their search for the right job.  This particular site is a great source for those who feel overwhelmed in their job search.  The site hosts over 18,000 videos covering everything from available jobs, the economy, interview advice, and even friendly tips.  Additionally, the site features links to government, work-from-home, and even customer service jobs.

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Scott - AdRocket  (@milener)  - July 1st, 2009 at 6:40 pm PDT

Magnify is alone in its class, I know the space well. Kyte, and others like it are ’streaming’ services. magnify.net has focused hard on a platform to build your own YouTube with your branding, your site UI, etc.

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 Craig  (@GreenRE)  - July 1st, 2009 at 3:57 pm PDT

Magnify is by far the best free video curating and publishing solution I have found.
I think the people there seem really cool, and I don’t think the name’s that bad either.
I built Magnify’s 50,000th channel, and they really pimped it out for me. I’ve built another 40+ channels since then.

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 geo geller  (@geogeller)  - July 1st, 2009 at 9:39 pm PDT

i know magnify.net founder Steve Rosenbaum personally - one thing most people who come to this online video world don’t have that Steve has is a background in professional film/video production - he has an intuitive understanding that takes years of being on both sides of the fence and magnify is a place where people can curate content - also magnify might just be a model for the future of NEWS - i watched the oscars from british tv without american commercials on magnify.net too - in full disclosure i have no investment or interests in magnify.net

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David Strickland  - July 2nd, 2009 at 7:09 am PDT

....What makes Magnify unique is their CMS back end that allows you to add things like blogs, twitter feeds, live streaming modules, and many others. WorldTV just looks like a giant player.

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 Marques SalsaIndy  - July 2nd, 2009 at 10:39 am PDT

While being a competitor in the video aggregation market I will admit that Magnify has ‘mature’ as a platform. When I first took a look at their UI, I hated it, it was too confusing. Today it is much better and I see that they are learning from their mistakes. Kudos guys!!! For those who care and to give a shameless plug, my site is myVidster.com which is not a white label solution but a social video bookmarking and video backup solution.

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 alan  (@urbanvideos)  - July 6th, 2009 at 5:15 am PDT

Great product and best on line support!

Authorize.net. http://twitter.com/#search?q=authorize.net

What we know is that they had a power outage in their Seattle datacenter.

SJC facility can't handle load. We weill update you via our Twitter account:  @magnify.net  or

you can follow the outage thread on Twitter here:  #authorize.net  #fail

Today is a sad day for both the music industry and the world. Whether you were a Michael Jackson fan or not, you had to respect the man as a performer and personality. Everyone has a Michael Jackson song that brings him or her back to a moment in their lives. (As someone who attempted to memorize the dance moves in thriller, I've got a couple of those).

As you might imagine, Magnify has quite a few Michael Jackson related channels. But when I took a look last night, I was taken aback by the sheer number of channels dedicate to Michael Jackson on the Magnify Network. There are channels that cover every part of his music and life and beyond. As a tribute, we are going to share a couple of the channels we thought we particularly impressive. And if you are a Michael Jackson fan, go ahead and build a channel. There is always room for another!

For your viewing pleasure:

michaeljackson.magnify.net
jackson5tv.magnify.net
mj.magnify.net

By Ben Joseph (Content Curation Expert, Video Artist and Intern at Magnify.net)

In our world, we are faced with an incessant amount of political news. In just the past few weeks, we have seen unprecedented violence as Iranians have taken the streets to protest the re-election of President Ahmadinejad.  In Iraq, further aggression has continued as the U.S. withdrawal deadline quickly approaches.  In northwestern Pakistan, soldiers have been relentless in their fight against the Taliban.  Even in national politics, we have seen a new President face a wide range of social and economic challenges.

Searching for political news, in a sense, can be an incredibly overwhelming task.  While major news publications, blogs and RSS feeds can supply filtered and updated information, a person is oftentimes left wanting more.  The same applies for online video.  Sites such as CNN and BBC will provide you with the most current video, but it can often be difficult to find past, related, or even relevant video to compliment your search.  And with sites like Youtube, the immense amount of unfiltered content can result in a very unfulfilling and overwhelming user experience.  

At Magnify, we feature a number of aggregation tools that help users customize their video experience.  It is simple to either find or create a site that contains curated content that either you have choosen or from a source you trust.  Check out some of our political sites, where you can find the latest video, blogs, photos, Twitter Feeds – all in one place. 


IranLIVE - www.iranlive.magnify.net

With the recent presidential elections, Iran is seeing its most intense riots and protests within the last 30 years. As a result, the production and publishing of online video has been extreme.  The IranLIVE site is great because it aggregates only the relevant content, and further organizes it into appropriate categories.  For example, the site features ‘News,’ ‘Protests,’ and even ‘Most Recent’ channels.  Within each channel you can find hundreds of videos relating only to that subject.  Furthermore, the site contains a live Flickr feed, RSS news section, and the much touted Twitter Feed.

Barack Obama and HealthCare - barackobamahealthcare.magnify.net

If you haven't been under a rock the last month, you have read or watched about how Barack Obama is attempting to pass an overhaul of the healthcare system. As these reforms are being talked about and possibly implemented in the near future, this channel provides you with the most relevant content surrounding these issues. Here you can find the most current video, news and events dealing with Obama's health care policy and reform. There are great RSS feeds and a really interesting twitter module.


Iraq War Video Archive - iraq.videos.magnify.net

This site is fitting because of its obvious relevance to current events.  When a nation finds itself in war, the amount of published content can seem unbound.  Rather than searching for individual videos, a user can visit this site and find the appropriate videos in one place.  This particular page features a great Tag Cloud, a ‘Featured Video’ widget, a current news section, and even an option where visitors can upload their own photos and videos. 

Barack Obama Economics - barackobamaeconomics.magnify.net

While this page may initially seem overwhelming, it actually works quite well.  For one thing, it attempts to focus on just one aspect of the Obama administration.  Too many sites try to tackle the broader subject, such as Obama himself, and aggregate any and all “Obama” videos onto their site.  This site does an excellent job of bringing together video dealing only with the economy.  While the one channel and 24,000 videos may seem vast, this site is a great example of how the Tag Cloud works.  Users can pick and choose words such as ‘Credit,’ ‘Debt,’ ‘Bailout,’ and ‘Mortgages’ to filter out only the videos they want to watch.

Got a Poltical channel you want us to feature? Send it our way at billy@magnify.net

We are really excited about teaming up with Etsy.com to power the first "Handmade Moment" video contest -  allowing Etsy users to submit short videos for a chance to win thousands of dollars in prizes. Etsy has an amazing community of users and the entries for the contest so far are blowing us away. Amazingly creative, interesting, passionate, funny and more. Go to the site and watch some of the entries now. And if you are a content creator, get involved!

As you might expect, the contest has already been getting a good amount of attention. See the official release below for more information on the contest and Etsy.

Etsy.com Announces Online Video Contest, Offers Aspiring Videographers Cash Prizes and Unique Exposure

Artists and Filmmakers are invited to share their inspiration by creating promotional videos for the world's leading handmade marketplace

Brooklyn, NY - June 18, 2009 - Etsy.com is announcing its first video contest, aimed at celebrating the world's most vibrant handmade marketplace.  Contestants are invited to create videos for Etsy with the theme “A Handmade Moment”.  $10,000 in jury prizes will be awarded to the top submissions, and Etsy intends to use the winning entry to help drive its 2009 holiday marketing campaign. Full contest details can be found at www.etsy.tv.

Etsy provides consumers with direct access to independent artists, artisans, designers and crafters, connecting them to the most unique handmade and vintage goods in a diverse mix of categories. Etsy celebrates individual creativity in design, craftsmanship and the feel of hand by connecting unique people, stories and products in a playful and meaningful way.  Inherent in this connectivity, is an immediate awareness of the social and environmental implications of production and consumption.

"We created Etsy to reconnect producer and consumer. Aligned with our core values, we are inviting our members to create promotional videos with the theme “A Handmade Moment” for Etsy," said Maria Thomas, CEO of Etsy.  "Hundreds of thousands of artists have discovered the power of selling online via the Etsy marketplace.  Given the artistic nature of our community, we look forward to a variety of creative submissions.  As the heart of our community, our members have unique and compelling stories, and we are excited to share."

The video contest invites Etsy.com members to create :15 or :30 second promotional videos themed “A Handmade Moment.” Etsy will select 10 finalists from those submissions, and the Etsy community will be invited to vote for their favorites, alongside a panel of arts, media, crafting and style experts, as well as fellow artists and artisans. Entries will be awarded points for creativity and originality, handmade ethos, humor and whimsy, technical skill, catchiness and brand appropriateness.

The promotion is open to residents of the United States, Canada (excluding Quebec), United Kingdom and Australia.  Submissions are being accepted at www.etsy.tv through August 31, 2009, and the voting period begins September 14, 2009 and ends October 4, 2009. Winners will be announced after October 15, 2009. Official rules are available at www.etsy.tv. No purchase is necessary to participate and the contest is void where prohibited. Participants must be of the age of majority in their state or country of residence.

Etsy partnered with Magnify.net to build and deploy the contest. Magnify.net provides a web 2.0 video service, including a solution that provides video encoding, a custom video player, patent pending video discovery, curation and a user-generated video contest on the Magnify.net publishing platform.  

Over the next couple of days, The Open Video Conference will be taking place at New York University (June 19-21st). Magnify is an official sponsor of the conference and we can't think of a better organization to throw our support behind. The conference is getting together industry leaders to discuss the open video movement, the future of online video, public policy and innovation in the space. It is a really exciting event and we urge everyone in the area to come by, listen to a few of the panels and say hello (we'll be the guys behind the table with a bunch of Magnify signs and free gear!). There are also parties, hacker get togethers, food and more!

For more information on the conference such as schedule and speakers, check out the website.

You can also follow the conference on Twitter. (#openvid)

Get your Twitter Story published LIVE, on screen - at the 140 Character Conference (#140conf) -  and get your Tweet On! 

Tune In Here:   www.140conf.tv - you can watch videos and submit your own. 

Register to attend at http://www.140conf.com/register  use discount code:  "magnify"  for significant savings

The 140 Character Conference  will be taking place at 340 W. 50th Street at New World Stages in New York City on June 16/17.

MONDAYS'  TWITTER QUESTION:      "What's Your Best Twitter Story?"  

Love stories.  great intro's.  discoveries.  etc.  Sexy, Fun, Bizar.   You know you've got one - here's the link  to record a WEB CAM video and share your story:

WEBCAM: http://www.140conf.tv/publish/record/
UPLOAD:  http://www.140conf.tv/publish/


TUESDAYS'  TWITTER QUESTION:      "Can Twitter Change the World?"  

Share with us your vision of  the global power of twitter to make change.

WEBCAM: http://www.140conf.tv/publish/record/
UPLOAD: http://www.140conf.tv/publish/

The schedule reflects the great variety of the subject areas we will be exploring and discussing at #140conf. The speakers represent a “cast of characters” whose presence will help define this event. Our cast members are flying in from around the world to join us. And while not all members of the cast will have formal speaking roles, many will and their presence will be felt at the event. The cast members joining us will be coming from as far as away as: Perth, Australia and Doha, Qatar as well as from across North America, Europe and the Middle East. This will be a gathering of people with a variety of backgrounds and the one thing everyone who will be there has in common is twitter.

We want to extend a warm welcome to everyone joining Magnify from ChannelMe and Vidiac (and of course welcome to everyone who came from other places as well). We have already been overly impressed by the variety and quality of the channels you have created on the Magnify Platform and are excited to watch as new channels pop up each day.

We know the transition or change to a new platform can at times be stressful. We are here to help and make it as easy as possible. Have a question on implementing a feature? Wondering about advertising or making money on your channel? Ask! Nothing makes us happier than showing new users all the cool and valuable tools on the Magnify platform. Think of us as your video sherpas.

We also want to let you know about the support and community resources at Magnify:

Forums – Read questions and answers from other users and join in the conversation.
Video Tutorials – A full set of step by step video tutorials on using Magnify features.
FAQs – A comprehensive list of frequently asked questions.
Live Chat – We are here! Chat us up with any questions, comments, concerns (click the live chat icon on the home page )
Email Us – We have an active team of techies, community and business development folks waiting to answer your questions. Send your email to support@magnify.net 

Welcome to Magnify!

Billy Linker

Manager of Community

Curate The Cloud

By Steve Rosenbaum (CEO of Magnify.net)

Article orginally appeared on JackMyers.com

There's a storm brewing. A huge, noisy, thunder and lightning storm of content, community and chaos. But there's good news too - there's a silver lining in the Cloud.

And now - with the announcement that the Apple iPhone will in fact become a video recording device, we surely can see that the content creation chaos is only going to increase in the months ahead.

This is good news. Great news if you're a publisher, blogger, or advertiser.

Okay, I know it doesn't feel that way now - but let me take you on a journey into the future. Not the far future, the future just around the bend - to a time when news finds you. To a time when publishing is effortless. When content contribution is expected and enjoyable. To a time when the Cloud is full of Content, and Curating The Cloud is managed by a band of paid professionals and well-compensated media wranglers.

Here's the analogy:

There was a time before you could dial 911. Back then, if you saw a car accident, or a robbery, you would have to find a pay phone and call the police. Folks did that, of course. Then came standardized 911. And cell phones. Emergency reporting is way up. Why? Because technology was deployed that made it at first possible, and then a societal obligation. When you see someone who needs help, you call 911.

My point is, technology fuels behavioral changes and shifts norms.

Now - remember that last family vacation you took were the promised hotel wasn't all the advertising suggested? Crappy hotel rooms? A crazy long walk/cab ride to the attractions that were supposed to be right around the corner? Well, what did you do about it? Probably nothing. But that's about to change. Because portable video cameras that are wi-fi and cell enabled (that is what the new iPhone is after all) are going to create a sea-change of behavior that will quickly explode the cloud with new content. Some of it will be quite useful, lots of it will be inconsequential. And the curation function is going to be sorely needed - soon.

This is good news for journalists looking for what the future needs from their skill set. The good news for them is that demand for people able to separate fact from fiction, and sort content into contextual and accessible collections, is on the rise.

So, what does it mean to Curate The Cloud? And how does this behavior make both social and business sense?

First off all, the Cloud is a wide-open space that has no barrier to entry. Anyone can contribute, anyone can play. This is incredibly exciting - and the former barriers to entry are falling faster than anyone could have imagined. Even the expensivetechnologies that seemed like they would keep UGC (user-generated video) from Pro Video are falling fast. High Def, for example, is now standard issue on the $199 pocket FlipCam.

But as the crowd grows larger, the signal to noise ratio becomes unwieldy. And old mechanisms like tagging and crowdsourcing aren't able to keep up with the volume. Here's where the Curators come in.

Being a Curator requires a point of view. Not just a vast gathering of material on a subject, but a narrower, more focused subset of content around that subject area.

Take, for example, Foosball. Yes, you read that right. Foosball turns out to be a place were content on the web is prolific and yet often undifferentiated. What is Pro-Foosball video vs. simply video shot in a bar with a pitcher of beer? Here's a place where a Curator comes in, adding a point of view, human review, and categorization of content: http://foosball.tv/

My point is that Curating The Cloud isn't a mechanical job. It's not going to be solved with artificial intelligence or shipping containers full of processors. It is deeply editorial, and in a world of unlimited choice, curators are fast going to be the most important filters in your life. They will be the windows through which we see the world, and the point of view that makes content valuable rather than overwhelming.

Simply put, curators know who we are.

And the Content Cloud - already vast and hard to navigate - is now poised to quickly surpass even the most generous projections of size and scope. Video will be both the web's 'killer app' and, for those of us who really try to drink from the firehose without benefit of some filters and focus, overwhelming and unmanageable.

This may explain why young people seem to understand what many mid-career journalists do not. After all, how else can you explain that applications at the Columbia Journalism School are up an astounding 40% for the upcoming academic year? Content creation and content curation aren't mutually exclusive.

Curation is the future, and curators are going to be in high demand.

Steven Rosenbaum is the CEO and Co-Founder of Magnify.net - a fast-growing video publishing platform that powers more than 50,000 web sites, media companies, and content entrepreneurs to aggregate and curate web video from a wide variety of web sources. Currently Magnify.net publishes over 50,000 channels of Curated-Consumer Video, and is working closely with a wide variety of media makers, communities, and publishers in evolving their content offerings to include content created by, sorted and reviewed by community members. Rosenbaum is a serial entrepreneur, Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker, and well known innovator in the field of user-generated media production. Rosenbaum Directed and Executive Produced the critically acclaimed 7 Days In September, and his MTV Series Unfiltered is widely regarding as the first commercial use of Consumer Generated Video in US mass media. Steve can be contacted at steve@magnify.net

New York, NY. June 9th, 2009. Vidiac, the leader in enthusiast video verticals and Magnify.net, the web's fastest growing video curation and publishing platform, announced today a partnership which will enable Vidiac hosted sites to transition to a video 2.0 discovery platform.  Magnify.net will power the new sites, giving Vidiac.com access to a wide array of new features and services.

Vidiac was one of the early innovators in the channel creation space, building a solid and fast growing network of enthusiast sites and verticals. Vidiac is currently seeing almost 4 million unique visitors each month, reaching core verticals including Anime, Automotive, Entertainment, Film/TV, Hobbies, Men's Lifestyle, Music, Sports and Video Games.

Magnify will assume responsibility for the creation and management of all future channels created at Vidiac.com.  

For Vidiac.com channel builders, some of the great new features available include a custom filtered Twitter feed, 20-plus new page templates, Google Maps Widget, and seven additional video search sources.

“We are pleased that Vidiac users will have the opportunity to take advantage of Magnify’s robust platform" said Jeremy Farber a founder and CTO of Vidiac.  "This will allow our sites to continue to expand their sites and keep up with rapidly changing technologies”

“We are seeing the channel construction arena rapidly becoming the center piece for content creators and site builders who have a serious interest in making, curating, and presented quality video content” said Maginfy.net CEO Steven Rosenbaum.  “Now, working with the professionals at Vidiac, we’re able to offer channel builders and content entrepreneurs a single destination for channel development.

