TedxSeattle Discussion
February, 5th, 5:30pm-8pm
Rat and Raven (http://www.ratandraven.com), University District.
5260 University Way NE Seattle, WA 98105 - 206 524 3166
Complementary, No Registration Required.
Street parking up there on the Ave is free and available at that time. Happy hour specials include $2 off the entire menu (bar food, mostly standard with some twists); $3 wells, $3 domestic drafts and $4 imports (and $2 PBR if that is to your taste). We have reserved the *upstairs deck* (covered year-round and heated.
As part of this discussion, I will present ideas for filming, streaming and live synthing the event using an integrated internet dashboard approach. We will be looking for student volunteers to learn about this approach and work on the TEDxSeattle event. If all goes well, we will pitch this work to the main TED based on our efforts here. This presentation will go on around 6:00pm .
About TED - Technology, Entertainment, Design.
We are building the TEDxSeattle New Media Team working with UW MCDM faculty, students and the public to create a real-time events system. Join us to learn more and visit http://www.ted.com and http://www.tedxseattle.com to better understand the history and philosophy of TED - Technology, Entertainment & Design.
About Real-Time Event Synthing
At the TedxSeattle event I will host a short demo and brainstorming session focused on what I have coined “Real-Time Event Synthing”. Click here to launch a very basic demo with an internet dashboard that is pulling information about keyword “Tim Reha” across Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, YouTube Videos, Photos and even a click-to-call Skype channel.
Today, we are in a hyper-convergence point where a number of innovations are taking place from HD video chipsets that encode H.264 video in real-time to new consumer media consumption devices such as Apple’s iPad. These converging technologies and social adoption will drive the future of real-time events production.
In the past, events were typically one-to-many communicaiton affairs with a finite group of people who fit into a conference center. I always thought this was odd because there could be 100,000 people interested in an event’s topic that can only host 250 guests because of a finite space. Events in the past have also typically one-way without a coordinated back-channel for information from the event guests. With the advent of Twitter’s webservices and integration with uStream.TV we now have an effective internet global broadcast system and backchannel communication system that is in the form of an RSS feed. Lastly, events in the past were not captured or streamed live in HD due to limited broadband penetration and video streaming web services.
Over the years I have worked at or attended major events from the Future in Review to my own Venture All Stars events. I have always thought the “note taking” process at the event was archaic and not very “social” tapping the greater knowledge of the group. The idea of group notes and automated artificial intelligent internet spiders / robots seemed like a next step in event production innovation.
Imagine you are at an event with your laptop and a new iPad tablet. On the tablet you have the real-time TEDxSeattle event dashboard with different tabs that correspond to each speaker and section of the event. This provides you with multimedia content, social media conversations and deep information across hundreds of real-time information sources. It is like a real-time, continually updated multimedia notebook for an event.
A real-time time event synthing team that works like “real-time multimedia disc jockeys” (RTDJs) to build data feeds, annotate websites, setup new event data tabs and more. Much of the event information is synthesized into the dashboard in advance of an event. Then during the event, the team focuses on adding new data gleaned from audience questions, speaker points via annotated screen captures, tagging live photo streams and more.
Every participant both in the room and viewing remotely via internet teleconference is also part of the real-time event synthing team. We leverage the use of unique hashtags such as #TEDxSeattle to create search queries across web services. Guests are instructed to “tag” their photos, videos, Tweets and other information using the official hashtag. Then our real-time events team is able to pull the tagged information and post it to the real-time event dashboard.
The big is idea is that a huge amount of data and back channel “social” content is purified, tagged, categorized and pulled to the dashboard and updated in real-time. After the event participants will view a continued thread of multimedia information related to the event and further social media conversations.
Background
I am an old-school DJ and music remix artist that also live video djs “VJs” to create a combined audio and visual performance. In addition, I help as a catalyst for the Northwest Audiovisualists Group (NWAV) where we share ideas for live multimedia performances by leveraging creativity and technology.
The act of mixing multiple multimedia sources in real-time is where my core DNA and inspiration for “event synthing” comes from.
For my Venture All Stars events, the objective was to leverage media in new ways to highlight our Venture All Star companies, members and sponsors. In 2004, I rented the Chateau Ste Michelle winery for our NASDAQ sponsored awards event. At this time Podcasting was emerging, so we setup a “radio style” recording studio at one area of the event. Our CEO’s and sponsors loved to have the chance to tell their stories. Then I worked with a partner Eyeplay.TV to build the Venture All Stars TV studio in the Chateau Ste Michele’s Barrel Room. Lastly, we hired a professional photographer to capture hundreds of high quality photos. The big idea here was to capture all types of rich media—videos, photos and audio podcasts and then distributed the media via our website, email newsleter and blog. The rich media also was turned into our sponsorship package for the next year’s event.
In 2007 I worked as the new media advisor for the Future in Review known as “FiRE” a top technology conference. For the Future in Review I setup an array of social media and web service accounts for everything from photos to live uStream.TV video streaming. My task was also to create Future in Review TV our own private label media channel recorded at the event.
At the IABC’s 2009 Social Media / Web 2.0 Summit I had the pleasure to work with the event organizer to setup a number of social media accounts, live stream channel and on-site video studio. We created an event instruction sheet to coordinate guests to tag their event posts on Twitter, etc. using a hashtag #iabcseattle . This event was good test to use “social media tagging” that is fundamental to event synthing.
Last year at Searchfest 2009, Oregon, I observed Amber Case, known as “caseorganic” using Skitch to annotate website screen captures. She was also using Yahoo Pipes in concert with Netvibes dasboards to create and view “purified” data feeds. I have played around with Yahoo Pipes and Netvibes before but not in the hyper-fast fluid manner that Amber was rocking the keyboard. She literally had worn out the paint on her Macbook.
At the 2009 Seattle Wine Awards, I set up the real-time events team with live video stream, HD video recording studio, Twitter team, Bloggers / Press, social media accounts, Netvibes Dashboard, Yahoo Pipes and more. I set up a real-time media room at Seattle’s historic Rainier club where the event was hosted.
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This month we hosted the NW Audiovisualist’s (NWAV.org) monthly event in Portland, Oregon to highlight creativity and technology. Below is a summary of the event to spark new ideas that tie into the above notions social + real-time intereractive media.
I believe that we are in a massive cycle of convergence that will re-create the notion of “social media”. Today, social media is more about “social” than “media” because the media production tools are still somewhat fragmented, expensive and hard to integrate quickly. This next year we will see this rapidly change with the launch of the Apple iPad and downward pricing pressure on multimedia laptops, Pico Projectors, HD video cameras and other converging technologies.
