Hi Folks,

We've had an exciting month and are itching to share some of the new features and developments coming out of Magnify. Lets get right into it!

YouTube Syndication

We know that waiting for uploads can drive you crazy.  And a lot of our channel admins told us that we're faster at encoding (much!) but they need to put their vides on YouTube as well. So, we've added a great check box feature. Videos uploaded to your channel can now be syndicated to YouTube at the same time! This is a great option for channel owners to get their content on to YouTube with little effort, while maintaining their original content collection on a 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, ect.) 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 how you do it.

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 (at) Magnify.net.

Steve,  Simon,  and the whole Magnify.net team