For more information, visit www.vidiac.magnify.net

For current site owners: www.vidiac.net/affiliate/vidiac

About Vidiac
Vidiac is an Internet broadcast company that helps web site owners create video communities. We leverage our infrastructure and sponsorship relationships so that site owners can quickly create their own "Internet TV Channel". Users create and upload the video content and site owners are given tools to moderate and manage their site's content.

Conceived in 1999 and launched in 2004, Vidiac is one of the many successful companies to grow out of Georgia Tech.


About Magnify.net
Magnify.net powers publishers, ecommerce companies, and web sites, looking to deploy a Video 2.0 Curation Solution. By offering an integrated video publishing solution, Magnify.net gives online businesses the ability to leverage their knowledge and sector expertise by providing market leading video search, aggregation, and curation technology. Curated video has editorial value and it is this credibility that permits Magnify’s customers to leverage any video content to drive audience engagement, brand awareness and, for media companies and publishing customers, higher advertising revenue. The  Magnify platform currently serves 55,000 web publishers. www.Magnify.net

Hi, my name is Filip Szymanski.  You might know me from the Magnify tutorial videos posted here.  This past December I graduated from The University of South Carolina (GO COCKS!) with a degree in Psychology and Business Administration.  Despite having a major that has almost nothing to do with online video, I live for the Internet!  Every minute you see me; I'm on the Internet in some form or another.

Video is also another one of my passions, which started back in middle school when my friends and I were having Iron Chef competitions and I would document all of the action.   As time went on, I got more involved and better experienced with video by producing wedding videos and then after college helping out a video website called SetHerApart.com, and now Magnify.net

Currently, I live in lovely New York City, a far cry away from the southern ways that I’m used to.  It took me about a month to stop addressing people as "Ma’am" and "Sir."  Some things that I enjoy doing during my own time are anything that involves high speeds with a chance of death.  I like to jump out of airplanes, ride sportsbikes, and go wakeboarding. 

So there you have it, I'm an internet/video geek who likes a thrill here and there.  Follow me on Twitter to see what kind of trouble I'm getting into @FilipSzy

My name's Martina Kajanova but my friends call me pretty much everything but that; Tini, Shmini, Wheenee, Tinka, Marti, Shmarshminka, tini tiny, Foreigner, Little Slovak, Slovakian goose, and so on... I am from Slovakia, a small country in Europe. I came to the US my junior year in high-school not knowing a word in English. After two years in California I came to study and play volleyball at Columbia University in Uptown New York City (knowing a pretty decent amount of English). I am spending the summer at Magnify.net fooling around with Billy, Filip and Ben, learning about the online video and spreading the word about how awesome Magnify.net is! 

Other things about me: I need to have a box of ice cold chocolate milk every night before bed otherwise I don't fall asleep. I eat oranges and cookie-dough ice-cream like no other business. I like my pasta, rice, mashed potatoes, chicken, fish, and sushi with ketchup. Restaurants hate me, but I am damn proud of it!

Hi, my name Ben Joseph. Film has always been a passion of mine. Whether a movie, television series, documentary or short, I’ve always been drawn into elements of storytelling and audience response.  This enthusiasm has been imminent all my life, and something I wanted to pursue at an early age.  So, at age 14, I landed my first job with a video production company - meaning, I would attend Bar Mitzvahs with our local videographer and hold a light for five hours (and occasionally fetch a diet coke).   

As I got older, my studies started shifting from video and entertainment.  In college I majored in economics and political science, while at the same time working at law and accounting firms.  During my senior year, most of my fellow classmates were cramming for the LSAT’s; while this seemed like the proper course, my passion for entertainment was still strong.  So instead, I spent the year working at my school’s television station, producing and editing two programs aired weekly over our local network.

Upon graduation, I saw major opportunity in the field of online video.  Traditional media seemed to be shifting entirely to the Internet, while more and more people were producing their own video.  Interning at Magnify, I’ve gotten a sense of how massive this industry actually is.  It's incredibly exciting to be part of a young, energetic environment in such a booming field.  At Magnify, anyone can express their story in a fashion that they feel works – the possibilities are really endless.

Magnify: When was the idea for the channel first conceived? What was the motivation?
April: The idea for an international volleyball video site (Vovidvo) was in my business plan for more than four years. The motivation was based on two observations:
a) That almost all existing volleyball video sites promoted their own videos and rarely those of others and b) I saw the need for one central fuss free site where volleyball players, parents, coaches, club and tournament directors and event promoters worldwide could find a curated resource that celebrated the history, the game's greatest players, and encouraged user generated content while showing the game's international popularity and participants.

What is your background, are you a 'video person' a 'web person'?
I'm a volleyball journalist, volleyball consultant, volleyball entrepreneur and former professional photographer specializing in portraits of volleyball players and coaches in Italy. Now that I created four "magnified" volleyball video channels including VOVIDVO and the upcoming Create Classic College Volleyball Videos, High School Volleyball Videos and Club Volleyball Videos - I think it's safe to say that I'm fast becoming a volleyball video person!

How are using the site and video to create a business?
Volleyball is in the top three most popular sports in many parts of the world and it's popularity is increasing especially in the US, particularly after our gold medal wins in the 2008 Olympics. Having studied the internet marketing trends and techniques for the past 5-6 years I find there are still many innovative ways and areas where beach and indoor volleyball has yet to be promoted, especially online.The Volleyball Voices business model is set to utilize these marketing techniques.  Clearly the magnified Volleyball Voices video sites are positioned to become an important part of the online volleyball video niche.

Tell us how you went looking for a place to build your site?
On Twitter I follow a lot of women's sports tweets. When I saw the Pretty Tough site I was drawn to their Pretty Tough TV page which I thought was magnificent. Once I saw that page I knew I'd found my solution. What I didn't expect to find was the community building aspect that Magnify provides which to me was an added benefit.

What made you decide to go with Magnify?  What feature or service?
The tools. The toys. The customer service (especially Billy--he's great!.) Not in that order but that's what I love about Magnify. I told them what my initial budget was and they presented me with a selection of services and options that surpassed my expectations.

How do you plan to use web video in the future? How has it helped the site? 
VOVIDVO currently has aggregated more than 8000 volleyball videos. By producing regularly sponsored international volleyball video contests, encouraging user generated content and providing tournament directors and event organizers a volleyball video venue to promote events, Volleyball Voices hopes to attract a significant share of the virtual volleyball video audience.

Anything else?
If you are passionate about a subject, build your niche by starting a magnify video channel.

MAGNIFY.NET TO POWER OFFICIAL INTERNET WEEK NEW YORK VIDEO SITE

THIS YEAR INTERNET WEEK NEW YORK GOES VIDEO!

Magnify.net is proud to announce that we have partnered with Internet Week New York to produce the exclusive Internet Week TV Channel.  

Internet Week will be producing coverage of Internet Week events with video host and social media guru Shira Lazar. Videos will be available on the channel along with content shot from a team of reporters and videographers.

In addition, Magnify.net is providing a public video upload solution to allow event organizers and event participants the ability to capture and share content from Internet Week events.

"Internet Week is successful through the efforts of our many outstanding partners, said David-Michel Davies, the Chairman of Internet Week, "We’re happy to partner with Magnify.net, an NYC-based company, to provide a video solution for the community."

Said Steven Rosenbaum, Magnify.net CEO:  "Last years events was such a blast, we wanted to give the community an easy and accessible way to both make and view video of the events. Now the coverage will have a year round home, so that if you miss certain events, you can come back to the channel and experience them later."

About Internet Week
Internet Week New York is a week-long festival of events saluting New York's thriving Internet industry and the many talented companies, organizations, and innovators creating the future of online media. It is presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences and The Mayor's Office of Film, Theater, and Broadcasting.

About Magnify.net
The Magnify.net platform currently provides video discovery, upload, and encoding to more than 55,000 publishers, ecommerce sites, and communities. Magnify.net enables users to immediately deploy a Media 2.0 strategy by leveraging their best assets and combining them with curated and uploaded content from their community and across the social Web. Magnify.net provides a cost-effective and automated service that features and delivers a unique and engaging video mix. For more information, please visit the company web site at www.Magnify.net or contact Billy Linker at Billy@magnify.net.

http://www.jackmyers.com/commentary/media-business-bloggers/45421712.html

Sarah James from Taste of Home Magazine is one of Magnify's favorite users. She is responsible for the content on Taste of Home Magazine's website tasteofhome.com - the very popular website that features easy recipes, home cooking tips, kitchen design insights and diet and nutrition information. Sarah gets curation and has proven herself as one of the most adept curators on the platform. We thought we would ask her to share a little abouther experience for fellow admins looking for tips.

How much time do you spend curating tasteofhome.com?

I really only spend about one week per month curating new videos. I have learned that sources such as Food Network, Kraft, Betty Crocker and others don't upload their new videos until the end or beginning of the month. Because Youtube is mainly our chief supplier of videos, I check their channel pages around those times to see if they've posted anything new.

You guys use both content that you have shot and content that you have discovered from other video sharing sites. How is the combo working out for you?

By using the Magnify (discovery) tool we have only enhanced our site. People come to our site for these other videos. It's easier to find videos to go with our editorial content this way - instead of having to wait to see what the video team shoots. We can also play to the visitors preferences this way. Some like Paula? Ok here are some of her videos. Others like Tyler Florence? Ok we'll have some of him too. You have so many more options by using this tool.

What is your curation process?

When I'm looking for videos I make sure to follow guidelines I came up with in the beginning of this process. I make sure that the videos are well produced, are of good light and sound quality, and are going to be engaging for our visitors. I mainly try to stay within the Food Network, Kraft, Betty Crocker etc  - names that our visitors know and trust. Every once in a while do I stumble upon a new find and that is great!

What is your organizational process?

I try to organize the videos by editorial content and seasonal calendar. I make sure to have the seasonal playlists showcased often and they are the stars of the channel. We want our videos to look good and often they don't have the best images. So I go into our recipe database, find recipe photos that work with the video, pull them out, resize them in Photoshop and then attach them to the video.

What other tools or tricks do you have up your sleeve?

I just try to make sure that our playlists are seasonal, and relevant to editorial content, as well as make sure that we have the best images possible.  By making sure that I have quality videos, images, and romance helps continue to bring high traffic to our pages.

Any advice you would give other channel admins?

Write out what you want your channel to be: this includes playlist titles, video content, etc. This helps create a cohesive and engaging channel.

Thanks Sarah! If anyone has questions for Sarah about how she curates and manages the Taste of Home video channel, shoot me an email at billy@magnify.net and I will gladly pass it along.

Today is also a big day, as we welcome our new Vice Preseident of Sales, Phil Ripperger, to the Magnify Team. Beyond being a snappy dresser, Phil is a veteran in the digital space and we are truly excited to have him on our side. To hear it in his own words, find his bio here.

If you are in and around the New York area on Tuesday and Wednesday, make sure to head over to Hilton New York and stop by the Magnify.net booth (#232). We will be doing demos, giving tips and handing out a bunch of free gear. Best of all, Magnus the Mascot will be signing autographs and taking pictures will fans. We would love to meet Magnify users, so come by and say hello.

What is Streaming Media East? The Streaming Media East show is a great place to come see, learn, and discuss what is taking place with all forms of online video business models and technology. Content owners, viral video creators, online marketers, enterprise corporations, broadcast professionals, ad agencies, educators and others converge on the halls of the Hilton Hotel to hear about the latest online video technology (such as Magnify.net) and discuss the business models that are coming of age.

We also understand that some users might want to take control of 100% of the advertising on their channel. For you channel entrepenuers, Magnify offers a Pro option that allows users to buy-out 100% of the advertising on the page for a montly fee - giving you the ability to earn all the revenue generated from the channel. To get more info on the ad-buyout, click here. (The option also allows users to remove all advertising from the channel.)

As always, if you have any questions, shoot me an email at billy@magnify.net.

New York Magazine, who recently re-launched their site with the Magnify platform, has been nailing it (when have they not?) and winning the General Excellence Online award is a real testament to Loren Mooney and the team over there. They are always finding innovative ways to keep their audience entertained and with their slick new video design, they have really taken it to another level. Congratulations guys.

Bicycling, the go to magazine for the sport, is another partner we were really excited to see get an award. Bicycling has amazing coverage and features and even for those who aren’t bike enthusiasts, the magazine and site can be really entertaining. We love working with Bicycling because of their willingness to really take advantage of the Magnify platform – running contests, using custom embedded players and staying on top of discovered content. Congratulations to the Bicycling team and keep it up!

What's a custom page? Glad you asked. Custom pages are a great way to add secondary pages to your channel that are navigationally linked via your channel’s home page. Custom pages can very helpful as an organizational tool or as a way to feature content on your channel.

What does a custom page look like? Here are a few channels that are using custom pages well. Look along the left hand side at the custom page navigation (the text links).

www.alongthemetro.com

whostwittinnow.magnify.net
 
So how do you put a custom page on your channel?

Adding a custom page is easy to do:
1) Sign into your channel and go into site admin
2) Go to the "design" tab
3) Click "Change custom page layout." 
4) From here, you will see one page listed, "Home", which is your current home page.  Click "Create a new custom page". You have 13 standard layouts as well as the ability to clone your home page
5) You're done! Well not quite yet – you still need to add content to your page. Add modules just like you would to your homepage.

Now you have an awesome and exciting page.  Create as many custom pages as you would like. To get into your custom page layout, go back to the "design" tab and Change Custom Page Layout.

For step by step instructions on created custom pages, check out our video tutorial

And if you make something great make sure to share it with us so we can feature it on the blog – billy@magnify.net

Here's the LINK: http://support.magnify.net/video/Alan-and-Ari-Take-a-Ride#

Wondering why you should use Twitter and Magnify together? Don't trust me - read the testimonial of a user below. Also, see a really amazing Magnify channel built around Twitter.

First, the new toys:

1) Auto-Tweet - gives site administrators the ability to auto-tweet an alert when new content is posted. You also get to choose the frequency of tweets (every time a video is posted, once a day, etc.) It’s easy to set up and is a great ways to let users of your channel know when new content has been posted. (Site admin --> "Content" tab --> Manage Twitter Announcements)

2) Tweet-Caster - I love this thing! A custom-built twitter search module that searches twitter in real time for chosen keywords and displays results in a configurable module. (Also includes an obscenity filter that will automatically exclude tweets containing specific keywords set by the administrator.) It is like having a real time search engine on your channel – very cool. (Site admin --> "Design" tab --> Adjust Home Page Layout --> Tools --> Tweetcaster).

 So why use Twitter and Magnify together? We asked Dawn Garla, Magnify power user and creator of whostwittinnow.magnify.net

Here’s what she had to say:

"Tell us about your experience with Twitter so far on the platform. How do you like the new tools?"

DG: "Seeing the Tweet-Caster updating fairly fast is GREAT! After I constructed the site, I put it to use for myself as a test run. I tried to find people and businesses with an interest with body, health, and fitness to follow and follow me. To my pleasant surprise it worked great.

I found the videos extremely knowledgeable and provide myself with a deeper understanding of how Twitter works. As far as locating followers, how is over 300 and growing in a few days? I found great blogs, great fitness clubs, personal trainers, and many Twitters with an interest in fitness.

My membership has increased on quest4muscle and who's twittin now, as well. All and all it has been a great start for a new site and a new Twitter user thanks to Magnify!"

"Tell us a little about Whose Twiitin’ Now and how it got started"

DG: "Being new to Twitter myself, I found the way that you look for people to follow or the way you have people follow you on Twitter was slow and limited. I thought to myself...If I could build a channel or site with a lot of custom pages and only include one Tweetcast per page, it would be fairly fast and provide you with a ton of interests to choose from on the front page...that would be nifty! With the current magnify platform, what better way to provide information to new Twitter users, like myself, than with videos."


Thanks Dawn for the building a great channel. If anyone has questions on integrating Twitter to your Magnify channel, shoot me an email at billy@magnify.net.

Channel Stats can give you a good sense of how many people are visiting your channel and what exactly they are doing there. This information can be helpful in a variety of ways. If you notice for example that your channel attracted a large number of visitors on a specific day, you can often think back to that day and figure out what you did to get a traffic spike. New video? Was your channel mentioned in an article or blog outside of Magnify? Did you have a video that a lot of users commented on? Digging even deeper into the stats will give you even more info.

Wondering what certain statistics stand for? Check out are FAQ for exact definitions.

http://video.liveearth.org

http://earthday.magnify.net

http://coloradogreenproperties.magnify.net

http://www.ecobabble.com

http://ecoall.magnify.net

If you're planning to be at NAB, please stop by to hear Steve Rosenbaum, CEO of Magnify, speak on the panel "How Syndication is Powering the Broadband Video Era". The panel takes place Wednesday, Apr 22nd, at 3:30pm in the Content Theater. Will Richmond will be moderating the session. We hope you'll join us as the panel is sure to deliver a lively and informative discussion. Stop by and check it out.

Yesterday saw an impressive roll-out by HD Cloud - Magnify's new encoding partner and a company that has been getting some serious attention on the technology front. It was great to see the amazing and well deserved press coverage HD Cloud got yesterday (see links below). We also had the chance to watch HD Cloud put on an impressive demo last night at the NY tech meetup, encoding 100 50mb videos simultaneously in under 5 minutes...and the videos looked awesome.

HD Cloud is best-of-breed technology that is really changing the way that encoding is done and you, as a Magnify user, are at the forefront of change. Amongst other benefits, the new cloud technology has dramatically improved encoding time for Magnify users (you no longer have to wait in line to have your video encoded).

Magnify is excited to continue partnering with great technology and want to congratulate Nicholas and his team at HD Cloud on a great launch, amazing product and overall awesomeness.

Articles on HD Cloud:

TechCrunch

Contentinople

ABOUT HD CLOUD
HD Cloud is a video technology service provider that enables automated video encoding and transcoding for publishers.  Developed by Diversion Media, which provides broadband video solutions for partners that include Sling Media, HD Cloud provides next-generation web video services based on proprietary technology.  Based in New York City, the company is privately held.  For more information, please visit the company web site at www.hdcloud.com.

ABOUT MAGNIFY.NET
Magnify.net platform currently provides video discovery, upload,  and encoding to more than 52,000 publishers,  ecommerce sites, and communities. Users can immediately deploy a Media 2.0 strategy by enabling them to leverage their best assets and combine them with those curated and uploaded by their community from across the social Web. The Network provides a cost-effective and automated service that features and delivers a unique and engaging video mix. For more information, please visit the company web site at www.Magnify.net or contact Billy Linker at Billy@magnify.net.

