Ecropolis: Driving Business with the Power of Online Video Online Video. Strategy. Integration. Buzz.

Online video has truly proven to be the killer app of the Internet. YouTube is nothing short of phenomenal, the numbers are mind blowing. From their own fact sheet, “People are watching hundreds of millions of videos a day on YouTube and uploading hundreds of thousands of videos daily. In fact, every minute, ten hours of video is uploaded to YouTube.”  There are now at least 30 different websites where anyone can post a video and share it with the world at no cost. If you are promoting a product or business and haven’t put a video online; it’s something you should flag as a priority project and do it now. The question I’m asking now, however, is should you launch your own TV Channel on the Internet? Should you, and can you do live video?

First, consider the benefits of live programming.

1. Audience participation with the presenter(s) and each other via chat. The content becomes dynamic and the audience becomes empowered.
2. Scheduled events call your audience to action rather than leaving them to procrastinate watching your valuable content.
3. Live events, in the context of doing them on a regular basis in a TV Channel like format allows you to build a following over time.
4. Having a following not only motivates you to produce, it also empowers you. As you begin to tell your story, you will find that the ideas for content; and the sequels will begin to flow naturally as your production takes on its own life.

I spent this week looking at various technologies available for live webcasting and was especially curious about some of the free platforms that available. I found three that are well known and offer free access for the webcaster and the audience alike, covering their expenses with a paid advertising model. Justin.tv, Ustream.tv, and Mogulus. (Update: I should also add Stickam to the list.) Rather than keep you in suspense about who has the best offering for the webcaster; I’ll cut right to the chase and tell you it is Mogulus. (I refer to Mogulus throughout this post but today on 5/19/2009 they changed their name to livestream.com.)

Live webcasting is a lot more simple that it sounds. The minimum requirements are as follows:

1. A camera, preferably with firewire, which simplifies the process and increases the quality giving your a pure digital video/audio stream directly to your computer. On the low end, a simple web cam will work
2. a PC or Mac, again, preferalby with firewire (which can be added to a laptop or PC with an expansion card) or some other type of USB or PCI input for capturing a video feed.
3. Software for encoding your video into either Flash H.264 format or Windows Media or Silverlight  (the only two real contenders in my opinion).
4. A video server or CDN (content delivery network) that will take your single incoming stream and distribute it to your audience. Again, Windows Media and Flash video are the contenders. I have been using EdgeCast CDN, which supports both Windows Media and Flash and has worked very for my needs. The free platforms that are available all utilize Flash and on the server side could use Wowza Media Server, a less-expensive, robust alternative to Adobe FMS (Flash Media Server). There is an open source Flash Server that is also available called Red5, which is not as advanced as Adobe or Wowza.  (Confirmed by an employee of Wowza that Justin.tv uses Wowza. Adobe features UStream on their site as a customer.)

Mogulus covers the last two requirements and provides chat room capability for audience interaction. The first step to get Mogulus running is to create an account and name your channel, which creates an address on the mogulus.com site for your channel and only take about 3 minutes to do the basic setup. You can spend another 15 minutes filling in all the details and uploading your branding images. Their base-level Flash encoder software is integrated directly into their web-based producer, which accesses your capture hardware. Basically, this means that in a few simple clicks you are up and streaming on your own channel. From the Mogulus producer platform you can upload on demand clips, and other producers can also log in from any location on the planet and attach their cameras’, as well. This is the power-feature of Mogulus: that you can have a multi-camera, multi-location shoot, with integrated on demand video all controlled by you through the website in real time. The Mogulus producer also allows you to inject text overlays, and tickers on top of your video, which you can turn on/off and update in real time.

The web-based capture encoder is basic but one of the great things about Mogulus is that they allow you to use your own Flash encoder software. Adobe offers  Flash Media Live Encoder as a free download; which is still no frills but it gives you access to the On2 video codec, which is considered the best. You could also purchase Wirecast, by Telestream for around $449 (add HDV decoding for an additional $99). For the price, Wirecast offers a cutting edge encoding suite with lots of features found in hardware/software solutions that costs thousands: multi-camera switching (You’ll need multiple inputs on your computer, one for each camera), graphic overlays, text overlays, chroma-key (Blue/Green screen), screencasting, picture-in-a-picture and this software also utilizes the best codecs available. Wirecast can also stream to Windows Media server and the latest edition is integrated to Mogulus, making it extremely easy to configure since all you have to do is input your username/password and channel name.

Mogulus has juiced up their offering, however, by giving Mogulus channel producers a free encoder sofware solution which can be downloaded and installed to a PC called, Procaster. Procaster’s sweet spot is in being able to do screencasting along with video. The producer can switch between the computer screen and the camera, show both at the same time in either a 2D overlay mode or in a slick side by side 3D mode, which looks really nice. With the screencaster you can zoom in and pan around the screen. There is a third mode built in for gamecasting, which allows the producer to stream their gameplay in real time. I tuned into a Mogulus live webcast the other day and noticed that the producer was using Procaster and was showing a video feed in the screencast 3D split mode of a guest on their show; the guest could have been coming into the encoder PC via Skype or any video chat software. With the screencast flexibility there are a host of creative possibilities.

The last important feature of Mogulus to discuss is that they offer a couple of paid plans for the pros starting at $350. These plans up the amount of disc space and available bandwidth and come with a 99.5% uptime service level agreement. Paid channels also eliminate advertising and even allow the producer to white label the player; which can be embedded within the producer’s own website, hiding Mogulus as the platform provider all together. (Update: I found that UStream.tv also offers a paid service called Watershed. I haven’t given it a full evaluation but they offer a 99.9% SLA with very competitive pricing, including a pay-as-you go model.)

There’s never been a better time to launch your own TV Channel. The platform is free and it’s evolved into an amazing offering for the producer and the viewer. Blogging is a fantastic way to deliver your message, connect with your audience and showcast your expertise but audio and video create lasting memories for the viewer that will leave a deeper impression on them.

Here are a few last tips:

1. Use Twitter as your announcement tool. You may even want to get a Twitter account dedicated to your show. As you broadcast, continually remind users to join your Twitter feed and then keep your viewers updated as to when your next episode, upcoming plans, calls for content, etc. Mogulus integrated a Twitter widget right into the channels.
2. Before you launch your channel, plan out your first 4 or more shows. You first shows can be short, 10 – 15 minutes isn’t a bad number. Once you make it through the first 2 shows, I’m betting that the subsequent content will flow naturally.
3. Set up a WordPress Blog and embed your episodes into the blog so that your viewers can comment on them.

I have created a channel at  www.mogulus.com/ecropolis. The first episode that I have planned is to discuss SEO and what it really means; you will walk away knowing how to do a high-level evaluation on your own website and you’ll have some questions that you can ask your web guru to insure your website is getting the proper treatment. So, join our Twitter @ecropolis

I am happy to respond to questions and comments and will also note that Ecropolis can facilitate the launching of am Internet TV Channel online at any level.

Tags: DIY webcasting, firewire, free webcasting, how to webcast, Instant messaging, internet video, justin.tv, Live meeting, live video, mogulus, Online meeting, Online training, online tv, Presentation, promotional webcasting, Real-time collaboration, Screen sharing, stickam, telestream, tv channel, ustream.tv, watershed, Web conferencing, Web meeting, webcast, webcast platforms, wirecast