Soon we will start to see collaborative music and media production across social networks in real-time. WiMAX wireless broadband penetration and increased broadband over cable and fiber will add velocity to the new “social + digital interactive media” convergence. Multi-Touch screens, computer vision, gestural inputs via FLIR thermal sensors and other sensors will collide to create new interactive media experiences. These technologies will then enable a new level “Augmented Reality” experiences that will merge the digital world with the real world and create a new generation of business models.
Visit http://www.modestudios.com/#/home and click the bottom right link “Interactive Installations” to better understand what is possible today.
Northwest Audiovisualist’s, January 2010 Portland Event - Multi-touch Extravaganza Meetup
NWAV.org is a group working to perpetuate a grass-roots movement that educates and inspires a new wave of synergy across computer, music and visual technology. Currently, we are connecting the NW new media and audio-visualist community from Portland, Oregon to Vancouver B.C. .
Visit: http://www.nwav.org for events and information
Follow: http://www.twitter.com/nwav
Friend up: Facebook Fan Page
NWAV Event Photos
Second Story Installations
Thomas Wester from Second Story will share details on how they built the Market Data Mirrors using OpenGL and the Body Collective using VVVV.
“Integrated into the architecture of the Bank of America Tower trade floor elevator bank, the Market Data Mirrors interact with live data feeds and visualize financial information on a mirrored surface. These dynamic 3-D visualizations bring form, color, and motion to live market data in an intelligent and elegant manner, allowing viewers to quickly grasp current data and market trends over time. The different data sets—indexes, commodities, rates, and currencies—are realized in colorful patterns and shapes on different planes, each taking their turn on the stage communicating their value, volume, and historical trajectory.”
Christian Bannister Demonstrated his Multi-Touch Sound Storm AV Cutup System Subcycle Labs
Chris demonstrated his multitouch audio cutup system. As you will see in the videos and photos below the system looks space-age and demonstrates what is possible by blending various technologies together to create a new concept in audio visual music synthesis.
multi-touch the storm - interactive sound visuals - subcycle labs from christian bannister on Vimeo.
This type of experimentation is a great way to explore new paradigm shifting “experiences” that merge music production and visual synthesis. I am sure that if you put a traditional piano and Christian’s Multi-Touch system next to each other in a mall, that 99.9% of the people would gravitate to the multi-touch system. I can imagine tying this system to a performance recording system that then syndicates across the social sphere.
We have yet to even “scratch the surface” of what people will create with the new Apple iPad using multi-touch audio and visuals. The business implications are global and may re-shape how music is created in the future. Now you see that the NWAV.org group is not a bunch of “ravers” playing with electronic music and visuals. The group is made up of cutting edge experts, creatives, musicians and visualists who are working to spread knowledge how to merge technology with creativity.
Brandon Thompson aka Middleman
Brandon demoed a few a songs and answered questions on building and running a one-man show. In his demonstration we watch both music and audio working in sync to create a new performance experience. This is the future of real “music television” or “music videos” because CPU and GPU speeds allow us to mix music and visuals in parallel.
The experience as a performer and spectator is a whole lot more exciting and fun when our eyes are connected to our ears. This is why huge global acts like U2 and Nine Inch Nails merge the two mediums at rock concerts.
Brandon’s system leverages - Ableton Live, VDMX, Quartz Composer, Molar and a Monome music interface.
NWAV Seattle Events History
In 2007 I hosted the first “New Media Synergy” underground media event at my loft space in Pioneer Square. The idea was to create a non-corporate type of technology gathering that explores new media technology. From my standpoint most of the best new technology ideas bubble up from the underground, thus Seattle was in need of a place to gather without the typical business crowd mix where everyone is trying to sell you something.
The next year in 2008 I connected with Bryant Place via the multi-touch music interface company called Jazz Mutant, famous for their space-age looking Lemur touch-interface product. Bands such as Daft Punk use the Lemur for live music shows because of it’s progressive multi-touch design. A few month’s later, Bryant connected me up with Surya Buchwald, known for is creation of Los Angeles Audio Visualists group (LAVA). Surya moved to Portland, Oregon, and started NWAV to bring LAVA style networking and events to the Northwest region. Shortly after his move to Portland, we connected online and then collaborated to create the first Seattle NWAV event (and follow up events) with a number of video dj “VJ” friends in Seattle like T.J. Davis, Scobot, Bob Bonniol, Jacob Stone among others. This is how our NWAV Seattle group started as a grass roots effort. I want to add that Surya Buchwald is one of the most down to earth and nicest people I have ever met. He is very open and shares his technology, ideas and secrets.
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Electric transportation is moving rapidly into the future with new battery technology moving forward quickly. This year it was time to investigate the latest in “Electric Motorcycle Technology”, so I contacted Brammo, an Ashland, Oregon based company. A few years ago I was in contact with Brammo’s CEO/Chairman Craig Bramscher, whom I recall was the U.S.A. importer for a very fast sports car called the Ariel Atom that does 0-60 in 2.3 seconds. At the time Craig said he had something in development but could not tell me what it was at the time. I always wondered what he had in the lab?
This past weekend I finally found out what Craig had “in the lab”—the Brammo Enertia Electric Motorcycle. My buddy Dave Lipshin and contacted Dave Murray, the Portland based technician for Brammo Inc. Dave said to meet us at the Best Buy just outside of Portland where the Brammo Enertia electric motorcycle is for sale today! You may think it is odd to sell a $7,995.00 electric motorcycle at Best Buy, but as Dave Murray explained “this is more like a laptop than a gas powered motorcycle”.
We the filled out paperwork to test ride the Brammo Enertia, deemed to be the first production electric motorcycle made right here in the U.S.A. . I am really excited about the electric transportation industry and for startups who are making products right here in the U.S.A. If we put a few billon dollars into innovative startups like Brammo, instead of into (enter your favorite government waste program here) then we would create a sustainable industry and new jobs.