"Dog training is something that I had recently been involved with after adopting my puppy, Boris.  I would like to think I did a good job training him, however, I had to leave him with my parents - the apartment I was moving to in NYC didn't allow pets.  It wasn't ideal to leave my dog behind but I had limited time to find an apartment. My parents would have to continue his training, which was a daunting task being that my parents have never owned a dog, let alone a puppy.  In preparation to giving Boris over to my parents, I gave them all the tips I could give them but there was just so much to go over.  I had to give them another resource other than bugging me every five minutes when something came up with Boris.  Enter trainingdogvideos.magnify.net.

The first thing that hit me was how good the channel looked -  they have a nice custom header graphic, a custom background image and a lot of small design features that are impressive.  I’ve seen a lot of channels in my time at Magnify and this site was very easy on the eyes and very well organized.

Secondly, anytime my parents would ask me a question, I could direct them to this site and using the search function, find a relavant training video.  The reason it has come in handy for my family and probably many other dog owners out there is that it features a vast amount of videos dealing with dog training.  From house training all the way to playing fetch with a Frisbee, the amount of information is staggering.

Another nice aspect of the site is the administrator seems very engaged by offering insightful and entertaining blog posts about dogs.  One blog post we found helpful dealt with the subject of making your next vet visit easier.  Boris isn’t shy by any means; he’s the opposite when around other animals.  The tip my family found helpful was to take him out for an exercise before the vet, that way he won’t be as excited.  Also, I love the fact that this site offers an RSS feed for the updates the creator makes.  Every blog posted on the channel will show up in my RSS reader so I can direct my parents to there if I see any information that they might find useful.

I would recommend anyone with a dog or interest in dogs check out the channel ...and let me know if you have any tips good tips for Boris.

Filip

If anyone has any questions on how specific design elements were added or would just like a tutorial on using the Magnify platform, Filip can be reached at support@magnify.net

Here's the channel:  http://oldtimers.magnify.net/

Here is how I built it:

1) I took a simple template, changed the background colors and uploaded a custom header - www.YOURCHANNEL.magnify.net/admin/design/layout

2) Imported content from youtube using the Magnify search, searching the term "user:libraryofcongress" (telling the search to only find videos from the user: library of congress). I also searched for content using the broad term "old movie" and found a couple of videos to add to the channel that weren't on the Library of Congress channel  - http://YOURCHANNEL.magnify.net/admin/manage/loader/

3) Created a User Based Playlist of the content I just imported (trick: put a space in the search field to bring up all content in your library and then drag and drop the videos you want in the playlist) - http://YOURCHANNEL.magnify.net/admin/manage/playlists/

4) Put the Playlist on my page using the design tool and also featured a video. I choose to use the Thumnail Mosiac grid. http://YOURCHANNEL.magnify.net/admin/manage/playlists/

5) In the home page layout, I added a twitter feed, a tag cloud, a custom graphic and removed a couple of the modules that were already on the page – all which can be done here: http://YOURCHANNEL.magnify.net/admin/design/module_gallery/?page=home

If you have any questions on features on the channel, feel free to email me and ask. And if you would like to become the admin of the channel (I will stay on as advisor and help you customize the channel) email me at billy@magnify.net

New York magazine, the go-to-source for in-the-know New Yorkers, has relaunched the video section of its web site using the Magnify.net platform. What separates the magazine's effort from others is its plan to actively augment video it produces itself with other video sources, including users. By "curating" others' video, New York is looking to beef up the video section of its site by tapping into others' energy. Michael Silberman, the magazine's GM, Digital Media, explained more to me last week.

Michael said that as a print publication, New York was unlikely to ever have a large staff devoted to video production (it currently has just one dedicated person). However, the New York team has been watching broadband video's surging popularity and wanted to capitalize on this by making video an integral part of its web site. A key goal was to cost-effectively bulk up the volume of video it offered. That led the team to focus on how to aggregate and intelligently curate video from other sources so that the magazine's sensibility would be maintained. And all of this needed to be done in a "Hulu-like" user experience with accurately tagged videos presented in a logical flow.

In a prior post about Taste of Home magazine, I wrote about curation and how it can be a powerful editorial lever for print publishers' sites that have lean video budgets. The reality is that there is a lot of really interesting video being created that would be quite valuable to mainstream publications. In the Internet era, timeliness and omnipresence are important calling cards. Tapping into video-enabled readers, who often find themselves at the right place at the right time with their cellphones, digital cameras and Flips on hand, can produce real value if incorporated the right way.

Curation has been a mantra of Steve Rosenbaum, CEO and founder of Magnify.net, which I originally profiled here. The company has been continuously augmenting its video platform features while maintaining a focus on curation as a differentiator. This clearly paid off with the New York win; Michael said that of all the video platform companies it investigated, Magnify was the only one that could fully support its curation objectives. He also cited Magnify's robust customization tools using mainly CSS and Javascript that allowed his team to migrate the entire video section over in just 5 weeks.

New York plans to bring on a producer who will, among other things, run the curation process. No doubt there will be plenty of trial-and-error in the hunts for and includes appropriate 3rd party video, including users' submissions. But as I explained in the Taste of Home post, curation's potential suggests the emergence of a new editorial model for video that is particularly relevant in these penny-pinching economic times. It's the kind of break-from-tradition that may be jolting to editorial purists, but which reflects pragmatic - and strategic - thinking about how print publications can evolve and succeed in the broadband video era.

By Steve Rosenbaum (originally appeared in The Business Insider, April 3rd, 2009)

It's not a popular thing to say that things are okay in media. In fact, the changes taking place are useful, necessary, and will in short order result in better editorial experiences, because as shown in the press daily, the sky is falling in old media. But, happily, the future is right around the corner.

There is a trend evolving at media companies both big and small that promises to have a remarkably positive impact on what you read, watch, and share on the web: Curation.

Magnify has rolled out a series of small business packages aimed at providing an integrated video solution to smaller publishers at a new affordable price. The new "Pro Packages" will allow small businesses to implement and integrate a social media video solution using the Magnify platform. The solutions are specifically targeted at the Small/Medium size business market – and provide a unique mix of self-serve tools and hands on support to help get new video services off the ground.

"We found that there were a lot of folks interested in video that just needed a hand getting their solution launched" said Steven Rosenbaum, the CEO of Magnify.net. The 'Pro Packages' offering will bundle site set up, graphic design, admin training, and live support to make sure that new customers get off on the right foot."

With the new offerings, Magnify hopes to help businesses create a custom branded video experience, integrate social media services and use Magnify’s Patent Pending Video Search to add relevant content to their sites. Packages will include training from Magnify’s team of social video specialists in areas such as content management, design and advertising.

Plans include the Quickstart, Business Builder Pro and Business Builder Premium and will start at the market-leading price of $249/month and can be found here.

And stay tuned for more exciting twitter related tools!

Behind the Burner, a Magnify partner that continues to impress us (don't worry, you are all special!) was featured this morning in DailyCandy, a free daily e-mail newsletter that goes out to millions of subsribers. Congratulations to Divya and the team at Behind the Burner - we are happy to see the site getting the attention it deserves.

What is Behind the Burner? A great cooking site that offers access to master chefs, mixologists, restaurateurs and other culinary visionaries. Get behind the scenes action, great recipes and deals on amazing restaurants. And check out the videos - there is some really great stuff there.

The report, Online Video Advertising Networks 2007 – 2010: Emerging and Surging, details video inventory and gross media spend for both up-and-coming and established avail executions, including in-banner video, remnant/3^rd party pre-roll sales, video overlays, video search and podcasting.

Each video advertising network vertical is analyzed by total inventory (exclusive, non-exclusive, monthly and annually), business models, sell-out percentages, CPMs for each avail format, media spend and total revenues by network.

In-banner video networks led by Eyewonder, Pointroll, Eyeblaster and Google’s DoubleClick are inventory, media spend and revenue generating juggernauts of the video advertising group, combining for over $1.5 billion in 2008 gross billings (video units only), forecast at $1.8 billion in ’09.

3^rd party video networks representing premium pre-roll inventory aligned with major branded content include BBE, Brightroll, Tremor Media, YuMe Networks, Internet Broadcasting and Worldnow are forecast to contribute another $223 million to gross media spend during 2009, over 39% of all pre-roll media buys across an extremely competitive and rapidly-evolving sales landscape.

Overlay network inventory reached 19.8 billion total units in 2008, forecast to increase 70% in 2009. Participation revenue flowing back to networks like VideoEgg, Adapt.TV and ScanScout is expected to climb 100% in aggregate.

Major video search networks Blinkx, Truveo and Magnify.net handled a combined 420 million average monthly search requests in 2008, and forecast to generate $30 million in corresponding revenue 2009.

Podcast inventory averaged some 84 million units per month in 2008, taking in gross billings estimated at $25.9 million, equaling approximately 55% of total paid media spend made against branded premium and semi-professional content categories.

“Video advertising networks are a vital economic engine of online video monetization,” commented research director Paul A. Palumbo.

“These tenacious, entrepreneurial networks are endemic to the broadband publishing medium, propelling video advertising inevitably onward toward greater accountability, higher ROI and wider adoption by agencies and marketers.”

Original Article

Written By Steve Rosenbaum

South by Southwest is the biggest internet/media/ interactive conference we've ever attended and I thought that it would be good to give you guys an update of what went on.

I'm not going to explain SXSW, you can read my detailed about the event in my post on Huffington Post.

But, for Ari and I - the first two days were all about BoxBreaks.

First of all, the Bloggers Lounge is run by our friends Stephanie Agresta and Brian Solis of TechSet. These guys totally know how to put on a show. The lounge was sponsored by Window's Mobile - and we were invited to power the Microsoft "Fantasy Application" promotion.  So, Stephanie working with Jen from her team, Loke from Microsoft, and Billy from Magnify.net put together a Rockin’ site. Here's my 'fantasy' just in case you're interested. (ps - it involves video).

On the ground our plan was to launch the Zappos BoxBreak promotion with a bang... and get Zappos users to check out their favorite web celebs and then make their own videos at home. We had 15 of the coolest, most fun, most super-charged bloggers in the world come the Magnify.net/Zappos "BoxBreak Central" studio in the TechSet Bloggers Lounge. There we did a quick interview about the ideas around Happiness - and then it was BREAK-TIME. The Zappos team was in full force - with Tony Hsieh, Aaron Magness, Brett Houchin,  Fred Mossler,  Alfred Lin, Melisa Lapointe and more...  and in typical Zappos "fun and a little weird" style - they quickly found Tony upside down (thanks @Loic!)

And once the word was out... Zappos.tv was getting videos from customers as well.  (If you haven't entered, you can - and there's a $50 gift certificate for the best Customer BoxBreak.

It was three days of total fun with Bloggers totally getting into the whole idea of bringing the formerly tech-centric Unboxing phenomenon to the world of Shoes, Clothes, Accessories and More – an idea that Zappos.tv celebrates.

Everyone did a great job - and here were some of the highlights:

Chris Brogan - @chrisbrogan - killed his box with a pair of scissors and some Social Media Zeal.  What was inside?  A cool backpack for the self described "Bag Whore."

Shira Lazar -  @shiralazar- Does the sexiest SloMo BoxBreak ever - and reveals...... a..... Puma Bag. 

Julie Allison @JulieAllison -  Ever the sexy trendsetter,  grabbed a pair of heals that she said:  "took you from the workplace to the strippers pole"  yowsa.

Frank Gruber - @FrankGruber- who’s always on the road, whips out a great piece of luggage.  Nice Bag.

Loic - @loic - Is a fashionista,  in his Iceland trendy sweater...  hey,  you can even track the sheep who made the wool on Google Maps.

Megan Asha - @meghanasha- Is styling in a pair of grey kicks.

Deb Shultz -  @debs-  Who's always on the go, snatched herself an awesome new watch.

Larry Chiang - @LarryChiang-  Got a groovy pair of shoes.

Tara Hunt -@missrogue-  Is spectacular in her rockin' green dress.  St. Patrick's day, here we come.

Erica O'Grady - @ericaogrady-  Chose a snappy ensemble of a bag and Red Keds.  Coolio.

Guy Kawasaki - @guykawasaki-  always the trend setter revealed video games for the Wii

Cathy Brooks - @CathyBrooks-  Is super sleek in her new shades.

Erin Koteki Vest @QueenofSpain - Got herself a little 'bling' for the busy Mom from BlogHer.

Thanks to everyone who came out and made BoxBreaks awesome and SXSW ever better. If you like what you see, make a BoxBreak yourself and enter to win a $50 Zappos gift certificate. See everyone next year.

Written By Steve Rosenbaum

At first, I thought it was just the group of people I was spending time with. Among them, the talk was rapid-fire and filled with unbridled enthusiasm. So on the second day at South by Southwest, I ranged further out - into the panels and into the impromptu lunch gatherings that crop up throughout this sprawling interactive conference. To my surprise, each and every person I spoke with was riding a wave driven by the fast moving social media explosion that is sweeping across media, advertising, and consumer products. It seems these are good times for the Digital Natives and their technology-driven businesses.

But, it's not as simple as that. The change is fundamental. The fear and concerns written large across the headlines of the nations daily newspapers aren't lost on the attendees of South by Southwest, it's just they've already adjusted their work styles and their income expectations to fit the job market of the future. They're not afraid of change, they're living it.

But, let's go back a bit. What is this gathering? And why is it growing as conferences across the country are experiencing unprecedented decreases in attendance?

South by Southwest began way back in 1987 as an indie music festival in the now hip heart of Austin, Texas. As the festival grew, it became a magnet for new sounds and new trends in music. In 1994 the festival added a film component, and the indie film world counts SXSW film as an important place to discover new talent and new films. Finally, (also in '94) the South by Southwest Interactive festival was launched. Catering to indie media, open source developers, and wide range of digital content creators, bloggers, video game makers, and developers. So SXSW has a unique mix of creative talent, a spirit of innovation, and deep rooted commitment to the emerging evolution of the digital economy.

While many things have happened at SXSW, it is perhaps best known as the place where two years, ago when a then unknown social technology called Twitter "blew up" (that's hipster talk for, got big fast, and achieved critical mass). So, it's no surprise then that SXSW is pretty much fueled by Twitter. Attendees counting on Twitter to foster chance meetings, impromptu 'tweet-ups' and an almost overwhelming number of discussions, demos, presentations, and a wild and raucous nightlife that is a huge part of the SXSW experience.

When you roll in to SXSW (for me it was both my first time at the festival and my first time in Austin) your first assumption is that somehow everyone there is on some version of daddy's credit card or trust fund cash. The crowd is young, mobile, and carrying the best and latest in techno gadgets and gear. But those economic assumptions would be wrong. In fact, most of the folks here have arrived on some mix of discount airlines, bus trips, shared car rides, and there's an underlying conversation about shared hotel rooms, shared house floors, and where the best free food or beer is each night.

SXSW and its economic enthusiasm is important. It's real, and its basis is worth a bit of deconstruction.

First, unemployment. It's the talk of almost everyone these days, but not at SXSW. Why? Because no one at SXSW has a "job". These folks are living in a post-employment economy. Don't get me wrong, they all work - a lot. They're working for multiple companies. One person I talked to had 3 of his own web sites, that each earned $50 to $100 a week in AdSense income, worked as a "Social Media Consultant" for 3 big US brands, had written an eBook that was about to be released, and was working with two friends on a start up. Another had a full time consulting gig for an ad agency, and was doing a number of side projects. A third had just quit her job at a newspaper, after getting an offer to join a well-known technology company (freelance) and move from Chicago to New York. The stories were all like that. Self-Employed, multiple projects, overlapping in content, ecommerce, PR, media, web, development and programming. These so-called digital natives have created an economic safety net that is driven in part by creating awareness of their work through personal branding and a relentless ability to keep their name and their work front and center among their "Tweeps" (that's the Twitter version of "Peeps").

Next, the stock market. While lots of folks are wringing their hands about the market, the folks at SXSW simply aren't in it They're either too young, or self-employed, or just not willing to bet on other companies when they can bet on themselves. The bottom line is, at SXSW there wasn't anyone checking their iPhone to see if the market was up or down, it just didn't matter.

Church and State. While Newspapers and media companies wring their hands about the 'Chinese wall' between Church and State, these SXSW digitals are working all sides all the time. One of my friends is a well known publicist who is a blogger, a PR man, an author, and an organizer of media events that large media and technology companies pay tens of thousands of dollars to participate in. While old media institutions agonize about journalistic objectivity, the folks attending SXSW understand that it is more about transparency.

Finally - "Brand Me". At SXSW there was a stream of photographs, flickr streams, blog posts, and tweets. Everyone, it seems, wanted to be on-camera at SXSW. For the new class of self-employed media makers and consultants, keeping your personal brand in front of your peers and clients is a daily effort. There's no doubt that the digital generation is making as much media as it's consuming - and it's crucial they keep their story front and center in their community.

So, why is the mood so up at SXSW? Because, for the folks who are members of the new era of Digital Natives - everything is indeed coming their way. Brands are beating down their door to learn how to play in the social media space. Technology is making it easier to build businesses and revenue without overhead or investment. Because, even as newspapers, record companies, book publishers, and auto makers are suffering - digital film, news, eBooks, eCommerce, software and social media platforms are all quickly growing.

Standing amidst ten thousand digital media makers and consumers, there's little doubt about the state of their industry. SXSW 2010, sign me up.

Because most of us are stuck in an office when we secretly wish we could be out on the street or in the bar celebrating, the Magnify Team has gone ahead and created a St. Patrick's Day Magnify channel to give you an outlet to the fun and the history.  Come watch St. Patrick's Day videos, look at pictures from Flickr, read what people are saying on Twitter and more! If you are one of the lucky ones out celebrating, upload a video (you can even do it from your cell phone!) and we will send you a Magnify T-Shirt.

http://stpatricksday.magnify.net/

Integrates User-Generated Video Content at ZapposTV on the Magnify.net Platform.