Brammo Electric Motorcycle Video Time Codes:
0:00-2:00 - Questions about the Brammo Enertia Electric Motorcycle
2:00-4:00 - Brammo Enertia Battery Technology Information
4:00-6:00 - Pre-Ride Brammo Enertia Motorcycle Operation Overview
6:00-9:48 - Brammo Enertia Test Ride and First Impressions
Brammo Enertia Electric Motorcycle Overview
Web: http://www.brammo.com
Tweets: http://www.twitter.com/Brammosays
Facebook: Friend up Brammo on Facebook
Specs: http://www.brammo.com/learn/#specifications
Environmental: http://www.brammo.com/green/
General information from the Brammo Website:
“The beginning to be environmentally friendly. At just $7,995 the Enertia makes it easy to save money and the environment. Here are some of the ways that BRAMMO and the Enertia keep the world clean:
- 100% electrical motor; no gasoline, motor oil, or other petrochemicals
- Manufactured in the United States with 100% clean energy
- Uses recycled materials in many components
- Production requires less than 10% of the material resources needed for an average car
- The Enertia powercycle can be recycled
-The Enertia’s Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries are very safe and do not contain any heavy metals
- The Enertia’s batteries can be recycled for many other uses
- BRAMMO is a 100% clean technology company
Tim Reha’s Notes:
A number of my friends try to compare electric motorcycles to gas motorcycles and seem not to “get” what the mission of these electric vehicles are all about.
This is a commuter electric motorcycle to get you from Point A to Point B safely, at low cost, with low maintenance. Males tend to want to whip out their private parts and puff out their chests when discussing technology and vehicles. Most in-city commutes are less than 40 miles per day, much less in fact. Thus, the Brammo Enertia fits within the acceptable commuter sweet spot. The Brammo Enertia, from my first impression, was designed for quality and safety. The build, fit and finish are rock solid, actually even better than I expected. Even better—this electric motorcycle is surprisingly quick and performs in the rain like a champ. I like the idea of not having to warm up a motorcycle and pray that it starts in the morning - problems I have always had with other gas motorcycles.
I have owned dirt bikes and street bikes for over 25 years and enjoyed the cafe-racer design with some feel of a motorcross-turned street bike. Support these entrepreneurial efforts as they are the only way we will get the U.S.A. back on track. When I say this I mean, give companies like Brammo your feed back and have an open mind to the new electric vehicles. They are a lot of fun, quite, recyclable, low operational cost and low maintenance. In the next decade we will see nano-technology increase the power to size ratio for batteries. Thus, the cost and range of electric motorcycles will drastically improve. Today, you have the chance to own a totally viable commuter motorcycle that is fun for a decent price if you look at the overall cost of ownership, fuel and maintenance picture. Do yourself a favor and contact Brammo for a test ride to see the future for yourself today.
A special thank you to Dave Murray our knowledgeable and fun Brammo Portland technician. We had a lot of fun!
Please comment below if you want to have Brammo setup a Test Ride Day here in Seattle in February or March 2010. I will contact them and put together an event if you put an effort to spread the word and invite your friends.
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This year I caught back up with John as he was the host for the WTIA 2010 Predictions event (I produce WTIA TV). A few weeks later at the DEMO Innovation Meet-up in Seattle, John and I decided to shot an impromptu video interview with VC and angel investor guests. Since we both travel in the same circles John invited me to collaborate to shoot TechFlash’s 1st Anniversary Party and Trival Challenge.
For the project, it was clear that TechFlash needed a birthday gift. I created a new “corporate imaging package for TechFlash that included custom branded motion graphics package with sound effects. This was used for the intros and outtros for each video. At the event Colin Christianson and I setup both a live stream and HD video studio used to interview guests at the even to tell their stories and the 2010 Outlook.
TechFlash HDTV Videos
2009 TechFlash Holiday Party & Birthday Bash
TechFlash at 2009 DEMO Innovation Meetup
TechFlash TV Corporate Imaging Production
Custom motion graphics and sound effect complement the TechFlash brand image and are used as digital building blocks to create TechFlash HDTV shows.
TechFlash TV Live Streams
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I had a great time working with John Cook to create HD Video for the DEMO Innovation Meetup in Seattle. Here is the video.
John Cook from Tech Flash interviews Andy Sack, Founder’s Co-op and Bill McAleer: Managing Director, Voyager Capital at the 2009 DEMO Innovation Seattle Meetup.
The DEMO Experience: http://www.demo.com
DEMO Conference Format: The feel you get when you enter the ballroom at DEMO is unlike any other conference. Each company is given just six minutes on the DEMO stage to truly demonstrate how their product will change the world. No PowerPoint or flashy corporate presentations allowed. Just the founders and the technologies many are staking their careers on it doesnt get any more straightforward and fast paced than that.
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The event speakers include: John Cook, TechFlash / Puget Sound Business Journal, Bill Bryant, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Glenn Kellman, President & CEO, Redfin, Kelly Smith, Founding Partner, Curious Office, Greg Gottesman Managing Director, Madrona Venture Group.
The guest VC’s were asked “How would you invest $2 million in one company next year in 2010?
Interview with Cliff Monlux, Founder and Managing Partner, Ramp Equity Partners, LLC.
Cliff Monlux, Ramp Equity Partners, LLC Founder and Managing Partner has had over 25 years experience founding, growing, and selling market leading technology companies. His experience covers private, venture backed and public companies across a broad spectrum of software, Internet, and new media. Most recently he was a founder of Paradigm Technology Partners, a corporate development and M&A consulting firm. His clients include companies in markets from enterprise software to media technologies including: Docusign, eNom, Demand Media, and PassAlong Networks. In 2006 Cliff was involved in 5 M&A and financing events valued at over $140,000,000, including the launch of Demand Media with former MySpace CEO Richard Rosenblatt.
Photos from the event
Blog posts covering the event
Todd Bishop, TechFlash Blog - Predictions 2010: The future of Twitter, Google, everything else
Brier Dudley’s Blog - WTIA predictions for 2010: Twitter bashing, Google at $720, MSFT to $40
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According to the recent Forrester Research Report “The Forrester Wave™: US Online Video Platforms, Q4 2009 “, It is predicted that by 2013 the number of video streams will double. Today, 71% of the US online audience watches video on the Internet.
Update: 84.4% of U.S. Internet users watched at least one online video in October and the average person watched 10.8 hours of video
YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world with Google Sites surpassing 10 Billion Video Views in August. TEN BILLION VIDEO VIEWS!
Update: Comscore announces nearly 28B Videos Viewed in October!
YouTube just a few weeks ago announced that full 1080P HD video uploads will be available on the service shortly. Think about that, a full HD 1080P video, hosted for free on YouTube. This points to convergence between your home’s HDTV and online video is about to reach a major inflection point.
Other notable findings from August 2009 include:
- The top video ad networks in terms of their actual delivered reach were: Tremor Media Video Network (19.5 percent penetration of all online video viewers), BrightRoll Video Network (16.2 percent penetration), and BroadbandEnterprises.com (14.8 percent penetration).
- 81.6 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
- The average online video viewer watched 582 minutes of video, or 9.7 hours.
- 120.5 million viewers watched nearly 10 billion videos on YouTube.com (82.6 videos per viewer).
- 44.9 million viewers watched 340 million videos on MySpace.com (7.6 videos per viewer).
- The average Hulu viewer watched 12.7 videos, totaling 1 hour and 17 minutes of videos per viewer.
- The duration of the average online video was 3.7 minutes.
Social Media Video
The rise of social media has created an additional channel for direct to consumer video syndication. Often videos are “re-tweeted” on Twitter and “Liked” on Facebook providing for additional viral spread for online videos across the social networks. Facebook has quickly become the 3rd largest video distribution platform and offers HD 720P video hosting for free. Many smart marketers are creating video centric Facebook Pages tied to direct response offers, contests and other direct-to-consumer communications that drive sales and brand loyalty.
“Time spent viewing video on social networking sites increased 98 percent year-over-year, from 503.8 million minutes in October 2008 to 999.4 million minutes in October 2009, according to Nielsen. In conjunction, the number of online video streams viewed on social networking and blog sites increased 45 percent year-over-year, from 240.8 million streams in October 2008 to 349.5 million in October 2009.”
Mobile Video
New mobile devices like the iPhone and 3G data services expand the video reach to mobile devices. A properly formatted short video loaded to an iPhone is a great networking tool to better describe “what you do” when you meet new contacts at events. I tested a fashion show video on a mobile device a years ago and both men and women in my test group loved to watch the videos on the mobile device. Mobile screen resolutions and fast graphics processing units (GPU’s) on mobile devices are raplidly turning smart phones into portable 1080P VCRs that may connect directly to your TV.
Internet Video in the Home
Intel has developed HD WiFi HDMI chips that are being used to create a wireless video mesh network in the home and office. This means that in the near future most TVs will be native HD WiFi enabled, thus eliminating the need to hard-wire your TV sets to connect to HD over broadband services such a Hulu and YouTube HD channels. Bit Torrents for video files already surpass audio files and companies like Boxee provide a “new way to enjoy entertainment on your TV and PC”.
Streaming Video
The Nielsen Company reported on September 15, 2009 that overall online video year-over-year, unique viewers, total streams, streams per viewer and time per viewer were up, led by a 41 percent growth in total streams.
Video streaming services such as uStream.tv and LiveStream offer both free and premium offerings. Video streaming is a super method to reach new customers anywhere in the world where there is a broadband connection. Many smart companies are extending the reach for their business events my merging live streaming with social media communications to serve as a back channel. Both uStream and Live Stream integrate Twitter and Facebook into their interfaces creating a back-channel for two way communication. Thus, video has changed from a one-way communication medium into a two-way communication medium when packaged with social media chat.
The main problem we face today with streaming is proper bandwidth at event facilities such as hotels. Often they charge an outrageous rate for a dedicated broadband connection. Livestream has innovated by creating a streaming backpack module that has a number of wireless modems that connect to a “brain” that fits in a small backpack. They featured this technology at New York Fashion Week. New compression techniques and the rise of broadband technology will eliminate the current bottle necks for live streaming. In fact, mobile phones today can live stream using Qik.
Often I will live stream events using uStream and use the system’s recording feature to save the video to on-demand. Their API also connects to YouTube, thus you may stream video live and then save to both uStream and YouTube.
Video SEO
All major search engines from Google to Bing feature video search and also highlight videos in their main indexes. This further compounds the value of video and creates additional touch points to reach audiences off of your main website.
New Video Technology & Platforms
Companies like Ooyala founded by ex-Google employees, have developed and end-to-end offering that has advanced monetization and analytics tools. These include new video capabilities such as clickable video regions tied to metadata that will add a new paradigm to ecommerce shopping online. TubeMogul provides a video syndication system for consumer focused video syndication sites like YouTube and Vimeo, complete with analytics.
Video Analytics
Ooyala, Brightcove and WISTA among others including YouTube now provide various data points to measure video consumption, embeds and even geo-targeting data by region. On the high-end, Autonomy’s Virage technology eliminates the traditionally manual and costly operations to process and analyze information by performing these functions automatically and in real-time. Currently, most video platforms have manual entry for adding meta-data, a time consuming but required process.
Video Analytics allow you to measure and optimize both video production and video syndication. We already know that short 1-3min videos work best because people have short attention spans. But this is quickly changing as people now watch longer form video if the content is engaging and distributed at night after dinner when people are in the comfort of their own homes.
Corporate Video
Video is a perfect medium for training and education for internal employees, partners and clients. Complex information is often better communicated by mixing video with motion graphics than with text. Seattle’s F5 Networks has created a YouTube and partner channel called “Dev Central” http://devcentral.f5.com/ that features both video and audio podcasts. F5’s Technical Marketing Manager, Peter Silva, has created an entire community around F5 products and services by leveraging new media and collaboration. Thus, there are as many benefits to create videos for internal communications as there are for direct to consumer video strategies.
Private Label Media and Video
Major brands such as Red Bull have embraced the notion of private label media and basically create their own internet TV channels tied to branded events as a way to reach their customers around the globe. Companies today have the power to become the media as consumers are comfortable with brands becoming a reliable source of information and entertainment.
In fact, Red Bull creates so much private label media video that they sell it to other marketers who need footage for commercials and online media projects. Just look at the integration of video into the Red Bull USA website and you will see that video and rich media are pervasive and penetrate across sports, music and entertainment.
Red Bull even pushes video further in their “augmented reality” powered the Red Bull Bulletin Magazine. Articles with augmented reality markers are held up to your computer’s web camera. Then the augmented reality system maps videos to areas on the magazine. The magazine is available as a printable PDF, thus Red Bull leverages broadband to deliver both a print magazine and HD web videos.
Private label media is also a smart play for non-consumer brands with less than visually compelling topics.
Booz and Company just released a smart new white paper entitled “The Promise of Private label Media” which is worth reading if you are charged with your companies sales and marketing strategy.
Corporate Video Production Studios
I predict that we will see the rise in corporate video and audio production studios for mid-size companies because the price points for gear and ROI are now in the sweet spot. I created a short list of gear needed to create quality HD Video studio. The costs range from $5K to $10K depending on how many camera angels you want. This is a very small price to pay when you look at a company’s overall marketing budget, training and internal communications budget.
What gear and staff is required for a corporate video production studio?