Las Vegas, NV - March 12, 2009 - Zappos.com, a leader in online apparel and footwear sales, today announced its partnership with Magnify.net to launch a "BoxBreak" video-fest beginning March 13, 2009 at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSW). The partnership with Magnify.net now allows Zappos.com to build and deploy a web 2.0 video community with its customers to seamlessly integrate video from multiple sources and servers across the web. Zappos.com customers will be encouraged to capture the "WOW" experience of opening a Zappos box as it arrives on their doorstep and share their happiness with friends and family by posting their "delivering happiness" video at Zappos.TV.

To kick off the BoxBreak video-fest at SXSW, well known bloggers including Guy Kawasaki, Kevin Rose and Chris Brogan, are expected to visit the blogger lounge at the conference where they will each receive a box delivered to them from Zappos.com. As they open their packages, their "BoxBreak” moment will be captured by the Magnify.net Team—and posted on Zappos.TV. The bloggers are expected to blog about the experience live from SXSW.

The new technology provided by Magnify.net makes it possible for Zappos.com to create a unique customer experience that encompasses the entire process of recording, sharing and voting on their favorite BoxBreak videos. Just another way Zappos.com delivers a little happiness.

News Facts:
•    Zappos.com announces partnership with Magnify.net to build web 2.0 video community for its customers
•    BoxBreak video-fest March 13, 2009 at South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSW)
•    Customers can share their Zappos.com experience by posting a BoxBreak video at need to finalize
•    Customers can record, share, and vote on their favorite BoxBreak videos for a chance to win monthly prizes from Zappos.com
•    Noted bloggers Guy Kawasaki, Kevin Rose, Chris Brogan among those to experience a BoxBreak firsthand at SXSW and blog about it live from the show floor

Quotes:
“Zappos.com customers have expressed time and again the great excitement and happiness around receiving a delivery from Zappos.com, and then the ceremony around opening a Zappos box,” said Aaron Magness, Director of Business Development, Zappos.com.

“The new technology Magnify.net provides now makes it easy for our customers to spread the joy of the entire Zappos experience by making it a fun and interactive one with our BoxBreak videos.”

 “Zappos.com understands something that few businesses do – their customers are AWESOME,  and content created by their customers is a really powerful way to capture the happiness that Zappos brings to millions of customers every day”  said Magnify.net CEO Steven Rosenbaum. 

“By embracing and deploying Magnify.net’s Video 2.0 platform,  Zappos.com is unleashing a creative force that we’re excited to empower.”

About Zappos.com

Established in 1999, Zappos.com has quickly become a leader in online apparel and footwear sales by striving to provide shoppers with the best possible service and selection.  In 2008, the company’s gross merchandise sales exceeded $1 billion. Zappos.com currently stocks millions of products from over 1000 clothing and shoe brands. Zappos.com was recognized in 2009 by FORTUNE MAGAZINE as one of the “100 BEST COMPANIES TO WORK FOR”, debuting as the highest-ranking newcomer to FORTUNE’s 2009 list. More information about the company’s customer service philosophy, unique company culture, and job openings can be found at about.zappos.com  More information about the “Zappos Insights” business membership program can be found at zapposinsights.com

About Magnify.net

Magnify.net lets publishers immediately deploy a Media 2.0 strategy by enabling them to leverage their best assets and combine them with those curated and uploaded by their community from across the social Web—all in one place, through one easy to deploy video player, uploader, and viewer.  It provides a cost-effective and automated service that features and delivers a unique and engaging video mix. The platform currently serves 50,000 web publishers. www.Magnify.net

Promoters of all kinds take a shot at online video

NEW YORK — Media companies and people with camcorders and spare time — the drivers of popular online sites including Hulu.com and YouTube— are starting to face tough new competition for the attention of Web users who like to watch videos.

Businesses, colleges and institutions are leaping into online video production as the audience for clips soars and production and distribution costs plummet.

"It's a gigantic business," says Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Brightcove, an Internet video services firm. "Every single month it's just grown and grown, to the point where a majority of our customers now are not media companies. They are people using the Web to market, communicate, educate and inform."

His customers include the AFL-CIO, Anti-Defamation League, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Archive of American Law Enforcement and The Asia Foundation. The phenomenon should continue to grow now that Brightcove and rivals, including PermissionTV, Ooyala and Maven Networks, "are targeting (non-media) companies," says Forrester Research senior analyst Bobby Tulsiani.

Forrester expects that 187 billion videos will be streamed over the Internet in 2009, up 24% from last year. The growth of speedy Internet connections and improvements in video technology are major catalysts. "You forget how bad streaming video was a year and a half ago: the buffering and graininess," Tulsiani says.

YouTube helped by making the Flash Video format close to an industry standard.

"A couple of years ago you had to choose between Apple's QuickTime, RealPlayer and Windows Media Player. It made people think too much," says John Engberg, who manages global media and Web development for kitchen and bath firm Kohler. "Now almost 98% of the world has access to Flash."

Meanwhile, high-definition cameras and editing software became more affordable. Production costs have dropped by half, and the quality has grown dramatically, says Ian Blaine, CEO of thePlatform, an online video facilitator owned by Comcast.

That's appealing to companies that want to engage with customers for longer than the length of a TV ad.

"Every marketer at every company is trying to crack this nut," says Vail Ski Resorts chief marketing officer Derek Koenig, who used to work at the Discovery Channel. Videos showcase Vail's ski runs and offer how-to advice for novices.

Colleges also find that potential applicants often prefer video to print catalogs. Since the online "distribution is close to free," says Rhode Island School of Design's Becky Bermont, the college was able to cut its admission budget by 20% last year. Videos from the art school profile students, faculty and their work.

We recently had the opportunity to interview Amy Wilson, creator of the Magnify channel, StreamingGourmet, a site that 'makes it easy to find, post and share cooking videos from anywhere on the web or from your very own desktop.' Amy is a great example of someone who has taken the Magnify platform and run with it. Below, we ask her a few questions about Magnify and how she created what has become one of the most innovative and fun Magnify channels out there.

When was the idea for the channel first conceived? What was the motivation?

The idea was conceived in the middle of August of 2008. The site launched Oct. 1, 2008. That Magnify made it possible to get a site up and running in 5 weeks with so many of my feature wishes fulfilled is, in many ways, the true story here.

My motivation was that I wanted to create a Vimeo/Youtube for cooks. I saw that there were hundreds of thousands of videos on Youtube tagged with "cooking" so there was a market for video-hosting related to food, but I wanted to create an environment where people would know what they were getting. They would feel safe and happy in this cooking-oriented video destination. When they typed cooking as a search term, they wouldn't stumble onto something that was really "cooking" if you know what I mean.

I liked the clean design and enhanced social networking tools of Vimeo and tried to replicate that feel as best I could. Other cooking video sites that I looked at when researching "the competition" didn't have everything I wanted my site to have. None of them had live streaming video, which I plan to incorporate even more over time. Epicurious doesn't categorize its user-generated content adequately and users don't have profiles. Eat, Drink or Die is aimed at a demographic that is younger and more male than my target audience.

When Taste of Home launched a week before I did, I cried. But then I got over it and went ahead anyway, thinking that maybe I would reach a different audience. Now that we've both been up for awhile, I do feel that we serve slightly different purposes. Lately, my content has been updated more regularly than theirs and I'm willing to throw in videos with a sense of humor (like the Christopher Walken one or the viral GUACAMOLE one, for example).

My goals have evolved as I've learned more about the space and the web in general. I see myself almost like an Alltop for gourmet videos. You can come and find the greatest and latest without having to work at it. AND if you are a high-quality content producer who doesn't already have a huge following, I'm more than happy to feature you and help you with exposure.

At StreamingGourmet, you are the Food TV Star, but if you just want to watch Tyler Florence, we've got that too.

You seem to be dedicated to cooking -- can you tell us a little bit about how you came to it?

I come from a family obsessed with food. Holidays move from one meal to another. Love is mediated through food. It's a sickness, really, but I've decided to embrace it.

What is your background, are you a 'video person',  a 'web person'  or is this your first time at this?

I am neither and both. I've never been a professional web, video or cooking person, but I've been passionate about all three for a long time. I was a high school physics teacher and then administrator for 15 years, (which gave me an opportunity to pursue these hobbies at work, actually) but after having my 2nd child last year, I stopped working and had more time to devote to side projects. I've always been passionate about cooking and have dabbled extensively with video (even working for a documentary film company in NYC in the early nineties), but I never made a career of either - until now. I feel like I'm finally doing something I'd do for free (which is a good thing, because so far, I am).

Tell us how you went looking for a place to build your site, how many others platforms did you consider - and which ones (if you don't mind sharing)?

I actually approached Vimeo to see if they would license their technology to me. They sort of laughed. At the time that I was conceiving the site, I was researching live stream video options. My husband was an advisor at Justin.tv at the time and was enthusiastic about the direction this technology was going. I've done a little live streaming on my Magnify site (via Mogulus).

While researching live stream options in August 2008, I came across a mashable article about Mogulus that mentioned Magnify.

That was the first time that I stumbled upon Magnify and I couldn't believe that there was this off-the-shelf solution to create the very website I had conceived. I contacted the web developers/programmers that I had been talking to and told them to go ahead and pursue that iPhone app project they were excited about. I had found my answer - and the price was right and I could do it myself.

Once I found Magnify, I didn't consider any other platforms and I didn't hesitate to upgrade to Pro to get the user interface I was after. I have done all of the customization myself. It's amazing what you can learn by doodling around online.

What made you decide to go with Magnify?  What feature or service?

I didn't find another platform that would allow me to integrate video upload with social networking that I could truly customize and make on my own. Did I miss something? I just looked at Fliggo and while I like the clean, AJAXy interface, there's no there there.

One of my favorite Magnify features is being able to run down a list of videos that I know are going to be high quality and just tick them all off to add to the site. I don't do automatic searches much because I want to hand pick everything, but being able to hand pick them quickly is great.

How would you describe Magnify.net to someone thinking about launching a video channel?

For a while, I didn't want to breathe a word about Magnify to anyone, because I didn't want people to know how easy it was to create a site like mine. If pressed, I would describe Magnify as an off-the-shelf platform that allows you to create your own video-hosting/social networking website - your own Youtube without all the gobbledygooky scary videos. I would explain how easy it is to search for the very best videos across virtually all of the video hosting sites and add them to your site. I would also describe how easy it is to add affiliate and google ads to your site. Look and feel are also more pliable than immediately apparent.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/05/read-hoffman-tells-charlie-rose-every-individual-is-now-an-entrepreneur/

Reid Hoffman is an entrepreneur's entrepreneur. He worked at Paypal, founded LinkedIn, and invested in dozens more. Last night, he appeared on Charlie Rose (full interview embedded above, full transcript below), where he talks about the rise of social networking in general, and LinkedIn's success in particular (it is adding one million professionals every 17 days and is emerging as a "low cost provider of really good hiring services").

Yesterday, Hoffman wrote a post for us with some concrete suggestions for a Stimulus 2.0 plan led by startups. He hit some of the same themes on Charlie Rose. The best part of the hour-long interview, however is towards the end where Hoffman discusses the role that entrepreneurship can play in getting America out of its rut.

"I think entrepreneurship is really what has a chance of accelerating us through the recession, that LinkedIn kind of providing the tools for entrepreneurs will help with that, because obviously everyone’s worried about, you know, is this like the 1930s.

. . . And I think, you know, part of the benefit of a network is bringing together financiers, employees, customers, advisers, et cetera, and bringing all of us all together in a really powerful way. And I think that– I think that if you look at what’s going on in the Valley, people are still trying to figure out how, like OK, we have a problem, we have an economic recession. What kind of things can I build that will work now?"

What he is talking about is not just that everybody needs to go out and build a startup, but that if more people start thinking like entrepreneurs we’ll get out of this economic mess much faster than if everyone just has their hand out.

New York Magazine is the latest addition to the growing list of publications adopting the Magnify.net platform for video discovery and publishing. Reader’s Digest has three magazines on the platform including, Taste of Home, BestYou Health, and Birds and Blooms, Rodale’s Bicycling Magazine and Reed Elsevier’s Content Agenda runs a Magnify.net deployment for all its video discovery.


About Magnify.net

Magnify.net lets publishers immediately deploy a Media 2.0 strategy by enabling them to leverage their best assets and combine them with those curated and uploaded by their community from across the social Web – all in one place, through one easy to deploy video player, uploader, and viewer. It provides a cost-effective and automated service that features and delivers a unique and engaging video mix. The platform currently serves 50,000 web publishers. www.Magnify.net

About NYmag.com

New York magazine aims to reflect back at its readers the energy and excitement of the city itself. With assertive reporting, stylish writing, imaginative packaging, and elegant photography and design, the magazine chronicles the people and events that are forever reshaping New York and helps readers navigate the country’s largest, most dynamic city. Its Web site, nymag.com, is a smart, critical guide to life in the city for readers who want to stay on top of the players, trends, culture and politics of city life.

The first inaugural Curate-a-thon was a huge success. Great Magnify channels were built, beer was drunk and people were forced to watch videos about knitting. All and all a great night.

First the set up: We invited participants of Social Media Week NYC to take part in a video curating competition. What is a video curation competition one might ask? Well, here were the rules:

1) All participants break into teams of 4 and name a team captain
2) Decide on a curation topic
3) Set up a Magnify channel revolving around the agreed upon topic (45 minutes)
4) Channels are judged on the following:
    a) Number of sources
    b) Quality/contextual fit of the content
    c) Graphic Design and Layout
    d) Team Spirit and flair
5) Winner takes home all the left over alcohol

Fueled by beer, cheese balls and some seriously competitive participants, the competition was fierce from the opening bell. Computers were humming, people were yelling and everyone was trying to decide how to build a video channel in 45 minutes that would win the hearts and minds of the crowd. The focus on the channels varied from chocolate fetishes to Christmas. In under an hour, teams designed and stocked sites with content from all over the web, incorporated twitter, flickr, paypal, RSS feeds, translation widgets, custom graphics and much more (pretty amazing for 45 minutes).

Everyone worked right up to until the time limit, with some participants having to be pulled from their keyboards and nearly penalized for working beyond the allowed time. Next, everyone gathered in a room where the newly created video channels were projected one by one and judged on by the time-tested applause-o-meter. With each presentation of team channels, the crowd got rowdier, until a winner was finally crowned:

http://afghan-istan.magnify.net

The winning team from Afgan-Istan consisted of veteran knitting aficionados Ari Greenburg, Heidi Cohen, Constantine Valhouli and Jerry Weinstein (with a little coaching from Jeff Pulver). Other sites in the running included:

http://farawayplaces.magnify.net

http://chocolatewonderland.magnify.net

http://christmasdecorations2.magnify.net

Thanks to all who turned out for the first (and certainly not last) Curate-a-thon. For those who couldn’t make it, check out the sites that were created and curated in an impressive 45 minutes, videos and pictures from the event. Feel free to send in your vote for your favorite site to billy@magnify.net.

.

About BlogHer
Founded in February 2005 by Elisa Camahort Page, Jory Des Jardins and Lisa Stone, BlogHer’s mission is to create opportunities for women who blog to pursue exposure, education, community and economic empowerment. BlogHer provides the number-one community and media network of blogs by women via a community hub (http://blogher.com), annual conferences and an advertising network of more than 2,500 qualified, contextually targeted blog affiliates. BlogHer provides the highest quality content on a range of topics, with all blogs continually edited to meet strict editorial standards, including content quality, category relevance and blog frequency. In July 2008, BlogHer entered into a strategic partnership with iVillage, part of Women@NBCU, which includes other NBC Universal brands including Bravo and Oxygen. The partnership also includes an investment by Peacock Equity, a joint venture between NBC Universal and GE Commercial Finance’s Media, Communications and Entertainment business, and returning investor Venrock.

TED (conference)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an annual conference that defines its mission as "ideas worth spreading". The lectures, also called TED talks, cover a broad set of topics including science, arts and design, politics, culture, business, global issues, technology and development, and entertainment. Speakers come from a similarly wide variety of communities and disciplines^[1] and have included such people as former U.S. president Bill Clinton,^[2] Nobel laureates James D. Watson ^[3], Murray Gell-Mann,^[4] Al Gore, internet entrepreneur Jimmy Wales,^[5]and Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.^[6]

The TED staff is headquartered in New York City and Vancouver. The conference has been held in Monterey, California, since its founding, but as of 2009 will be held in Long Beach, California.^[7] The TED conference also has a companion conference, TED Global, held in varying locations.

Approximately 370 TED talks are provided for free viewing online. As of January 2009, talks were viewed over 90 million times by more than 15 million people.^[8][9]

Live Earth & Magnify are partnering to provide the global video partner solution for Twestival on February 12, 2009. Twestival is organized 100% by volunteers in hundreds of cities around the world and 100% of the money raised from these events will go directly to support charity: water projects.

Live Earth will feature video submissions from Twestival volunteers and participants as well as footage from the 140+ events on February 12th at Live Earth Video (http://video.liveearth.org).

Live Earth has a vibrant community of twitter followers, several of whom are planning Twestival events around the world.  Live Earth supports innovative uses of technology and community events (especially for global, simultaneous events) that bring people together around key environmental issues.

Tweet. Meet. Give.

On 12 February 2009 100+ cities around the world will be hosting Twestivals which bring together Twitter communities for an evening of fun and to raise money and awareness for charity: water.

Join us by hosting a Twestival in your city, attending an event, or participating online.

The Twestival is organized 100% by volunteers in cities around the world and 100% of the money raised from these events will go directly to support charity: water projects.

In September 2008, a group of Twitterers based in London UK decided to organise an event where the local Twitter community could socialize offline; meet the faces behind the avatars, enjoy some entertainment, have a few drinks and tie this in with a food drive and fundraising effort for a local homeless charity.

The bulk of the event was organized in under two weeks, via Twitter and utilized the talents and financial support of the local Twittersphere to make this happen.

Around the world similar stories started appearing of local Twitter communities coming together and taking action for a great cause. Twestival was born out of the idea that if cities were able to collaborate on an international scale, but working from a local level, it could have a spectacular impact.

By rallying together globally, under short timescales, for a single aim on the same day, the Twestival hopes to bring awareness to this global crisis.

charity: water is a non profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations by funding sustainable clean water solutions in areas of greatest need.