- Mac or PC Tower
- Video Editing Software like Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premier
- Video Capture Cards
- One or Two HD Video Cameras
- H.264 Compression Card
- Video Mixer (optional for two camera angles)
- Three Point Video Light System
- Wireless Microphones
- Backdrop
Internal video production is a time consuming process that is quickly being streamlined using new technology. For example, Matrox has a new video compression card that will take a 5min HD video rendering time from 2+ hours down to 5 minutes. The current missing link is inexpensive HD Video Mixers. Currently HD video mixers that switch between two cameras and add logos and titles cost around $10K. There are other “gap” solutions such as running two Black Magic Intensity cards in a Mac Pro Tower but these are currently no optimal.
A smart way to start to develop your video strategy is to use an outsourced video production company to help you produce content. Set up a video shoot day and record a series of short format web videos to maximized your ROI.
Summary
The above technology, consumer uptake and statistics plainly reveal that all companies need a video strategy. It is time to build your video strategy and use rapid iterations to learn what works and how to best engage your audience. If you do not make the move today then you increase your risk profile every day as your competitors move quickly a head using one of the most powerful communications mediums of all time.
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About Tim Jenkins
Tim co-founded Point B in 1995. He has worked on a wide spectrum of projects for clients in numerous industries, including telecommunications, distribution, healthcare and insurance. Today, Tim provides overall direction to the development of Point B’s people, culture and brand. His earlier career included serving as director of information technology for Children’s Hospital & Regional Medical Center (Seattle) and as a manager at Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting) in its Seattle office. Tim holds a BA in Economics, magna cum laude, from the University of Washington and an MBA in Finance and Marketing from the University of Chicago. He loves to spend his free time skiing with his family and coaching youth sports.
About Point B
Point B consultants are entirely dedicated to our clients’ success through the power of project leadership. Since the firm was founded in 1995, we’ve created a culture that attracts the best and brightest project leaders with proven track records—then gives them the resources and support to do what they do best: get business results for our clients. Point B consultants are based in Seattle, Portland, Denver, Phoenix, San Francisco, Chicago and Los Angeles. From aggressive start-ups to Fortune 100 companies, clients choose Point B for our ability to step into any level or role in a mission-critical project and lead it to success.
Point B Articles:
http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2004/05/24/smallb1.html?page=2
Point B Linkedin:
]]>Below are a few segments from the event. We will post video interviews as they are produced. John Cook, the event’s moderator coverage is available on the TechFlash Blog.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
]]>The significance is subtle and points to a whole new future of GPU accelerated magic that will spawn new startups around the world.
Read up on OpenCL on Memo’s post and be sure to download the true HD version.
ofxOpenCL for openFrameworks 1M Particle Demo from Memo Akten on Vimeo.
“This is 1,000,000 particles being interacted on by mouse, updated on GPU (with springy behaviours ) via an OpenCL kernel, data written straight to a VBO and rendered - without ever coming back to host (i.e. main memory + cpu etc.) “
NOTE: The Vimeo compression destroys most of the particles, so I suggest downloading the quicktime directly from the vimeo page at http://www.vimeo.com/7332496
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From my perspective, social media often becomes a customer service channel weather a company likes it or not. It is simply too easy to fire off a bitch session over Twitter at AT&T because their network is over sold and drops calls. There is a certain amount of satisfaction that your “followers” will feel your pain and can reply with their same “lack of” customer service opinions. Thus, corporations need to look at streamlined work flows, training and technology that will intelligently distribute inbound conversations and route them to the correct domain expert within the organization.
I find that the “social media” customer service tools are lacking compared to enterprise level multimedia contact centers on the market. I have to give “Frank” and his team who created “Comcast Cares” presence on Twitter http://twitter.com/comcastcares @comcastcares credit because they are trying to do a good job with first-gen tools. The issue is scale. As you see on the Comcast Cares Twitter site, Frank is featured. What happens when Frank receives a better offer and leaves Comcast? The strategy is kind of a double edge sword. It is cool that Comcast innovates and lets Frank be their human face, but I think that in the long run this strategy has draw backs.
First, Twitter as a Customer service channel is latent and does not have any type of intelligent routing systems that compare to unified contact center players. Sure there are products such as Co-Tweet that provide multiple agent users, monitoring and more. But they do not seem to integrate into the current base of enterprise level unified customer care systems from Aspect, Cisco, and Cosmocom.
Internet Customer Service Story from 1998 - The Golf Biz
Back in 1998 when I was in the golf ecommerce business we had many of the same customer care issues that are happening today with the social web. The main difference was that today customers have 100X more viral vocal power to crush your brand and sales by conversion across the social web.
I was basically the CTO, CMO and Webmaster for GolfDiscount.com. We did not have a technology team, just a small outsourced technology partner that developed our shopping cart technology. I remember searching for new ecommerce technology and it all provided limited functionality. It was very expensive as well when Oracle came out with their solution, Sun Servers were $25K + if you could find one and hosting at Exodus was $1,500 per month if you could get rack space. Then you had to deal with security and buy two copies of Checkpoint firewall software, one for your main server, one for your “slotting server” used as a fail-over.
There were no ecommerce platforms at the time that fit our needs. We needed to combine an ecommerce shopping cart with a traditional phone ordering system tied to inventory managment across both our warehouse and 12 retail stores. The entire Pro Golf Discount and GolfDiscount.com organization generated north of $50million in sales by the time I left in 2000. Today, the GolfDiscount.com side of the business would be easily listed in the top fastest growing NW companies buy profit margin and revenue if it was listed by the PSBJ.
Our retail stores served as mini-warehouses and the stores hated the “internet department” because we often took their inventory and potential sales commissions. The “internet department” was also branded differently than the retail stores because we were a spin out business due to the fact that the owner really owned rights to a franchise called Pro Golf Discount covering the NW and San Diego. Thus, we could not use the Pro Golf brand for ecommerce. Like I said we had a ton of weird dynamics working against us during the peak of the internet time warp from 1998-2000. These dynamics created huge customer service hassles and obstacles. But we were creative and our owner had the will to try new things with dollars to take risks.
In a previous position (1996) as the director of new media for a collegiate direct response company, we also were using a call center as our primary point to process direct response sales. My mindset was that the call centers would be oblelete in the future because I of a vision I saw while looking over Silicon Valley after the Intermedia World Conference. This was the conference where Jim Barksdale and Mark Andressen (Netscape) spoke about the rise of the internet. I met the core of the first wave internet pioneers in S.F. that year and it was very clear that the world of inbound call centers and customer service would change rapidly.
Sorry, You can not Show your Prices Online!