Right now 1.1 billion people on the planet don't have access to safe, clean drinking water. That's one in six of us.

Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all sickness and disease, and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war.

Many communities in developing nations often have a plentiful supply of clean drinking water just below the ground, but no way to get to it.

This is where charity: water and their partner organizations come in. Drilling a well can cost from $4,000 - $12,000 USD and many living on less than $1 a day cannot afford one in their community, even if the money is combined.

Twestival cities might consider setting a goal to raise enough money from their event to fund a well project in a developing country, starting at $4,000 USD.

We all know that Twitter can be a powerful communications tool. It can connect, mobilize and inform people around the world instantly.

Those of us on Twitter know of its ability to organically create interesting communities from those people who find and follow each other. It is proven from the first Twestival that bringing the Twittersphere together for a special event is not only a memorable night; it has momentum to bring about social change.

This website has been designed as a simple portal where each Twestival city organizer will be assigned their own site to update their event information, post news, blogs, photo and video content.

This site has specifically been established with central controls which ensure that all of the donations go directly to charity: water and event registration is secure.

There will be certain creative restrictions on city sites, especially for those with a web developer on their team; but it was important not to compromise these features due to the scale of this grassroots event.

Feel free to link in social media sites or any other website relevant to the Twestival.

• Phase one: Launch the homepage with a list of cities which have already registered. Over the next day, organizers will be given a password and instruction to upload information to their own city site (start thinking about a first blog post). Please have a bit of patience as we are working as quickly as we can.
• Phase two: All of the cities should be linked up to the homepage. Features to donate, bid on an auction, raffle and other fundraising projects will come online as buttons as they are completed.
• Phase three: On 12 February 2009, Twestival will be working with partners to have live broadcasts of the events around the world.

This site will be the central hub of information and schedule of events with links to Twitter, photosites and video content sites.

• Follow @twestival for updates.
• Contact @amanda for global enquiries.
• See the development blog for technical site updates.

We are quickly approaching a major milestone at Magnify:    

50,000 channels!

The growth has been amazing and the kinds of users who have built channels on Magnify.net are as wide and varied as the web itself.

To celebrate our 50,000th birthday, the user who creates the 50,000th channel will win a Magnify Pro Services Package valued at over $1000! The package includes the advertising buyout for 5000 pages a month, custom branding (watermark on video player and logo on embedded players), enhanced graphics for your channel (new buttons for the main navigation bar, a page background image, an "upload a video" graphic for your home page, and a logo for the channel guide watermark). You can see the official channel count of the Magnify home page.

So, if you have not yet build a channel, or you are a super busy PRO user thinking about building a bunch more – now is the time to get cracking and build a bunch of new channels.

We could not be happier with how the site has grown and want to congratulate channel owners and users for building a truly vibrant video community.

Among the users who are fastest growing:
   
Publishers:  We are exited to be growing with our friends at Rodale, Reed Elsevier, Weather Channel, Reimen, Live Earth.
Brands:  With sites like Jones Soda and Bernie and Phils, we are the place for Brands with an appetite for Curated Video Content.
Enthusiasts:  Tons of these! Rock climbing, skiing, yoga, bicycling,  and more.
Technology:  From the guys at Droideo (Google Android) to the PC, Mac, iPhone,  and Software gang… this is a huge space for us.
Community/Teams/Fans:  Of course, sports fans (go Cheeseheads!) Youth Soccer,
Lacrosse, Bowling, Skydiving and music fans (and makers) from Pop to Rock to Classical. 
   
It is great to see so many people using Magnify to harness and spread the power of online video and we want to thank you.

So, get ready for the 50,000 site birthday bash.  In our mind, you are all winners – but only one of you will win the grand prize.  Build a site and see if you can be the lucky 50,000 site buider.

http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-twitter_why_you_should_care.html

I love that users are demanding and expecting a more interactive and video rich experience when they go to websites now. Companies and site admins are finding that enriching print with relevant video improves the overall experience and makes for happy site visitors (who does not want to watch a good video?) It is fun being in the middle of the trend and helping great sites like scientificblogging.com integrate video. I encourage everyone to take a minute and check out the site. And again, if you don’t have video…add it!

If you want to see a couple good sports channels, here are a few that stuck out:

 http://packers.magnify.net

http://tv.prettytough.com

http://hoopsu.magnify.net

http://whitbydunlopstv.magnify.net

http://bentleysroof.magnify.net

http://futbol.magnify.net

http://extremesportsaddicts.magnify.net

Video Expected To 'Buck The Downward Trend'

Online Media Daily

10/22/08

By Mark Walsh

Even as traditional publishers put the squeeze on digital units, efforts to expand online video are pushing ahead. After initial forays in the last few years, magazine and newspaper sites are upgrading video operations with an eye toward reaping the premium rates that video ads command.

Publishers such as Forbes, Conde Nast, The New York Times and The Street.com relaunched their video platforms this fall with plans for further growth in 2009. Whether those ambitions will be realized is in question as all forms of media and advertising face cutbacks in a deteriorating economy.

After layoffs on the print side, Conde Nast last month cut staff at its CondeNet digital arm as part of a 5% companywide workforce reduction. Forbes in November shuttered ForbesAutos.com and ForbesTraveler.com. And Time Inc. said in October it would lay off 600.

Lately, even doubts about the outlook for professional Web video have crept in. NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker warned of a dramatic slowdown in ad spending at video hub Hulu.com and NBC.com at an investor conference earlier this month.

Market researcher eMarketer maintains that video ad spending will buck the downward trend. It expects the category to increase 45% in 2009 to $850 million, or just over 3% of the $25.7 million total projected in online ad spending.

Digital executives at traditional media companies are counting on such growth. "We certainly expect monetization is going to ramp up as our video footprint grows and it becomes more and more important to us," said Richard Glosser, executive director of emerging media at CondeNet. 

CondeNet--like NYTimes.com, TheStreet.com and other large Web publishers--has relaunched video operation on the back of Brightcove's latest video platform, Brightcove 3. It offers a widescreen format, features aimed at improving search engine optimization, synchronized companion ads, and the ability to syndicate video.

Conde Nast plans to extend the new platform to 16 Web properties in the coming months, with upgrades to sites such as Wired.com, Portfolio.com and Glamour.com already completed. Glosser said Wired.com has already seen an uptick in traffic in the few weeks since the new video offering debuted.

Forbes.com likewise this month unveiled a revamped video network with a widescreen, high-definition player and options that allow users to search for videos by different categories including new releases, most-watched and editors' choice.

Jim Spanfeller, president and CEO of Forbes.com, said the network is now producing 10 to 15 segments a day across its lineup of some 20 shows. "And that number will explode as we move into next year," he said, noting that the company operates studios in New York, San Francisco, Hong Kong and London.

"The issue is that to get more meaningful ad dollars you have to scale views," said Spanfeller. "The 15 million reach of "CSI:Miami" still has a huge place in advertisers' minds."

Even the TV networks' online shows pose challenges for Forbes.com. "If an advertiser is particularly interested in video in finance, Forbes isn't going to be top of mind for them," Chris Allen, vice president and director of video innovation at Starcom USA, said. "They'll look to CNNMoney.com or CNBC.com, or even Yahoo Finance. "

At the same time, the limited inventory of high-end video online has helped keep ad rates high, with CPMs of $25 to $40 compared to $5 or so for display ads. "Publishers see a huge revenue opportunity because they realize the CPMs from video are so much higher than traditional display units," said Allen.

Exactly how much revenue traditional publishers are getting from video advertising is hard to say. But if the Web generally accounts for 10% or less of revenues, video is probably an even smaller fraction again of that amount.

Spanfeller said video contributes about 5% of Forbes.com revenues, but he expects that proportion to double to 10% in 2009 and reach as high as 30% to 50% in the coming years. The site's video ad inventory at present is nearly sold out, he said.

At rival financial site TheStreet.com, Thomas O'Regan, senior vice president for advertising sales, is tight-lipped about video ad dollars. But he said brand advertisers are asking that a higher percentage of their ad spends with the site next year be earmarked for video.

"It's a must-have for all large RFPs we see," he said. "It's now kind of a tried-and-true part of the media mix. It's what mobile will be two years from now."

TheStreet.com also boasts its own video star in Jim Cramer, a Street.com co-founder best known as the exuberant host of CNBC's "Mad Money." Cramer produces multiple videos on news of the day that go up on the site each day before "Mad Money" airs in the evening, according to O'Regan.

"He's a big draw," he said.

Magazines and newspapers are increasingly recruiting talent from the print side to bolster the quality of video content, and maybe even produce their own video personalities. Think New York Times personal tech columnist David Pogue, whose cheeky videos are widely promoted on the newspaper's site.

Starcom's Allen said publishers' efforts to improve video programming are much needed. "Because they don't have much experience working with video, they've struggled to create content that's compelling and constantly refreshed," he said.

In a report released last week, Lauren Rich Fine, director of research for ContentNext Media, questioned the underlying assumption that video has to be a component of news sites at all. "I just watch how people spend their time online. Video slows things down," she said. "People are looking for more efficiency, not less."

Fine is also less bullish than eMarketer on video ad spending next year. "It's not going to be a big year for people trying to experiment," she said. "Since video is sold at a premium, I'm not convinced it will be a big year for it."

For his part, Allen advises that magazines and newspapers focus on pitching video as part of cross-media buys to boost efficiency as marketers pull back on spending. "Put together a deal that has pages in the print publication and an online video extension to that," he said. Publishers such as Conde Nast and Meredith are already taking that approach, Allen noted.

Original Article

NYCovergence Original

'Tis the season to give -- so, we're giving our channel creators some great new feature updates that you can explore and enjoy in the final weeks of the year.

1. New Color and Font choices
2. Enhanced Email Notification
3. Create Multiple MVP Players

New Design Pages

We've added some more design choices to the administrator's Colors & Fonts page, and at the same time, improved the user interface to give you more creative control over the look and feel of your channel's pages.

http://YOURCHANNEL.magnify.net/admin/design/colors

Along with a new slick color picker, you'll notice a few additional menus, like the new pop-up menus to select background images, which allow you to scroll through thumbnails to select your previously stored images, or upload new ones for various parts of your pages. This allows you quickly switch between different design options, while keeping your files organized and readily accessible.

Another recent addition is the font selection menus, which can set different areas of the site to display your choice of twelve web standard fonts.

There are other new options that may seem small but can make a big impact on the overall look of your site, like the "Content Box" options, which now allow you to add borders around the content areas of your pages.

Enhanced Email Notification

As more and more video floods into your site, you may find that you want to have incoming videos reviewed by yourself or other designated site editors. With our new email notification options, each administrator and editor can opt in or out of the various kinds of automatic email messages. Plus, the new notification emails include thumbnails of each video, so that you can quickly glance and see just what kinds of videos you're finding, even before you click on a link and go to the Admin Review panel.
http://YOURCHANNEL.magnify.net/admin/service/email

Create Multiple MVP Players

Introduced this fall, the MVP (Multi-View Player) is a very cool and very powerful embeddable player that allows you to share playlists within a custom design featuring watermarks, customer logos and all kinds of player customization. Now, with the MVP control panel, you can build multiple players, with different colors and sizes. And you can chose which playlists you want each MVP to show, and even change the order they are listed in. This way you can "program" your network of players, and push out new videos and playlists to the players that your visitors have already embedded in their pages.

http://YOURSITE.magnify.net/admin/design/widgets

 
Happy Holidays

And of course, we hope that all of you are enjoying the holiday season, and are excited about all the things we're going to do together in 2009!

-- Steve, Simon and the Magnify.net Team

6 -7PM

Sweet Soul Music                   2:24    Sam & Dave       
We The Cats (Shall Hep Ya)    3:19    Joe Jackson   
Forget Me Nots                      4:05    Patrice Rushen   
Could You Be Loved               3:56    Bob Marley & The Wailers     
I Can See Clearly Now           3:17    Jimmy Cliff    We all are one: 
Sunshine Superman               4:02    Donovan   
Burning Down the House        4:00    Talking Heads -        
Heaven Must Have Sent You   3:02    The Elgins   
Love Plus One                        3:40    Haircut 100   
Kung Fu Fighting                    3:13    Carl Douglas   
Who Let The Dogs Out            1:08    Baha Men         
So In Love                             2:19    OMD        
Do_You_Think_I_am_sexy       6:28    N-Trance   
Clap Hands [Non-LP Version]    3:19    BECK
Hold Back The Night                3:19    The Trammps   
Tears Of A Clown                     3:09    The Miracle   

7 - 8pm

Cruel Summer (Remix)               6:03    Bananarama   
This beat is hot (12'' club mix)    6:03    BG The prince of rap   
Reward                                     2:45     The Teardrop Explodes
Accidents Will Happen                3:01    Elvis Costello & The Attractions
I Zimbra                                   3:09    Talking Heads
Sun Is Shining                          4:58    Bob Marley & The Wailers   
Signed, Sealed, Delivered          2:37    Stevie Wonder
Christman In Ghetto                  4:03    Master P
Don't You Want Me Baby            4:00    Humanleague
Poison Arrow                            3:26    ABC
Here's The Thing                       4:46    Girl Talk   
Life During Wartime                  3:41    Talking Heads
Enola Gay                                3:35    Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
Who Are You                            6:21    The Who
Big In Japan 88'                       6:57    Alphaville
One night in Bangkok               7:01    Murray Head   
Twist & Crawl                           2:34    The English Beat   
Paper Planes                            3:24    M.I.A.

 8 - 9pm
She Blinded Me With Science    5:09    Thomas Dolby       
Disco Inferno [Grim Mix]         4:56    The Trammps
Bounce That                           3:23    Girl Talk   
You Can't Touch This               4:17    MC Hammer   
Let's Dance                            4:10    David Bowie   
White wedding                       8:24    Billy Idol               
Rock The Casbah                   3:44    The Clash   
Homosapien                          4:35    Pete Shelley   
Don't You Want Me                8:10    Human League           
Don't You Want Me Baby        4:00    Humanleague               
In A Big Country                   6:21    Big Country                   
Wonderful World                   3:15    Jimmy Cliff
Jungle Boogie                       3:05    Kool & The Gang   
Ring My Bell                         3:30    Anita Ward                   
Tainted Love / ... Love Go     8:57    Soft Cell   
Poison Arrow                        3:26    ABC   
Genius Of Love                     5:34    Tom Tom Club
Chains Of Love                     8:23    Erasure       

9 - 10pm

White Lines                          7:32    Grandmaster Flash
Soul Man                             2:38    Sam & Dave     
Love Train                           3:02    O'Jays             
Uptight (Everything's Alright)2:53    Stevie Wonder                 
American Woman                 4:22    Lenny Kravitz     
It's In His Kiss                     2:23    Aretha Franklin                                                              
We've Got the Beat              2:31    Go Go's     
You Can Get It If...               2:41    Jimmy Cliff
Get Down On It                   6:09    Kool And The Gang         
Tears Of A Clown                 2:43    The English Beat    What Is Beat?         
Zion Train                           3:37    Bob Marley & The Wailers         
Get Down Tonight               3:20    K.C. & The Sunshine Band
Rush                                 3:56    Big Audio Dynamite II                     
A Forest                             6:57    The Cure                     
Hard times-Love action       9:55    Human League                     
Fascist Groove Thang          4:20    Heaven 17                 
What a Wonderful World      2:22    Louis Armstrong                 

Along with a new slick color picker you'll notice a few additional menu areas -- one of my favorites is the new pop-up window attached to the background image selectors (below), which allow you to scroll through thumbnails and select your previously stored images as well as upload new ones to make your background. This allows you quickly switch between different design options, while keeping your files organized and readily accessible.

Another great addition is the font selection pulldown, which can set different areas of the site to display your choice of twelve web standard fonts (below). There are other available options that may seem small but can make a big impact on the overall look of your site, like the "Content Box" options, which allows you to set the shape and color of the area directly behind your sites modules.

There are other available options that may seem small but can make a big impact on the overall look of your site, like the "Content Box" options, which allows you to set the shape and color of the area directly behind your sites modules.

Additionally, an image and or a border can now be easily applied here to make your content really stand out on the page.

As always, we will continue to add more features in the near future. For now, we hope you’ll take the time to play around with some of these new capabilities.

Magnus wants to come spend time with you! If you have interest in hosting him for a couple days, we will send him free of charge with a surprise gift. Send us an email at Worldtour (at) Magnify.net.

12/8/08
Unique launch by toy e-tailer powers web video.

What is the future of ecommerce and video content?  Well, if the latest data from Comscore is any indication, viewers are flocking to the web from cable and broadcast TV.   And as young viewers change habits, smart retailers and ecommerce site are leading the way, combining commerce and content in a way that reaches consumers where they play on the web.

Today, Magnify.net announced the launch of Thwoop.com -  an online community for featured entertainment content, user-contributed videos, online shopping and social networking that was built on and will be powered by the Magnify.net platform.

Thwoop.com is the brainchild of leading children’s toy e-tailer Brand Performance.  Brand Performance is the parent company of TysToyBox.com and AllAboardToys.com, two of the fastest growing character based independent online toy stores.

Thwoop.com will initially feature unique and sometimes hard to find videos from NCircle Entertainment, including full episodes of Animal Atlas, Hermie &Friends, Hopla, , Mighty Machines, Pocoyo, Word World and more.  The site is being developed as an e-commerce destination that will allow visitors to not only view new content, but also rate it and then purchase the content directly from various partner sites.

"Thwoop.com offers a perfect opportunity for us to reach consumers in a new and exciting way, and embrace all of the amazing possibilities the web provides for video entertainment and social networking.  We are pleased to be working with technology innovators Magnify.net on this exciting new endeavor," said Ty Simpson, CEO of Brand Performance

"We've seen for a while the coming together of web based entertainment and e-commerce"  said Magnify.net CEO Steven Rosenbaum.  "While many of the bricks & mortar are playing lip service to wanting to provide a video experience to enhance their shopping functions,  Ty and his team have been creative and passionate about wanting to extend the website experience and embrace his customers love of web video. “

The launch will be the first public release of the new Magnify.net  “Theatre Mode”  video player,  allowing large and full screen viewing of the Thwoop.com library.   In addition, the Magnify.net platform will allow for member registration, and user-contributed content from Thwoop.com visitors.   Magnify.net provided turn key design and implementation,  and will power the site with video upload,  encoding,  and CDN services.  

“We see Thwoop.com as a sea-change moment in web entertainment”  said Magnify CEO Steve Rosenbaum.  “As niche content emerges as the driver of web video consumption, high quality content destinations like Thwoop.com are likely to emerge as the evolution of cable television.”

 “As fans of these brands come to the web and search for toys and branded apparel, they will now be offered a destination to engage not just commerce but content as well.  We think Thwoop looks like the future of children's entertainment, and we're exciting to partner with Brand Performance to break new ground. “

The web video channel is a unique combination of video hosting, community engagement, and user-generated content aggregation that is being provided by the fast growing Magnify.net Video Solutions platform.

Contact:Billy Linker

Billy@magnify.net

About Magnify.net
Magnify.net lets publishers immediately deploy a Media 2.0 strategy by enabling them to leverage their best assets and combine them with those curated and uploaded by their community from across the social Web – all in one place, through one easy to deploy video player, uploader, and viewer. It provides a cost-effective and automated service that features and delivers a unique and engaging video mix. The platform currently serves 46,000 web publishers. www.Magnify.net

About Brand Performance
Brand Performance (www.brandperformance.com) is an online brand development resource for licensed character products.  The company acts as a multi-channel e-tailer of licensed character brands, specializing in the creation, management, marketing and fulfillment of comprehensive, dedicated marketplaces that carry the full breadth of officially licensed product available for each brand.   Brand Performance is the parent company of TysToyBox.com and AllAboardToys.com, two of the fastest growing character based independent online toy stores.

Making $$$ Online - Part 3

By Steve Rosenbaum

In Part #1,  we warned you these things take time.
In Part #2,  we talked about Community and the importance of Community.

Now, we're going to get to the part that everyone wants to learn about:  Advertising. 

First,  if you haven't played with Google AdSense yet,  now'se the time.  With AdWords, it's credit card simple - so go and spend $20  and learn about how the system works - it will help you understand the AdSense side of the equasion when you go to put ads on your site.  It's good to know, at least in part, where they're coming from. It's self-serve, low cost, and you're off to the races.

We've used lots of ad networks here at Magnify.net, and I can tell you  - we haven't found any that perform better,  or do a better job of ad targeting than AdSense. If you don't have an AdSense account set up, do it right now.  It's worth the 10 minutes it takes.  I promise.

So, you've set up your AdSense account,  and if you've got a Magnify.net page - or a page from any service that lets you put ads on your pages,  you've got ads running. Ok, that's a good start. Now, how do you grow that business?

There are two kinds of ads you care about: Cost Per Action (CPA)  and Cost Per Click (CPC).   Those are different businesses. Cost Per Click are those Google text ads you see on the page. They're targeted,  but they only pay if someone clicks on them, and on the other side,  the advertiser only pays if a potential customer clicks.  Cost per action is going to pay you more money if somebody buys something - CPA ads work, and there are CPA ad networks out there that have a huge inventory of CPA campaigns that you can put on your site today.  This is particularly true if your site has nice traffic and you've organized your videos so that your the best collection of  car repair videos or mountain climbing or backpacking - whatever your specialty is.

Now,  not all CPA ads are created equal.  Each campaign has a different offer, and a different payout.  So,  for example,  Eastern Mountain Sports may be paying a 7% commission on all sales from your customers who click in and buy -  while other advertisers may look like they're paying more,  but then what you find is that the advertiser is dropping off your visitor on the product home page,  rather than to a shopping page or shopping cart,  making it a ton harder for you to get paid.

So,  CPA is really powerful - and since you probably know better than an algorithm what folks on your site might want to buy - and you can mix and match and update as seasons and products and tastes change.  So,  if you want to manage a CPA campaign,  there's real money in it  for you-  just takes some time to get the mix right.

Among the networks you may want to take a look at.

PepperjamNetwork.com

Last but not least,  if you're looking for the Holy Grail, it's probably not CPA or CPC.  You've watched Hulu, you've seen those pre-roll ads.  Yes,  they're a bit of a pain when they run :30 secs - but heck,  there's gold in them thar hills. So if you want to get pre-roll in front of your videos,  it's about volume.  You want to join a pre-roll network, but they're looking for quality videos and volume in order to take your traffic and put ads in the mix.

Here's the thing I want to stress.  If you work your butt off - and make as many videos as you can,  you're probably going to make 5 videos a week for your site.  Maybe you can make 10.  That's not enough to generate traffic and therefore pre-roll inventory.  And you can't run pre-roll in front of YouTube,  or Revver, or Blip or any of the other sites that allow you to discover and embed videos on your pages.

Which raised the BIG question. Are your visitors contributing video to your site?  If  they are,  you're building pre-roll inventory on the videos you make,  and the videos  your visitors contribute. If they aren't making video and uploading to you - why not?

Invite them to participate.  Do it right away.  Because the more people get comfortable with your site being a  mix of videos you make,  videos you aggregate and curate from across the web,  and videos that are submitted by your visitors that are pruned and curated by you - well,  that mix is going to generate SEO goodness,  pages,  and revenue.

Three kinds of advertising: Cost Per Click,  Cost Per Action,  and Pre-Roll.
Three kinds of video on your site:  Video you make (created),  video you gather and sort (curated),  and video you get from your visitors (contributed).

This is a magical combination -and now'se the time to jump in feet first!

A national advertising campaign is in motion to help launch the site and generate awareness about the incentives and educational resources available to engagement ring seekers and buyers. Apart from informing visitors about key aspects to consider when purchasing an engagement ring, the site also offers an opportunity to earn points redeemable towards discounts on the designer engagement ring of their dreams.

Embracing modern technology and the demand for web 2.0 applications, a consortium boasting some of the most noted engagement ring designers has emerged.  They are embracing both professionally produced and user-generated video to provide their customers with a unique experience this holiday season and beyond.

"We've seen for a while the coming together of web-based entertainment, customer education and e-commerce" said Steven Rosenbaum, CEO of Magnify.net, which helped design and develop SetHerApart.com.  "While many of the bricks & mortar retailers are now adding a video experience to enhance their shopping experience, Dwight and his team have been creative and passionate about wanting to extend the web experience by creating a consumer based advocacy site that embrace his target audience’s love of web video.  Building Set Her Apart with them has been a great experience."

"This is one of those great win-win opportunities” Dwight Tom said.  "People don't have access to as much information as they should, and the engagement ring market can greatly benefit from providing that information in the most digestible way; via video."

As younger viewers change habits, smart retailers and e-commerce sites will lead the way, marrying commerce and content in a way that reaches consumers where they play. Increasingly, the web is the destination for both shopping and viewing content, and SetHerApart.com can make a significant difference in educating the consumer. Rosenbaum agrees, saying, "We think SetHerApart.com is a great resource for those in the designer engagement and wedding ring industry, and we're exciting to be partnering with them as they break new ground.”

Watch Dwight Tom discuss Set Her Apart and Magnify:

About Set-Her -Apart:

SetHerApart.com is the first fully dedicated video website, designed and created for the sole purpose of delivering modern day relevance to researchers and consumers seeking an engagement and wedding ring. The sites evangelism to video is based on a modernized evolution to an ancient Chinese proverb, “if a picture can represent a thousand words, imagine what a 1 minute video can represent.” Beyond the great education that the site delivers, it has created one of the first consumer-benefited monetized operations for delivering and embracing user-generated content (UGC). Whether a site visitor watches videos, rates videos and/or submits video contest content, they score points that can be converted into discounts on their ideal designer engagement ring.

About Magnify.net

Magnify.net lets publishers immediately deploy a Media 2.0 strategy by enabling them to leverage their existing video assets and combine them with those created and uploaded by their community from across the social Web – all in one place, through one easy to deploy video player, uploader, and viewer. It provides a cost effective and automated service that features and delivers a unique and engaging video mix. The platform currently serves 46,000 web publishers. www.Magnify.net

Today Magnify.net CEO Steven Rosenbaum announced that they had closed the A1 round of financing, bringing all of the major investors back in and adding a new institutional investor to the group.

"We are very proud to announce that the Innovation Ventures, LP has joined in this round of financing" said Steven Rosenbaum. "Innovation Ventures is lead by David Freschman, a long standing leader in the Northeast's venture community and the Founder and President of Early Stage East, the largest regional early stage venture capital conference hosted annually each year in the Mid-Atlantic region." Innovation Ventures has a 10 year history of taking strategic and early stakes in emerging venture back companies in the northeast.

Innovation Ventures is a licensed SBIC venture capital fund focused on investment opportunities in emerging technology businesses. Innovation Ventures, L.P. was formed by a team of seasoned venture managers and investors who have a ten year history of successfully investing in and working with leading-edge technology entities throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. The Fund expects to achieve superior financial results by focusing in select industries and utilizing the fundamental principles of building sustainable businesses. The Fund invests in very targeted areas including information technology focused on financial institutions and governance, specialty chemicals and materials and internet technologies.

David J. Freschman, the Managing Principal of Innovation Ventures, LP will join the Magnify.net Board of Directors. "Innovation Ventures is thrilled to have had the opportunity to invest in Magnify.net. Magnify represents the type of leading company changing the way that video can be deployed easily and most effectively throughout the web", said Mr. Freschman.

Mr. Freschman is active in the venture and entrepreneurial communities throughout the East Coast, sits on a number of Boards, and has been a frequent lecturer on such topics at The White House Conference on Small Business, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, the University of Delaware, Goldey-Beacom College, and Loyola College in Baltimore. He is the creator and founder of Early Stage East - the premier early stage venture capital fair on the East Coast. Mr. Freschman serves on Governor Ruth Ann Minners Strategic Economic Council for the State of Delaware and was appointed to chair the venture capital study for the State. Mr. Freschman also served a three-year term through 2002 representing New Castle County, Delaware on the Small Business Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

Returning investors include RoseTech Ventures, NextStage Capital, Ogden Capital, as well as a number of individual angel investors. Said CEO Rosenbaum of the financing, we're impressed with the focus and seriousness of this group of investors - they've provided the company with far more than financing, and that is what companies always hope for from a Board of Directors. Now with the addition of David Freschman, we get a seasoned new investor with a great set of companies and relationships to help the continued growth of the company. We're excited to have him on board. In addition, Vencore Capital participated with a related Venture Debt financing.

About Innovation Ventures, L.P.
Innovation Ventures, LP (IV) is an SBIC venture capital fund headquartered in Wilmington, DE and with offices in Lancaster, PA. IV is focused on growth and early-stage investments in the areas of chemicals and materials; electronic materials and devices; information technology; nanotechnology; software; biotechnology (excluding human therapeutics); and business information services related to the legal, financial services and manufacturing industries. Innovation Ventures invests $250,000 to $1 million in early and growth stage companies primarily located in the Mid-Atlantic region. The Innovation Ventures, LP website can be found at www.innovationventures.com.

About Magnify.net
Magnify.net lets publishers immediately deploy a Media 2.0 strategy by enabling them to leverage their existing video assets and combine them with those created and uploaded by their community from across the social Web - all in one place, through one easy to deploy video player, uploader, and viewer. It provides a cost effective and automated service that features and delivers a unique and engaging video mix. The platform currently serves 46,000 web publishers. www.Magnify.net

Mascot World Tour Update: Magnus just returned from visiting the folks over at Winksound in Brooklyn, New York. He took a tour of some of the sites like the famous Brooklyn Bridge, rode the New York City subway and climbed around on the rocks next to the East River.Thanks to Rick and Mateo at Winksound (http://winksound.magnify.net) for showing Magnus the town and giving him a warm place to sleep. Make sure to check out the pictures from Brooklyn and his past trips at the Magnus World Tour blog: http://worldtourblog.magnify.net

Now that Magnus has returned home for a quick rest, we are looking for a destination for his next trip. Let us know if you are interested in hosting Magnus and taking a few pictures of him in your hometown. We will pay for the shipping and even give you a free Magnify T-shirt. Email us at worldtour@magnify.net if you would like Magnus to come visit.

New Player Pages. As online video quality continues to improve, we've had a bunch of you ask for new page layouts that give more room to the video player... and more features exposed on the player page. So we've released three new player page layouts, with more to come. Just log in to your administration console and you can choose the player page that works best for your channel.
» http://woof.magnify.net/admin/design/player

Adjustable Site Width. If your channel is attached to an existing web site, you may have found that trying to make the widths of the pages match was a bit of a trick. Well, no longer -- thanks to nifty page resizing code that really rocks. The control is located here:
» http://woof.magnify.net/admin/design/layout?selected=body

Mobile Upload Goes Live. This is ridiculously cool: you can now send videos to a Magnify channel from your camera phone, or any device that can send email or MMS messages. It is easy to do and is a great way to finally show the world some of those videos of your dog pulling you on a skateboard.
    » http://YourURL.magnify.net/publish/email/

Publishing Page Redesign. If you've posted a video recently, you might have noticed the slick new design. It's easy to use and updated for compatibility with Flash 10. Go upload something and check it out.
    » http://YourURL.magnify.net/publish/

Channel Marketplace. Tired of looking for change in your couch? Ever wonder what your Magnify channel might be worth in the open market? You can now put your channel up for sale using the Magnify Marketplace. Name the price and see if anyone comes knocking.
    » http://woof.magnify.net/admin/service/

Custom Video Watermarks. This is a great way to customize your channel and place your mark on the video world. The feature is available as a Pro option and allows you to superimpose your logo in the corner of every video delivered by Magnify on your channel.
    » http://YourURL.magnify.net/admin/design/

Friendly URLs for Playlists. Playlist web addresses now have a name, not just a number. When you link to a playlist or send a playlist, you will now see the name of the playlist in the browser address bar. It's more user friendly, and can help with search engine optimization.
    » http://YourURL.magnify.net/watch/

Make Money With Magnify. Web video is growing fast, and now with more than 46,000 publishers like you building amazing, agile, engaging video channels on the Magnify.net platform, we're excited to see real business opportunities starting to emerge. If you haven't read it already, here's a link to the first of our five-part series, "How to Make Money with Online Video."

    » http://www.magnify.net/blog/item/9X0KMV0JWZ578QG1

You'll see more tips, tricks, ideas, and suggestions in the weeks ahead. If you have learned something you want to share, or just have some feedback, we're always excited to get input from our friends and partners. Email us at comments@magnify.net -- we look forward to hearing from you.

Happy video publishing,

-- Steve, Simon and whole Magnify.net team.

http://YOURSITE/admin/design/player

Here are some new player page examples:

http://obsessable.magnify.net/video/Microsoft-surface-computer/article

http://obsessable.magnify.net/video/Microsoft-surface-computer/theater_600

http://obsessable.magnify.net/video/Microsoft-surface-computer/theater_limited

Over the next 5 weeks, I'm going to publish a series of 5 articles to give readers specific tips and tricks to building a business around Broadband Video.  As we find ourselves in a shifting economic climate, it's important to remember that there are some overarching trends that aren't going to change as the media world evolves.  More and more video viewing will move from conventional TV and Cable to the Web,  in particular as the Web becomes the new source of discovery for channels that can play on broadband enabled devices,  mobile,  and living-room flat-screen TV's.  Secondly, advertisers are being driven to re-think how they can target consumers in a more efficient and accountable way. Mainstream mass media advertisers are going to be the last to the party. Already there is a huge shift in local and regional advertising from newspaper, radio, and local TV to web-based emerging media solutions.  This trend is only going to accelerate as ad networks consolidate and analytics and ad formats develop standards that reach across media sources.

So, how can you make money today - and tomorrow?

PART ONE:  Laying Claim.  Building a destination in the multi-media land grab.

Today, video is just starting to become part of the web browsing experience.  The early adopters are going to YouTube, or Veoh, or one of the many other destination sites - looking for a video that either entertains them, or answers a question.  It would appear that we are living in the era of video search,  but in fact video search is on its way out.  Just as we don't go to Google and search for "Turkey Sandwich"  and land on a recipe, we won't be finding ourselves searching for "Viral"  or "Funny" on YouTube much longer. Instead, we will be looking for viral and funny video on sites such as CollegeHumor or bored.com that have a entire libraries of Viral and Funny videos at the ready.
 
Video will no longer be a clip, but rather an experience that is deeply and intelligently integrated into a web site that provides a complete suite of content, community,  and commerce inside a single URL.

This is good news - because there is a HUGE opportunity here for content entrepreneurs to step in, and start building and growing the destination communities around content that will feed the evolution of search in the next 24 to 36 months.

So, here's the first of a series of ACTIONABLE tips you can use to build a web based video business today, embed video and you keep all the revenue from the inventory around the videos.  Yes,  that's right.  It isn't a published fact -because the rules around video are changing too fast to keep up with the rule book.  What is in fact happening is that video owners are moving from a destination site strategy to a syndication strategy by making their video available on video destinations and making them available for embedding on other sites. The display advertising inventory around that video is now up for grabs.  That means  - simply put -  if you embed a Hulu video on your page,  then Hulu may well put a pre-roll ad in their player.  They're going to get paid, and therefore,  whatever you do with the inventory on your page is yours to keep.

This is an important shift.  It means that there is now a terrific opportunity for entrepreneurs to build contextual, well curated,  and well maintained sites that organize video around useful and thoughtful verticals.  

Example:

Let's say you're an extraordinary and passionate skier.  Let's talk about what you know well.  Do you know about skiing in Switzerland?  What about the midwest?  Colorado?   New England?  Upstate New York?  Well, chances are - there's set of mountains that you know well.  Next - what about your skill level.  Are you a pro?  or A family skier?  Well, once you determine what your passion and knowledge is - you're ready to start building landing page destinations.   The web is full of content that you can discover and embed.  Text from RSS, Photo's from Flikr, Google Images, and Yahoo, News tickers, Live video, Aggregated Blog Posts,  Skiing weather reports, and much more.  There's way too much content - but that's where your curation and knowledge come in.   Will your curated landing page be the answer that everyone is looking for?  No, of course not.  But if i'm looking to take my family on a ski vacation to Gore Mountain in upstate New York - then I'm going to want a landing page with video, data, knowledge and - COMMERCE.