The golf space was still old school back in 1998 and the manufacturers did not know how to embrace the internet. One day we could put Callaway golf club prices online, then next day they would ask us to pull all prices from our site. Never the less, we scaled our ecommerce operations with a very small team from $1m to $9m in 20 months at a profit, while other companies were loosing millions and going IPO. On a good day we sold $60k worth of golf equipment over the web and via our call center. I would watch the PGA Tour on Sunday and on Monday launch a direct response email campaign with a list of gear that the tour pros used to win. Tiger Woods helps us sell millions!
So what do you do when you can not put prices online? How do you provide good customer service?
Let me tell you that when you have $7 million in inventory and a first generation ecommerce site, updating your price catalog is a pain. Next, when you have your vendors call and ask you to remove all prices one day and then allow you the next week, your hair will fall out. In the period of a month we are asked by Callaway, TaylorMade and Titlist to remove prices. Our customers where pissed and did not understand why?
We dropped from a good day of sales $40k down to $20k over night. I woke up at 4am with an idea, why not record audio wav files with prices and stick them on the shopping cart? This fit in our restrictions not to list “text prices” that people would print off and take to their local retail golf store - asking to match the price. These printouts would be instantly faxed to the golf manufacturers with blistering attack from our competitors. The “audio prices” were accepted by our golf vendors so we rolled them out to test the model. It kind of worked because people could surf and shop for pricing by clicking and listening to the price. But this was obviously a band-aid solution because our customers still had to call to place an order, the reverse of a frictionless ecommerce shopping experience. I also recall getting a ton of press for “audio prices” because it was novel, so we just leveraged the press and we increased sales at least a few hundred thousand dollars per month using audio prices.
The First Multimedia IP Call Center in the Golf Business
A friend Paul Coppock at the time was the west coast sales person for Net Perceptions. Remember them?
Net Perceptions was the collaborative filtering technology provider for Amazon.com’s recommendation shopping service. Paul recommended that I connect with a startup in the contact center space called Cosmocom http://www.cosmocom.com headed by Steve Dellutri. Cosmocom was the first company in the world to create a pure IP based contact center with intelligent call routing, collaborative browsing, chat and even video conferencing session using Microsoft’s NetMeeting. There were zero ecommerce sites back in 1998 with this type of technology. Video on the web was nascent and the most advanced internet customer service systems were email forms and basic chat sessions.
It was really interesting to train our team and basically invent the way that IP multimedia contact centers were to be used for “real-time” internet customer service. What do you do when you receive a chat call from Mexico in Spanish? You translate the text using Systrans or the earliest version of Google Translate. We developed a few smart ways to leverage the new IP multimedia call center. First I could program intelligent call routings based on what the customer had in their shopping cart. For example, with skills based routing, I could route a call about a left handed female putter to a female agent in our call center.
Think about this on a global scale? Inbound calls from Japan could be routed to in-country native speaking sales agents using the language selection in the customer’s browser.
We tested numerous new innovations such as collaborative browsing sessions where our golf pros could “push” product pages and recommendations to our customers. We connected live video and audio conference sales and customer support calls from Australia to help our customers oversees save on long distance calls. Yes, the calls would drop because the bandwidth was slow, but we tried new ideas and learned what worked. Ebay purchased Skype with the vision of leveraging live VOIP calls across their platform as a form of customer service.
Next I needed to track banner ad sales on Yahoo to inbound call center phone calls. How do you do that?
I contacted Avenue A (now aQuantive) who was helping with our ad serving at the time. As their first customer, I had direct access to Scott Lipsky and Avenue A’s tech team. I suggested to use a dynamic ad code where we could attach a code to the end of our 1-800-394-GOLF phone number. The ad code would be generated by Avenue A who served up our banners on Yahoo. Thus, the agent would ask if there was a code after the phone number 1-800-394-GOLF Y3453—the “Y” tracked that it was a call originating from a Yahoo Ad Banner; 3453 was the keyword we purchased on Yahoo such as “Ping Golf Clubs”. Now we could track online advertising with an off-line call center. Amazing innovation that would only work if the call center agents were consistent in plugging in the correct code into their computer (I framed in the Avenue A code form at the top our home page, only viewable by our agents).
I will end the golf story with inventing another customer service innovation called “Video on Hold”. Have you ever waited on hold for 5minutes and had a good experience? Not likely. Since we had basically invented the use of a web base call center for the golf business why not take it a step further? At the time video on the web was nascent with NW companies like Real Networks leading the charge. We purchased a new mac, Final Cut V1 and a Canon Elura. I setup a small studio to produce short web videos for our top selling golf equipment. We leveraged our push browsing capabilities and would push videos to people when we had to put them on hold to check inventory or locate product information. This provided a new customer experience when they were on hold because they could watch a product video. The main issue at the time was the lack of broadband and ubiquitous video codes. Thus, we pulled back on the innovative customer service “video on hold” model.
Today my view is that video with clickable in-video hotspots and augmented reality enhance ecommerce will become standard in the next five years.
Where is the Innovation using Social Media for Customer Service Today?
The capabilities of many digital services are strongly linked to Moore’s law creating the hyper-convergence that we are experiencing today. Thus, my view is that hyper-competition will meet hyper-convergence and the power of the social web where the customer is in charge will rapidly transform the customer service landscape. Patents already lock out many innovations for small players such as Co-Tweet are eclipsed by broad patents covering the unified contact center IP space. Thus, there will be rapid consolidation driven by lawsuits in the social web as customer service space. Furthermore, customers will demand mixed channel customer service all on demand in real-time.
“Unified Contact Center Technology for Unified Customer Communications (Consolidated, Virtual Contact Center platform for Enterprises and Service Providers who require a scaleable, multi-channel, communications infrastructure to serve both inbound and outbound contact center requirements.” - Cosmocom
One brilliant aspect of customer service created by the social web is customer-to-customer customer service. Service like Get Satisfaction http://getsatisfaction.com/ provide “instant-on support communities for sharing answers, ideas and solutions. Tony Heish at Zappos (now Amazon.com) created a billion dollar ecommerce shoe business using the social web tied to superior customer support and community. Running customer support systems live over Twitter, via call centers and chat sessions is expensive. Thus, social support systems are a lower-cost solution that also potentially drive better support since often customers know product better than the manufacturers.
Smaller organizations without massive budgets will have to settle for fragmented solutions such as Co-Tweet and new offerings from Web 2.0 companies like ZenDesk http://www.zendesk.com . New innovative ecommerce players will roll in social media, customer support and collaborative browsing features. Here is a video interview with ShopIgniter a new “social ecommerce” solution built on the open source CodeIgniter framework.
Mobile?