Here's where it gets interesting.  Travel services will allow you to offer airplane car rental, hotels.  You can sell gear, lift tickets, almost anything that a family skier is looking for through their affiliate marketing programs.  And, if you give your visitors the tools to suggest videos, provide editorial input about various lodges and destinations,  and provide UGC (user generated content) in the form of video - well, then,  you may well have built a self-sustaining and growing destination that needs just your care and curation to keep it growing and valuable.

Some key points on the video based destination landing page business model.  There are lots of sites that already have landing pages that are focused on ecommerce and text.   But video is the new explosion here, and search engines are increasingly going to favor sites that are video-centric over sites that have just a few videos on a site.   If you just search and add 5 new videos to your site every day - you'll have more than 1,800 videos on your site by the end of your first year.  And not any videos, hand selected and hand approved that are contextual to your focus.  That is probably a commitment of just 10 min a day.  

The question is - are you going to build one video-centric site, or 5.  What if you build 5 skiing sites for family vacations?  New York, New England,  Aspen - or would you go deeper.

How about a network of sites like this:

    Western U.S.  (California, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Nevada)
    Rocky Mountains  (Alberta,  Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming)
    Pacific Northwest  (Alaska, British Columbia, Washington)
    Mid-Atlantic (New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia)
    New England (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont)

This is 20 sites,  and you could start to cross promote and build traffic across your family video network.  As traffic grows, and sales on your ecommerce and ad links grows, you're going to be well along the way to building your own network.

Here's an example of just what a few minutes of sorting and curation can do:

www.NewYorkFamilySkiiing.magnify.net

In just 15 minutes,  we've been able to build a curation solution that finds,  and updates family ski videos in the Northeast.

Now,  you try it;   http://www.magnify.net/signup/

You'll be shocked at just how many videos there are on the web waiting for you to ad your knowledge and organizational skill.


So, that's just the start.  There are free services that can give you the tools to build sites,  curate content,  and begin to build pages that will increase in traffic and value over time.

In Part #2 - next week - we'll answer the Question:   "How do i build a Community - can video help?"

A lot of exciting new features and updates have been coming out of the Magnify development shop these days. Some of you might have come across a few already, but make sure to read the list below to get the full breakdown. And while we’re happy to take credit for great new features and fixes, the majority came by way of suggestions and feedback from users like you. So keep on sending in those ideas and posting in the forums. We are listening.

Mobile Upload goes live. This is ridiculously cool. You can now send videos from your phone to a Magnify channel. It is easy to do and is a great way to finally show the world some of those videos of your dog pulling you on a skateboard. 
YOURCHANNEL.magnify.net/publish/email

Publishing Page Re-Design.  If you’ve uploaded a video recently, you might have noticed the slick new design. It is simple, nice to use and compatible with Flash 10. Go upload something and check it out. 
YOURPAGE.magnify.net/admin/manage/loader/upload

Channel Marketplace. Tired of looking for change in your couch? Ever wonder what your Magnify channel might be worth in the open market? You can now put your channel up for sale using The Magnify Marketplace. Name the price and see if anyone comes knocking.
YOURCHANNEL.magnify.net/admin/service/

Upload a Video Watermark. This is a great way to customize your channel and place your mark on the video world. The feature is available as a Pro option and allows you to stick your logo on all videos delivered by magnify on your channel.

If you are NOT a Magnify Pro Customer:
YOURCHANNEL.magnify.net/admin/service/
…. and then go to “upgrade to pro” to check it out

If you are a Pro customer:
YOURCHANNEL/admin/service/click_to_account

Friendly URLs for playlists. Playlist URLs now have a name (not just a number). When you link to a playlist or send a playlist, you will now see the name of the playlist in the URL. We found this to be more user friendly and can help with SEO (search engine optimization).

That’s it for now, but stayed tuned for more in the near future. (We like making new stuff).

If you love food, wine and want to take a peak behind the scenes at some of the hottest restaurants in New York City, go check out the freshest new site in the Magnify network: 

Behind The Burner

Behind The Burner has a wealth of info and content from my favorite world…the food world. You can find everything from nutritional tips to neat cooking tricks used by top chefs. Behind The Burner founder and CEO, Divya Gugnani, also provides great videos from trips around town to some of the best restaurants in NYC. Get the inside view of established and upcoming hot spots and find out what is behind the magic (or burner). And for those of us finding the wallet a little light these days, the site offers exclusive deals at great restaurants.

And alas, don’t forget the wine. Whether you can’t tell the difference between Pinot Grigio and Pinot Noir or you are the person your friends turn towards to order wine in a restaurant, the site has info to not only guide you, but also make wine an enjoyable hobby. And make sure to spend time in the video section – I found some great tips on buying wine online and soon after checked out a video on spicy duck meatballs….a full video meal. 

Original Article on JackMyers.com

I have been coming across some great channels and thought it was about time to share a couple good finds with the Magnify community. The below channels impressed me with their creativity, content, customization and overall enojoyability.  Check 'em out.

http://backstagegallery.magnify.net

Ever see an amazing picture of a musician or a concert and wonder what the story behind the picture is? Back Stage Gallery has videos of famous concert photographers talking about their experiences behind the cameras. There are some great stories that are worth checking out. The channel also has an impressive collection of old concert videos to entertain you in the middle of the day while your boss thinks you are working.

http://yousurftubes.magnify.net

Every time I come across this site, I am instantly annoyed that I do not know how to surf.  The channel features a healthy dose of surfing vids and an active user community. They’ve customized the channel nicely (sweet header) and post new stuff regularly. Ever seen someone surf a 30 foot wave? You should.

http://www.g1tube.com

A channel devoted to the new Google phone (don’t pretend you don’t want one). See everything from reviews to excited fans opening the box. The site has almost 500 members and will give you everything you need to know about the new G1.

Have a site you are proud of and think deserves some recognition? Send me an email and let me know about it. Billy@magnify.net

About Magnify.net

Magnify.net lets publishers immediately deploy a Media 2.0 strategy by enabling them to leverage their best assets and combine them with those curated and uploaded by their community from across the social Web - all in one place, through one easy to deploy video player, uploader, and viewer. It provides a cost-effective and automated service that features a delivers a unique and engaging video mix. The platform currently serves 35,000 web publishers.  www.Magnify.net

About 5min.com

5min is the world leading DIY platform for how to videos, and a place for people to share their knowledge. The site and its syndication platform create the first communal Life Videopedia allowing users to consume their knowledge through visual guides in areas such as arts, business, fashion, sports, health, tech, food, and much more. 5min hosts more than 40K how to videos and syndicate them to more than 70M users throughout the web. http://www.5min.com/.

Editorial Contacts:
Billy Linker
Billy (at) magnify.net

Rebecca Reeve
415-240-8951
Rebecca (at) future-works.com

And folks at AOL jumped on the phone and helped us clear up what really happened.  So,  here's what our friend Fred McIntyre (SVP AOL Video) had to say about AOL, Magnify, and our relationship going forward.

“Magnify.net currently leverages services and APIs that AOL provides through UserPlane and Truveo.  AOL is pleased to provide these services to Magnify.net, and we look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship with Magnify.net."

Here's Fred's background info on what happened and how we got on the "axe" list:

"In 2007, AOL budgeted development cycles to do some custom AOL Video API development to enable the distribution of videos from AOL Video’s library on Magnify.net’s platform.  As part of the process of scoping this work, a decision was made to use Truveo’s Video Search APIs, which provide a comprehensive index of all web video.  Based on this decision in Q3-07, AOL Video made the responsible decision to curtail investment in custom API development, since the work was not needed.”

Ah, nice.  A year old memo, a change in strategy for US (we like using Trueveo for some of our search pipelines, it works and its solid), and we like the guys at AOL.  So, heart attack averted, we're growing and building great new features and moving forward.  Sorry for the fire drill folks, moving on!

First,  Mobile Upload is built and currently in closed beta for testing.  We expect we'll release it to a handful of customers next week to test various devices.  Let us know if you'd like to beta the product once it's ready for testing.

Second, we have launched support for geotagging video submissions and display of their locations on a map. Our geo-location functionality is based on natural-language address entry and dynamic lookup via the Google Maps API. You can see a map of the videos which have been geotagged to date here:

http://YOURSITENAME.magnify.net/admin/manage/geocoding

And based on some feedback from larger customers,  we've added features to make Geotags editable by Site Admin's:

We're also working on a 'bulk' geotagging feature, that will let  you search on a key word (like "Katrina") and tag all videos in a collection with a geolocation.  This should increase the ability to encourage geotagging by seeding the collection with more geodata. 

Third,  per your request,  there is now a 1 - 5 Star Rating System to replace the sliders:

You can select one of those alternate interfaces here:

  http://YOURSITENAME.magnify.net/admin/customize/review_terms

And, last but most certainly not least, a new Playlist editor interface is live. With new visible thumbnails in the "Tag Based Playlist" builder,  you can dynamically choose tags,  including new (-tags) so that you can organize your playlist faster and on the fly. In addition, you can now remove videos from a tag based playlist by just clicking on "remove".  Good stuff you asked for. 

http://halloween.magnify.net

http://scarystories.magnify.net

http://halloweenday.magnify.net

This morning Silicon Alley Insider is reporting that AOL is giving the axe to 50 projects.   On that list is Magnify.net.   Wow, that's a shame, since AOL isn't an owner, or even an investor or partner with Magnify.net.  Ouch, they're killing us and they don't even own us.  That's harsh.

We've reached out to our contacts at AOL to see if we can find out what this means, and if they're going to correct  the rumor.   But for now, sufice it to say -- we're alive and well, rocking in fact, and just having brought in another round of funding and having our pro and enterprise sales exceeding expecctations,  we're no danger of going away.  Very much the opposite in fact.

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/aol-s-hit-list-50-projects-gone-or-going-twx

Update: The good folks at SAI did in fact issue an update:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
You asked,  we delivered.  Starting today - any video that is uploaded to any of your channels can include mapping information.   This is a powerful new feature,  given that we expect more and more recording devices to gather geo data in the future (think camcorders,  cellphones,  iphones,  etc).  So,  the sooner we start being able to provide mapping data around video - the better your visitors will start tagging videos with location data.   It's all good.

And - for those of you looking to pimp out your channel with some snazzy new graphics,  we've got a Channel Graphics upgrade package that can get you looking sharp fast.   We'll do up custom buttons,  a custom background graphic,  custom video upload graphic,  and a custom channel icon.   All for just $250.00.

But,  it gets better- here's a low risk way to try out pro.

October is good month for tasty treats,  and Pro has a bunch of them.  You can customize your Multi-View-Player logo,  you can remove ads from  your site,  you can upload larger files,  even remove some of the branding and links on  your pages.  So,  why haven't you tried  Pro yet?  Cause it costs money.  We get that.  So,  now here's the grity:

A Discount Code (!)  just sign up for pro and use the code:  "Try-Pro-October"  and we'll reduce your total monthly bill by 50% for the next month.    So,  for a month you can try all kinds of features and save half off.   Ok,  go nuts - enjoy.

So,  use the Discount Code and you get the Custom Graphics Upgrade for just $125.00 (that's $15.60 per graphic).

In other news:

We're pleased to introduce Billy Linker as our new Community Development Manager.   He's a web head,  and he's ready to lend a hand and work with channel creators both big and small to help them build great channels and great communities.  You can reach out to him at Billy (at) magnify.net  or post on the boards and get the conversation started.  Welcome him - he's here to help.

So,  that's what we've got going - ton's of exciting new development here at Magnify.net.  Hope you're building great channels and curating great collections.

As always,  we look foward to your feedback,  thoughts and suggestions.  Email us at Support (at) magnify.net or post on the forums with your thoughts.

Cheers,

Steve,  Simon,  and the Magnify.net team

You asked,  we delivered.  Starting today - any video that is uploaded to any of your channels can include mapping information.   This is a powerful new feature,  given that we expect more and more recording devices to gather geo data in the future (think camcorders,  cellphones,  iphones,  etc). 

So,  the sooner we start being able to provide mapping data around video - the better your visitors will start tagging videos with location data.  And this feature is also available for videos that are syndicated in via meta-search, pasted in via embed code, or recorded via webcam -- not just uploads.

It's all good.

Michael Propper                     

I've been fascinated with technology and entertainment and enjoying it on the desktop and beyond for years. From producing documentaries about future transportation in "High-Tech Monorails" to my active involvement in digital video startups pushing beyond traditional distribution, I've always had a thing for digital media.

For more than a decade, I've worked in business development expanding strategic and high visibility partnerships and content acquisitions in television and the digital media space -- locally, nationally, and internationally. I got my start at TechTV, a cable and satellite network dedicated to the digital lifestyle and from there helped launch several start-ups, including ROO Media, Memocast and SkejCast. Somewhere along the way, I managed to squeeze in a Juris Doctorate, which helped prepare me for the novel issues cropping up in the digital space.

Working at Magnify allows me to indulge in all the great things I love about digital media, including bringing the world a little closer together through compelling video content. I'm thrilled to work on the team at Magnify, expanding their business and delivering a great product to a video hungry world.

Billy Linker

I have always liked documentaries. So after college (and a one year stint as a painter in the Caribbean), I went to make the movies I loved.  I worked for film festivals, a film sales and financing company, and most recently, the production company, Trigger Street Independent. Time and time again, I saw great films fall by the wayside because they didn't have an "audience." Yet, I knew there was audience because my friends and I all wanted to see them. I soon discovered a space where no matter how small the audience, those movies could flourish: the Internet. I switched over to the digital space, where I now work to create and enable the distribution of content.
At Magnify.net, I'm helping people discover their voice through video.  No matter who you are or where your taste lies, Magnify.net has something for you. And if you don't see it, create a channel and find your audience. We’re here to help you every step of the way.

If you're wondering how we found Michael,  well - the truth is - Magnus found him at a Bar late one night and decided he'd be fun to have around.

Venturebeat: http://venturebeat.com/2008/09/16/magnify-mvp-merges-self-uploaded-video-with-the-best-of-the-web/

 Inquisitor: http://www.inquisitr.com/3255/magnify-releases-new-20-video-solution/

 Mashable: http://mashable.com/2008/09/16/magnify-player-mvp/

 CenterNetworks: http://www.centernetworks.com/magnifynet-launches-mvp-video-player

 AffiliateTip.com: http://affiliatetip.com/news/article002215.php

Ladies and Gentlemen,  Start Your Engines

 

Magnify.net lets users under the hood,  changing the way video is discovered,  shared, published and organized on the web.

It's the first day of the release of Magnify's developer toolbox.  We're starting the fall season with a collection of new players that can play On Your Site (!),  as well as a suite of APIs that
bring the power and tools of the Magnify.net platform to developers looking to build cool new tools.

Magnfy.net - now extensible and embeddable, and still Free.  Sweet,  don't you think?

Magnify's New Multi-View Player allows both uploaded and discovered video to play on your site,  in a single player.

  The Multi-View Player includes these new features:

    - Offered in a range of sizes from 860 x 510 to 370 x 665
    - Includes both horizontal and vertical layouts
    - Choose from three color themes or "skins"
    - Magnify will also create custom skins for Enterprise customers
    - Add your custom logo
    - Choose which playlists from your channel should be shown
    - Plays a short video ad before in-house and user-generated
       videos.
    - No pre-rolls are shown before third-party syndicated videos
    - Integrates with DoubleClick's DART to obtain pre-roll video ads
      and synchronized companion ad banners.


Magnify.net's video search and aggregation technology is growing rapidly as well, with now more than 5 million videos being added to channels each month,  on target to aggregate 50 million videos before the end of the year.
And,  for developers looking to include sophisticated video applications in their pages,  or build stand alone applications on the Magnify.net API -Magnify APIs Open the Web’s Largest Video Aggregation and Curation Platform to Developers. 
that frees its branded channels functionality from its layout.. All content that is discovered, currated and published on your Magnify.net channel can now be taken anywhere.


Features of the Channel Access API include:

    - Allows customers to automatically retrieve information from their Magnify channel and display it on their own web site.

    - Enables tighter integration between the video functionality provided by Magnify and the other capabilities of a customer's web site.
    - Includes ability to search video content library, to browse through playlists, to display videos with user comments, and to show user profile information.
    - Standards-based REST-style API provides XML feeds over HTTP, allowing access from almost any software development platform.

Also included in this release is a simple cookie-based Single Sign On solution.   SSO has been highly anticipated by the Magnify.net customer base.

Features of the Cookie SSO mechanism include:

    - Allows customers who already have a database of user login accounts to seamless tie their Magnify channel into that system.
    - Users only ever sign in at the customer's main site, and every user who signs in there is automatically recognized
    - Lightweight implementation takes advantage of customers' existing authentication mechanisms.

You can see the API in action here:

            Demo #1

            Demo #2
            Demo #3

• Allows customers to automatically retrieve information from their Magnify channel and display it on their own web site.
• Enables tighter integration between the video functionality provided by Magnify and the other capabilities of a customer's web site.
• Includes ability to search video content library, to browse through playlists, to display videos with user comments, and to show user profile information.
• Standards-based REST-style API provides XML feeds over HTTP, allowing access from almost any software development platform.

Also included in this release is a simple cookie-based Single Sign On solution.   SSO has been highly anticipated by the Magnify.net customer base.

Features of the Cookie SSO mechanism include:

- Allows customers who already have a database of user login accounts to seamless tie their Magnify channel into that system.

- Users only ever sign in at the customer's main site, and every user who signs in there is automatically recognized

- Lightweight implementation takes advantage of customers' existing authentication mechanisms.

The APIs are part of the new "Developers Toolbox"   -  designed to bring the power of video to Publishers,  Brands, and Web communities in a flexible and manageable suite of solutions.

Said Magnify.net CEO Steven Rosenbaum, “we're constantly blown away by just how creative and talented our user community is.  Now, we've given them far greater control over how to build and manage their video solution  - and we have every reason to believe they'll build awesomely cool things with the new APIs.”

You can see the API in action here:

Demo 

Demo 2

Demo 3

Magnify aggregates, uploads,  and facilitates  curation on more than 42,000 sites,  delivering  a million page views per day. Fifteen of the Web's most popular video hosting services are included in Magnify's service, including: YouTube, Metacafe, Dailymotion, Vimeo, Veoh, Hulu, MySpace, Blip.tv, Google Video, Revver, Yahoo Video, AOL Video, ClipSyndicate, MTV, CollegeHumor, Redlasso, and Howcast.