The social web and customer service operations are rapidly merging with mobile. For example, shoppers will spend $400m on eBay using just their iPhone application. Since the experience for shopping on eBay is on the iPhone the company must also use this same application for customer support. iPhones using apps like Tweetie are also very popular and quick to fire off rapid tweets.
Thus, social is merging with mobile, commerce and customer service. Does CoTweet have an iPhone application used by in-field or remote customer service agents?
Smart companies such as ZipCar have launched customized iPhone applications that blend “self-service” solutions with GPS, maps and other features. The iPhone ZipCar application increases customer satisfaction and decreases inbound call center support calls. Brilliant! What ZipCar is missing now is a true social media strategy to leverage services such as Twitter.
It is amazing to see how ZipCar comes up with the smart iPhone app but then drops the ball on their Twitter accounts. Am I missing something when I Google “Zip Car, Twitter” and only come up with:
http://www.twitter.com/zipcar - 0 Tweets!
http://twitter.com/zipcarNYC - 0 Tweets!
Thanks for reading this post and please field any links to innovative social media customer service stories and solutions that are scalable.
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Thank you for hosting me as your guest for the Social Media event. I wish we had more time to spend together at the event and really enjoyed the experience. Below are a few slides from my 2009 Seattle Wine Awards digital marketing and social media case study for your review. I will annotate the slides with a podcast over the weekend and will post the new information here.
Many folks asked me about how to setup streamlined work flows and the internet dashboards. I am available to help you setup your digital marketing and social media technology and services. Please feel free to contact me via email at timreha@gmail.com , phone 206-375-9500 , or http://www.twitter.com/timreha to discuss your needs. Add me to your LinkedIn network using timreha@gmail.com .
Thank you!
Tim Reha
CEO
NewMediaSynergy, LLC.
For other clients we also have additional inbound and digital marketing strategies such as:
- Search engine optimization and pay per click management.
- Branding and messaging continuity.
- Private label content strategy and high-velocity content production systems for video, photos, slide decks and other rich media.
- Public relations and social media marketing.
- Web design and development. We specialize in ExpressioneEngine and WordPress blog sites.
- Private label social networks. We specialize in BuddyPress social media networks.
- Online lead generation, lead nurturing, lead qualification.
- Landing pages with A/B and multivariate testing / optimization.
- Aligning marketing and sales processes, goals and messages.
Seattle Wine Awards Presentation Slide Deck
Seattle Wine Awards Presentation Slide Deck - Video with Audio Annotations
Seattle Wine Awards Video Walk Though Tour
Video: Tim Reha with Kathy Gill, University of Washington, Master of Communications, Digital Media.
Video: Mr. Christopher Chan, Executive Director, Seattle & Oregon Wine Awards, with Martin Olsen, Olsen Estates.
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Here is the link:
http://surkanstance.blogspot.com/2009/11/epnw-say-it-with-video-indispensible.html
]]>“In the late 19th century and early 20th century, the music industry was dominated by the publishers of sheet music” - (Wikipedia). Today, music is big business and used by global advertising agencies to create campaigns that target people of all ages. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Sony, News Corp, Disney, Universal, Warner and EMI all have their fingers in the music business.
Since the advent of the internet and the “Napsterization” of music with digital peer-to-peer services, YouTube and portable “iPods”, the music industry is in a rapid state of convergence and change. Search engines and social media “trending” list music as a primary topic and media type that is passed around the planet at the speed of light. Thus, with rapid global changes in social behavior created by new technology and digital connectivity, bands have to react quickly to develop new music business models.
The most successful bands in the world do not only sell music. Rather, they sell an experience that you can be a part of and share with your friends.
Big shows like the recent U2 concert broadcast live on YouTube, featured a complex visual component the helped them create a mind blowing integrated experience. The sound was amazing and the 360 stage provides views for all. U2 also created an amazing centralized 360 degree video screen that complemented the music as well as was used to communicate the band’s messages about global poverty and freedom. These messages mixed with visuals created a U2 experience that connected with fans worldwide in a manner more powerful than simply only playing music during the concert.
Here is a demo of the recent U2 Concert with a very crude live Twitter Stream overlay. At 1:22 you will see different Twitter visualization modes with member photos, etc. A few paragraphs down, you will see a more integrated and visually appealing approach that I discovered and have working in the media lab.
With the advent of social media and mobile phones, live concerts now may add a direct connection to their audiences to create a new more consumer centric experience. A very basic example is to display live Twitter streams into their visuals as we have seen with business events. For bands it is now possible to create an “integrated experience” by remixing social media via mobile devices with visuals and audio. They key then is how to create a “real-time blended interactive experience” and new user interaction models. This will change the notion of a band playing in the typical one-to-many model to a “many-to-many” model. The opportunity for bands is to leverage music and visuals as a medium that their audience interacts with and there for personalized as their own experience. Then they will share the media experience with their friends and drive new fans via social media and social discovery.
Bands need more Sizzle than the “normal” Twitter Fall or Scrolling Text messages on Stage.
What I find is that there are gaps between the tools that we need to create integrated mixed media experiences. Sure big bands like U2 can afford a multimillion dollar stage, sound and lighting setup. But they are the exception as 99.99% of all bands are small local bands with tiny budgets. The question to then answer is how may a small band with a few laptops, off-the-shelf projectors and software emulate a big budget band’s stage show?
Remixing and Blending Real-Time Data
Some background: I am a long time DJ (two turntables, old school vinyl and a mixer) and electronic musician (laptop + software and control devices) that has recently added live visual remxing “VJing” as part of my tools set. Thus, I am a digital and analog native when it comes to mixing various analog and digital sources. In addition, when my band plays local shows we are also shooting HD music videos, thus to create a more compelling and visual video, the VJing aspect adds sizzle to our productions.
My band uses an array of instruments both electronic and traditional. Our band’s goal has been to federate (unify) our instruments and the music with a visual component that integrates real-time social in a method that our audience may also be part of the federated experience.
The Glue that Fills the Gaps to Create a Magical Mixed Media Experience
This past year I have tested ideas for “small bands” to create a magical experience and connect with fans leveraging sound, lights, visuals and social media. Along this journey, I always run into issues where digital media applications are missing key components to work as part of an ecosystem of tools that band’s need to create a unified two-way experience to connect with their fans. Just this week, I found a few key components that act as “glue” to connect software programs, laptops and other basic tools to create unique experiences on a budget.
In my quest to create a federated band and audience experience I found a cool plug-in for my visuals program then uses Flash / Action Script to pull in live Twitter streams into the composition. The system uses keyword searches that then are visualized with different settings in with up to 10 layers of video, motion graphics, Quartz Compositions and live video feeds. For a simple use case such as an event, it is possible to get away from the standard “Twitter Fall” and move to more advance mixed media presentation of your Twitter live feed back channel. The flash coding for this application was created by the talented Erik Kateborg.
Here is a video sample of one of my music projects called Miss Solar System with live visuals. Now imagine this using the above Twitter Visualizer as part of the visual mix. This would create a back channel and cool way for the audience to interact with the band. Plus, it would look a heck of a lot cooler than projecting the “standard” Twitter Fall which would actually look totally lame at a concert. The video was filmed with my gear by Felix who rocks on the camera—haha, you can see when I am holding the camera while trying to VJ, when Felix left for the bathroom. If you are into visuals, forward to 8:00 minutes, where I switch from modulating videos to real-time particles with gravity and other effects.
Remixing your Digital Audio Workstation Software as part of the Visual Mix in Real-Time
Millions of musicians today have integrated laptops and music production software into their live music sets. Often the use of the laptop is lost on the crowd because the audience can not really see the music interface. One huge untapped source for both music and visual material is the internet. The main issue is that the internet media sources do not currently provide a time clock, MIDI, OSC or other to connect to real-world control devices such as a control surface.
This week I thought “why not just remix the music production interface” as part of a live remixed visuals set? Then I could mix music and video at the same time and have tight integration because I was actually remixing my music software interface as a visual asset. I created a working demonstration to leverage a video projector at a live music event to project the actual music software, in this case Ableton Live.
This demo creates the notion of a “live visual electronic musical instrument” to better engage the crowd with the digital part of the music production. My laptop is running Ableton Live and then feeds into my MacPro desktop using a DVI to HDMI cable, into a video capture card. This is then pulled into my live video composition software as a video feed. Now I can project the Ableton Live Software and interact with it in real-time to create music. In addition, I can add layers of color animation and live visual graphics effects to the Ableton Live Software interface, so it is now part of the visuals. I am able to pull the MIDI clock for music beat timing into my video remixing software as well as mic audio to create on-the-beat visual effects. In essence this is a real-time visual instrument.
New Multi-Touch Music and Visual Interfaces
Ableton is working with Max/MSP to create a new music production paradigm. See Max for Live - “Create all the instruments, effects and extensions you’ve ever wanted. Go beyond the common and predictable, and transcend the limits that conventional tools impose. Build completely unique synths and effects, create algorithmic composition tools, or fuse Live and controller hardware into radical, new music machines.”
Peter Kirn at Create Digital Music highlights a futuristic music interaction video on this blog post: “Subcycle: Multitouch Sound Crunching with Gestures, 3D Waveforms”
multi-touch the storm - interactive sound visuals - subcycle labs from christian bannister on Vimeo.
The OpenLabs Nekko XXL Multi-Touch Music Production Studio
Remote Mixing with the iPhone - Future Crowd Interaction Models
In the future all bands will be blending social media with live visuals into their show as a new way to connect with audiences and create a back channel for interactivity. Mobile devices with touch screens and other sensors will become the “joystick” for controlling interactive motion graphics live in real-time by audiences. Entertainment that provides the audience with interactivity will become mainstream especially as we enter a world where every mobile phone is also a micro laser video projector.
Here is a recent demo using VDMX, a visual mixing program with Ableton Live, for audio mixing and an iPhone App created by Memo Atkins. The iPhone application connects to the computer via WIFI. The iPhone has touch screen controls that are mapped remotely to both VDMX and Ableton Live via OSC. Thus, the iPhone is used as a remote wireless multi-touch controller for both audio and visual production in real-time.
MSA Remote + VDMX + Ableton Live from Memo Akten on Vimeo.
Imagine a Music Concert where YOU Control the Lights and Visuals
MSAFluid for processing (Controlled by iPhone) from Memo Akten on Vimeo.
Computer Vision + Live Visuals + Audience Interaction in Real-Time = Body Paint
The amazing Memo will blow you away with this demo. Imagine your band having this as part of your sage show tied to a live capture video camera tied to your Facebook profile’s video capture and YouTube.
“Body Paint” Installation at “Clicks or Mortar”, March 2009 from Memo Akten on Vimeo.
Photo Remixing for Bands and Social Media
Next we know that social media is about the “media” that you develop to distribute on your social networks. In my “Media Lab” I created a very rapid way to create remixed photos using live video that I shoot at my band Surrealized’s shows. The idea here is to rapidly streamline the media production in order to quickly turn around very complex photos that would take hours to create in Photoshop. The effect looks like artwork. Thus, we leverage remixed photos to grab attention on the social networks where photo sharing is huge. In addition, I am able to create video loops by using say 100 photos to create something cool to project behind the band while they jam on stage.
Moving Away from Square/Rectangle Media = Mapping
We are use to the notion of “Square Video” and Square or Rectangular shapes photos, because video cameras, screens and projectors are square. New technology allows us to get out of the “square paradigm” by “Mapping” or stretching video to 3D shapes, warping video to non-square shapes and also by masking video so it is round. The use of non-square visual media creates a type of “new look” that grabs people’s attention and this is key to create “experiences” and videos that people want to share. Here are a few amazing demos of mapping video to give you some creative ideas for your band, event or other situation where you want to try something new. Most of these videos were found via Peter Krin and his Create Digital Motion blog.
Laser Cave Prototype from Suryummy on Vimeo.
Telenoika Audiovisual Mapping @ Ingravid Festival, Figueres 9/2009 [FULL] from Telenoika on Vimeo.
555 KUBIK | facade projection | from urbanscreen on Vimeo.
The next generation of Music Audience Interaction will leverage Augmented Reality.
Google “Augmented Reality” and learn what a “Glyph” or “Marker”, then imagine one printed on a band’s promotional poster, a flier or on the back of your concert ticket. This is what will be possible and is possible now, just not widely distributed yet.
Augmented Reality Music Interfaces - New Models for Social Media Interaction
Connecting the Analog World to the Digital World. You have to watch this if you are a band as you will come up with a few new ideas for your stage show and for your audience to play with at home. Fressssh!
AR scratching from vanderlin on Vimeo.
Even you can make a Beat with your iPhone. Have Fun, Make Media and Make Some Noise!
I hope you enjoyed the above blog post in a way that stimulates new ideas for your band or friend’s bands. The key is to leverage consumer grade technology such as video cameras, projectors, laptops and mobile devices to create a new music experience for your fans. Many successful musicians understand that the music revenue model has changed and to be profitable they have to leverage social media and digital technology. Cheers, Techno Tim 
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