• Offered in a range of sizes from 860 x 510 to 370 x 665
• Includes both horizontal and vertical layouts
• Choose from three color themes or "skins"
• Magnify will also create custom skins for Enterprise customers
• Add your custom logo
• Choose which playlists from your channel should be shown
• Plays a short video ad before in-house and user-generated
• videos.
• No pre-rolls are shown before third-party syndicated videos
• Integrates with DoubleClick's DART to obtain pre-roll video ads and synchronized companion ad banners.The Magnify Multi-View Player is part of the new "Developers Toolbox" - designed to bring the power of video to publishers, brands, and web communities in a flexible and manageable suite of solutions. 

About Magnify.net
Magnify.net hosts more than 42,000 video channels for its Enterprise, Pro and Free customers. Magnify's video platform allows websites to easily add custom branded video channels to their existing sites. Please visit Magnify.net for more information on our custom video solutions for websites.

First,  take a gander at this beauty of a site:

Backstage Gallery is eye-popping collection of backstage photo's from some of the best known, and loved rockers on the planet.  The design of the site is slick and approachable,  and their integration on the video channel is really fun.  Take a look - you'll be glad you did.  And pass it along.

Next,  check out this super cool fan site for the new about to Premier "Supernatural" onthe CW:  this is someone who's really got a sense of art direction and wants fans of this new series to have a place to call home.  Really sweet!  (and there's a whole network of fan sites that this channel admin has built,  check them all out!)

Here's a sample of a few: 

Victor Keegan

TasteOfHome.com (TOH for short), the companion web site of Taste of Home magazine, (a top 10 magazine owned by Reader's Digest Association with a circulation of 3.1 million) is forging an innovative new model for magazines seeking to pursue broadband video.

As many VideoNuze readers know, I've been bullish on the opportunities broadband presents to traditional print media, especially magazines with strong niche appeal. What's new and different about TOH's effort is that it brings together several other key broadband themes I've previously discussed - purpose-driven user generated video, simple syndication and the evolving editorial role in the broadband era - to create a compelling publishing model and value proposition for its target audience.

As background, TOH's original print model was to solicit, filter and package user-submitted recipes into a bi-monthly magazine. That model has continued online, and TOH now offers 34,000+ recipes. As Renee Jordan, TOH's General Manager, who I spoke to yesterday, told me, TOH's audience is highly engaged and cooks 5 days/week. They also seek information from many sources, TV, magazines, newspapers, online, etc.

TOH operates a test kitchen where its chefs prepare selected user-submitted recipes. About a year ago, seeing the growth of video, TOH began updating its kitchen so that the chefs could be taped. To date, the company has produced 300 videos - a big accomplishment, but still just a tiny fraction of its total 34,000 available recipes.

To address the need for more high-quality video while retaining a strong degree of editorial control, TOH has tapped into the UGV frenzy by using aggregation and filtering tools from Magnify.net, a company I've previously covered. An editor at TOH is able to create "playlists" or specialized sub-channels (e.g. "Death by Chocolate," College Cooking," "Football Kickoff Party") by aggregating the best user-generated videos to be found at sites across the web and also by mixing/matching TOH's own videos into the playlists.

Renee explained that sometimes TOH might pair a video of how to make roasted potatoes, for example, with a recipe for how to do the same. Or it might pair a video of how to make a great lamb chop with the potato recipe. The combinations are endless. And users have the ability to subscribe to different playlists as well as customize them. TOH's use of the web's embeddable videos is another example of what I've called the "syndicated video economy."

The key is that TOH retains editorial control over which videos it incorporates. By harnessing users' passion to create their own high-quality videos, TOH's editorial role shifts from solely creating - on its own dime - every ounce of content it offers, to instead becoming a hybrid creator-curator. Renee acknowledges this is a meaningful shift, which might make many in traditional media uncomfortable. Still, she says matter-of-factly, "this is what needs to happen in the real world of the Internet."

I wholeheartedly agree. As if the Internet itself didn't create enough upheaval for many in traditional media, broadband video is now blurring competition further. In this example TOH is now able to re-position itself to its audience as a credible alternative to FoodNetwork.com (for example) when searching for the best cooking videos. That benefit spills over to advertising as well, as it has huge upside inventory potential for targeted pre-rolls and overlays.

To be fair, this is still a very new initiative. But the results are encouraging: TOH has doubled its video selection in just weeks - at little expense - and has increased its video-related page views by 50%. Other print media would be wise to take note of this new model. Ditto for incumbent video providers.

"Pre-roll video ads' effectiveness and user acceptability is getting a boost from 3 different research studies this week. Results were released by Break/Panache and Tremor Media and by Jupiter Research, which focused on the European market. Taken together, they are an encouraging sign for the many broadband video providers who have chosen ad-supported over paid as their business model of choice."  And he goes on: "But as broadband video usage has grown, pre-roll ads that actually did interrupt the content experience felt jarring for many users. Naturally, when asked, users said, "ugh, we hate them." Fair enough. But consumers are smart, and have quickly recognized that, just like TV, to get high-quality video programming, someone has to pay, and since most users would rather that not be them, they've become more accepting of all ads, pre-rolls included. With premium sites employing some targeting now and becoming more judicious in their insertion practices (ABC.com and Hulu are great examples), users have become more accepting. Hence these positive research results."

The importan point being, that while the may be disruptive,  and not popular,  they are being adopted and consumers have an understanding that they're going to be part of the ecosystem,  at least for some content.  Stay tuned!

http://www.videonuze.com/blogs/?2008-08-20/Pre-Roll-Video-Advertising-Gets-a-Boost-from-3-Research-Studies/&id=1938

Magnify.net is looking to go to SXSW - and you can help us get there.

We need your vote!

The Creator as Curator - How to Make and Curate Video

Description:

The web is fast becoming video friendly. So what do viewers want? They're hungry for content that is coherent, contextual,and organized around their interest. Super niche, from Frisbee Dog TV, to the American Indian Pow Wow Channel, These micro-networks are the channels of the future. Come learn how to build, curate, and get paid to curate the nano-networks that are emerging to organize web video.

CLICK TO VOTE

Web Video vs. Old TV... A Cage Match

Description:

Let's face it. TV Sucks. We all say it - we all watch it. But now, something is changing. There's a new sheriff in town, and web video is fast nibbling into TV viewing. But, not so fast, old TV is fighting back. Networks are micro-chunking segments, and putting more of the prime-time lineup on the web... for free. So, who will win? Will web video undermine the economics of Madison Avenue CPMs. Or will Hulu and others come roaring back?

CLICK TO VOTE

Ah, magnify.net. The service that is a constant reminder of the things I’d like to do, if only I had the time. Back in June, I asked readers what they’d do if only they had more time (and I was referring to doing things online….more time with family wasn’t the kind of thing I was looking for). One of my top “if only” activities was:

I’d take the time to figure out the ins and outs of magnify.net, and I’d run my own channel.

Well, this morning magnify announced new feature releases to both improve performance and add new video aggregation sources. If they’d only add free chocolate chip cookies and Hawaiian Punch, I might be forced to forego an hour of sleep each night and use magnify daily. So, let’s take a look.

1. New Video Aggregation Sources

Since magnify.net exists to help users discover and embed video content, their strength is in both the the breadth of video sources available as well as the filtering capabilities that find only the good stuff and throw away the junk. Kind of paradoxical, but stick with me. The more video sources, the better the chances of finding the “just right” video, but at the same time, magnify’s discovery technology has to be excellent at filtering out videos that don’t fit.

magnify.net’s announcement today adds the following video hosting sites to its roster:

• MySpace
• Hulu
• Vimeo
• College Humor
• Howcast
• MTV Overdrive

These are in addition to YouTube, Metacafe, Dailymotion, Veoh, Blip.tv, Google Video, Revver, and just about anyone else you can think of.

When I look at the magnify plugin in my WordPress editor, all of these sources are available as video discovery sources:

2. Make It Faster

In addition to the new sources, magnify.net has “more than doubled” the speed of its video discovery service (I put that in quotes because I haven’t done a speed test). This allows users to search all 15 video sites in less than 10 seconds. I did test that out, and have to admit: it’s quick.

3. The Blogstring Channel

“Okay, okay, enough,” you say. “Show me what it looks like in action.” Well, fine. I have a magnify.net channel for blogstring, and it looks a little like…..

Now that’s pretty cool. With a channel, you just set up automatic searches, and magnify automatically grabs videos related to your search. As a channel curator, you just need to log in and tweak the videos magnify has returned. For instance, you’ll see that my Web 2.0 search has returned multiple instances of the same video. I can just log in and remove the duplicates.

Summary

It would take hours to scour the web to find relevant videos to post on your blog. But magnify.net does it automatically, for free, and in two ways (as a WordPress plugin and automatically in your channel). I’m definitely guilty of being on the magnify.net bandwagon (See way back in October 2007) as I see it as a no-brainer. It’s like someone offering me my own TV Network, for free, and they’ll do all the work for me.

Video search and aggregation tool Magnify has an update today, which is something we haven’t seen explicitly from the company in a while–it’s been busy launching completely new features and spin-off services.

There are two major prongs to Magnify’s release today: one addresses the need for additional video sources that it aggregates from, and the other concerns the search capabilities of its service. With the added support for video sites including MySpace, Hulu, Vimeo, College Humor, Howcast and MTV Overdrive, Magnify is broadening the Web content from which it pulls, so that you can have a bigger pool in which to cast your net.

This particular upgrade seems like a no-brainer, but it also reminds us that there’s a growing number of sites where video content can be found, and that there’s an added value in supporting more than just YouTube YouTube and a handful of other video-sharing sites for its aggregation purposes.

And as expected, Magnify has tweaked its search tools, which goes hand in hand with the added support for the handful of new video services. Magnify has more than doubled the speed of its Automatic Video Discovery service, which means you’ll be able to search all of its supported sites very quickly. It also allows Magnify to reportedly increase its potential for new videos added, from 100,000 daily to 1 million per week.

Speed isn’t the only factor that Magnify improved for its search capabilities. Its search has been enhanced with new channel options allowing users to search by other users, date, and review scores. Search results can then be exported via RSS as well.

What’s particularly beneficial to Magnify’s upgrades is the fact that the company has spent so much time building out its feature set, to include certain webcam support, social network features, and an integrated search tool for bloggers. Given Magnify’s growing platform, the addition of new sites, improved search and filter and sharing capabilities means that Magnify already has an established set of services that will immediately be improved as a result of this new roll-out, affecting its entire user base, regardless of the type of user that employs a certain Magnify service.

PRESS CONTACT:

Rebecca Reeve
Future Works PR

Technology Gazette Episode 46- Steve Rosenbaum of Magnify.net joins us

Posted by Josh Chandler | Filed under Technology Gazette

Direct Audio MP3: http://www.technologygazette.com/audio/technologygazette/episode46.mp3

So today’s guest was the CEO and Founder of Magnify.net. Steve Rosenbaum. This short bio was provided to me for reference, and I though you may wish to view a little bit of background on Steve:

9:06 AM PDT We are currently experiencing elevated error rates with S3. We are investigating.
9:27 AM PDT We're investigating an issue affecting requests. We'll continue to post updates here.
9:48 AM PDT Just wanted to provide an update that we are currently pursuing several paths of corrective action.
10:13 AM PDT We are continuing to pursue corrective action.
10:33 AM PDT A quick update that we believe this is an issue with the communication between several Amazon S3 internal components. We do not have an ETA at this time but will continue to keep you updated.
11:02 AM PDT We're currently in the process of testing a potential solution.
11:23 AM PDT Testing is still in progress. We're working very hard to restore service to our customers.
11:46 AM PDT We are still in the process of testing a series of configuration changes aimed at bringing the service back online.
12:06 PM PDT We have now restored communication between a small subset of hosts. We are working on restoring internal communication across the rest of the fleet. Once communication is fully restored, then we will work to restore request processing.

Here are other sevices dealing with the outage as well:

http://smugmug.wordpress.com/2008/07/20/amazon-s3-outage-causes-smugmug-outage/
http://blog.slideshare.net/2008/07/20/amazon-web-services-outage-effecting-slidesharenet/
http://donaldkelly.co.uk/20/07/2008/images-offline/

We expect that there will be an investigation into the outtage once the source of the problem has been discovered. We will explore with our Amazon reps their plans to address this - and will keep you posted as to our plans regarding the overall reliability of Amazon as a service provider to Magnify.net and our valued partners and customers.

OFFERING NEW TECHNOLOGIES FOR INNOVATIVE CONSUMER PARTICIPATION

Seattle, WA, July 10, 2008, Magnify.net and Jones Soda Co. are excited to announce a new partnership around MyJonesVideo.com, which will encourage creative and unique consumer participation in brand awareness and contribution.  Jones Soda, a leader in the premium soda category, is known for its variety of flavors and innovative labeling technology that incorporates consumer generated photos on the label. Noted as an Internet-savvy and youth-aware brand, Jones Soda has chosen to partner with Magnify.net to provide a new platform and fresh opportunity for Jones fans to express themselves.

This new partnership has created the opportunity for consumers to create their own content and upload it directly to www.MyJonesVideo.com.  The site is powered by Magnify.net, the user-generated video publishing platform.  MyJonesVideo.com offers fans an easy-to-use solution to create and upload individual videos that celebrate their love for Jones Soda.

"We know our customers are full of great ideas and have a lot to share, and we want to offer them a place where they can express themselves creatively," said Mike Spear, E-Commerce Manager of Jones Soda. "This site gives the tools to develop and upload videos easily, share those videos with others and express some originality."

MyJonesVideo.com is live today - and videos are already coming in.

"We love brands that are fueled by customers," said Steve Rosenbaum, CEO of Magnify.net. "It is abundantly clear that the Jones brand triggers the creative spirit in video makers, and we're really excited to see just what kinds of videos will bubble up.”

MyJonesVideo.com allows visitors to upload, comment, share, and embed videos from across the community. Magnify.net is the premier video community platform for brands and Web sites across the country. Users coming to MyJonesVideo.com will be able to view official Jones Soda videos, view user-created Jones Soda videos and also add their own videos via upload or Web cam recording.

In addition, MyJonesVideo.com users can become members of the site to discover and interact with other Jones Soda enthusiasts. Using Magnify.net’s video platform, users will now be able to rate, share and comment on their favorite videos at MyJonesVideo.com.

“It’s been a real pleasure to be working with a brand that is a leader in leveraging new media and user generated content," said Rosenbaum. "We’re looking forward to seeing the great videos that Jones Soda lovers upload to MyJonesVideo.com. Plus, their soda tastes great too - my favorite is Lemon Lime.”

About Magnify.net

Magnify.net hosts more than 35,000 video channels for its Enterprise, Pro and Free customers. Magnify's video platform allows websites to easily add custom branded video channels to their existing sites. Please visit Magnify.net for more information on our custom video solutions for websites.

About Jones Soda
Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Jones Soda Co. markets and distributes  premium beverages under the Jones Soda, Jones Pure Cane Soda, Jones 24C, Jones Energy, Jones Organics, Jones Naturals and Whoopass brands and sells through its distribution network in markets across North America.  A leader in the premium soda category, Jones is known for its variety of flavors and innovative labeling technique that incorporates always-changing photos sent in from its consumers.  Jones Soda is sold through traditional beverage retailers and everywhere you’d never expect to find a soda. For more information visit  HYPERLINK "http://www.jonessoda.com" www.jonessoda.com and  HYPERLINK "http://www.myjones.com" www.myjones.com


Media Inquiries:     

                Jones Soda Co.
                Wendy Ogunsemore, Richmond Public Relations
                (206) 682-6979 / cell: (206) 718-4382
                wendyo@richmondpr.com

interigation... he was released to DHL,  and is now in Allentown PA - on his way to New York.  We'll

have photo's from his Desert journey shortly - 

Meanwhile here's  a preview of his trip:

Hi Mascot,

Please free to visit me!  I'd love to meet you.   My Magnify site is Sonoran Desert Wildlife and Other Animals.  I've got a very distinct collection of Sonoran Desert wildlife videos and recently licensed some of my rare Gila Monster wild in its natural setting footage to a emmy-award winning west coast production company.  You can't get a better backdrop for a photo op than the Sonoran Desert wilderness which is where I'm very fortunate to live -- specifically in the heart of the Haley Hills about 60 miles south of Phoenix, Arizona.  The Haley Hills borders the Sonoran Desert National Monument renowned for its unique beauty and bountiful wildlife.  I'm sure the Mascot would love to get up close to a saguaro or two if he hasn't already.  

Here's the site that Judy created on Magnify.net -

http://sonorandesertwildlifeandotheranimals.magnify.net/

So if you're looking to provide pages without ads,  or a VOD or PPV video solution,  and you're looking for a low cost,  extensible,  rock solid solution - now you've got it.

We've built this solution so that it can easily plug in to the Magnify embeddible player,  a Magnify site,  and then the new features and embeddible offerings that are in the pipeline.

We're absolutely sure that the future of niche-networks is in your hands. 

jump to 8:25 to watch the review. (Hint.. they like us!)

Scott Banister, known for selling his startup IronPort to Cisco Systems for $830 million last year, and being an early investor in some hot companies - PayPal, Facebook, Powerset, just to name a few - was our guest host this week. He joined me and Vator regular Ezra Roizen to discuss Magnify, a company that powers user-generated-video for 30,000-plus sites. Bottom line, Scott, Ezra and I all agreed that Magnify has potential to be a significant business as UGC video becomes a requisite feature for all publishers. For Goozex, Scott and Ezra have some great advice.

I confess,  I hadn't spent a lot of time in Wilmington - so I was truly delighted to get to check out the downtown,  find myself in the middle of a huge outdoor jazz concert in the middle of the city at night,  and enjoy the company of such a great bunch of folks.

The day long event included company presentations,  panels presentations,  and an award ceremony that celebrated some of the best known and most respected Venture Capitalists in the middlantic region.

This year,  Magnify.net was invited to present in front of this group -  and despite some pretty great presenting companies - we didn't disappoint.  We're proud to say we took home the coveted "Company Most LIkely to Receive Funding"  award.   It is already proudly in place in Magnify HQ.  Thanks to David and his terrific team for make such a great home for Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs to get together.