Iain...

IF you read this THEN automate your digital life with ifttt

2012-01-30T20:20:00.000Z

If you've ever done any programming then you'll know about an 'if' statement. If (in the event that) something (happens), then do something else.

If you haven't tried it, then I recommend you try If This Then That (http://ifttt.com/). Its just a fantastic way to simplify stuff that you seem to have to do online.

Unfinished business

2012-01-09T10:44:00.000Z

A new year and another chance to change, do thing different and become something else. I know only too well how hard a blog is to stick to, particularly when you are as flighty as me, so I'll make no promises about that. I will however start the year by trying to at least finish off the backlog of draft posts. They linger like a lost to do list, occasionally appearing when I have the least time to do anything about it. There are thoughts and ideas and things that never made the light of day because they weren't finished, weren't right, weren't good enough, or just because it was time to get off the train. I guess if I'm ever going to get any good at this then I am going to have to, as Godin suggests, just ship.

Hny

Iq if

2011-11-25T20:23:00.001Z

Today I was lucky enough to attend the iq squared IF conference at the Royal Geographic Society in Kensington.

I went, not knowing what to expect really. I'd selected the speakers I wanted to see in each of the sessions - but was pleased to discover that instead I got to see all of the speakers do their own TED style shorter preso's. What a barrage of mental stimulation therefore...

Huge diversity of expertise, style and content seemed strangely united and convergent. Perhaps as much around passionate inquisitive and creative minds as specific ideals...

I'll write a bit more when I have my notes, but we went from neuroscience to vertical gardens, and from poetry to urban anthropology so I took plenty!

Trending vending

2011-09-01T08:10:00.001Z

In a world where people are increasingly demanding and seeking instant gratification its perhaps not a massive surprise that I've read a load of stuff about vending machines lately.

Whether you are French or not, we all like a fresh baguette, well I do – a proper one, not one of those shiny ones that has been hanging around in a basket for hours in Tesco. One that is warm through and has that great crisp crunch. Here we have an enterprising frenchman who has seen the future and apparently it's not garlic bread, but instant baguettes - hot from a vending oven thing.

Here at home with volatile markets driving up the desirability of precious metals (and the shopping centre presumably making a bit of a statement about their clientele) Westfield have a vending machine offering gold in a variety of gift wrapped weights up to a 250g bar at £10,000.

In the US Facebook is demonstrating its internal innovation credentials with a vending machine that has reduced the cost of managing replacement accessories by about 35%. The brainwave of a support engineer (who possibly doesn't like too much personal contact) it tracks and manages keyboards, mouses and the like.

Best Buy have been rolling their Express vending machines for consumer electronics out at airports in the US for a while but they are so successful that they are pushing out to other venues including Disney resorts and college campuses.

With plenty of technology like this maturing and Mark B at dreamforce highlighting the future of 'connecting to the social enterprise' through simple physical interactions like this those clunky old boxes are starting to feel interesting again...

The softer side of digital (p1)

2011-08-17T10:08:00.001Z

I did a little talk earlier this week on the subject above. It was based on a presentation I pulled together for a thinktank for outdoor brands a few weeks back. The driver for the initial presentation was fairly simple - the attendees at the outdoor event were at a variety of different stages in terms of their digital channel maturity but the organiser's perspective was that most of them 'had spent the last 5 years trying to get their transactional sites sorted'. The premise for the piece therefore was to look at the changes in behaviour, in technology and in business and draw some conclusions on how to address them. The subtitle became 'building brands and relationships online' - primarily because this seemed the next phase for a lot of those present. Their digital past had been to identify digital as a channel that they needed to be in, but primarily as a sales channel.

I thought i'd jot down some of the themes in a couple of posts before i forget them - this is the first one outlining a couple of different ways we looked at this to provide some context, before the second part which sets out some key concepts to bear in mind building brands online.

The first lens I thought about was that of online behaviour, of how people use digital technology. For me, digital has moved from second fiddle (an awkward alternative), to second nature (something we hardly think about). So digital is where we spend the most time, consume the most media, and it's where we hang out - so its where to find us. There are some great stats collated by google if you want to support making such a point some time.

From there I wandered into the changing face of technology. While we are already adopting this technology as fast as it can come and revelling in the digital hedonism of it all, actually technology is adapting to make things even easier for us. I'm thinking of natural user interfaces; gesture, facial and voice recognition and things like augmented reality that all close down the gap between people and machines.

So we have people getting into computers and computers getting into people. Nice. But from a business perspective all this online activity is empowering consumers and giving them a totally new degree of influence. That in turn is driving new business models and disruption with companies like Amazon, Groupon and iTunes changing the nature of the value chain in all manner of markets. For many of the manufacturer brands I was talking to, they are no longer in control of the means in which someone is likely to experience their product.What was once likely to be confined to retail environments they could control can now be found discounted, purchased in bulk, displayed inamongst other brands, compared on price, value or rating.

The short of all this is that the ever-growing digital landscape is where businesses can exert some influence on how their brand is perceived through their actions, and that this no longer means transactional ability but a much broader range of experiences that build relationships.

One of the most exciting things for me at the moment is that this is making marketing start to feel like marketing again (and less like Levitt's sales), to 'meeting the wants and needs of the consumers'. Not just in the sense of developing products that they want, but also in the sense of providing value that they might cherish, providing meaning beyond messages, and building lasting relationships. Through marketing we can make things people really embrace, enjoy or find useful in their lives and if we can keep it relevant the brand can enable the business to be profitable.

QR codes for me...

2010-07-28T09:15:00.001Z

Me on Facebook

Me on Twitter

If you want a handy bookmarklet that will generate these with goo.gl look here

iPad and Velcro: made for eachother...

2010-06-17T09:34:00.001Z

Velcro is well used and abused at my house, webcams stuck to computers, soft toys stuck to walls, doorbell stuck to frame but now i know what its really for...

The boys are ready...

2010-06-12T18:30:00.001Z

Social Media Revolution evolution

2010-05-18T11:48:00.001Z

You will probably have seen some version of this by now but this has been updated and now contains some fresh and even more notable stats...

If its just stealing the statistics you are after then you might like this... http://socialnomics.net/2010/05/05/social-media-revolution-2-refresh/

Some stuff from screen media

2010-05-13T14:49:00.001Z

A few highlights from Earls Court a couple of weeks back. I was actually surprised that there wasn’t more truly remarkable stuff there, so i only stayed an hour, but here are a few things I took snaps of…

A digital billboard, with some animated sequences. This still is of the Nike Grid campaign which is location specific and is amongst the prizes – your name gets on the billboard.

Video screens on the sides of buses.Turned at least one head.

Despite my shoddy camera(work) this screen was crystal clear and showing quite a few luxury brand video sequences.

These are 2 separate displays that result from the recent collaboration between Microsoft and Intel. This translucent screen on the left sits in front of the real world shop (it could be inside or actually part of the exterior window) and provides you with a touch screen augmented experience. So if you see something inside that you want – you can point to it, and it will superimpose an image of the item, or play a video demonstration etc. etc.

The other side is a video screen – its multitouch and light sensitive and has a camera for ‘anonymous video analytics’. So you can interact with ads or product information or whatever, it can turn up the brightness at night, and it can determine what to show you based on whether you are paying attention or not, or whether you are male or female for example.

If you simply must have it – digital signage on back packs – with horrendous scrolling messages above them.

These were interesting, essentially cubes that can be collected and configured in any arrangement and used as a digital display. Again my photography has let me down a bit but I think you get the gist…

28 days later - thoughts on an iPad

2010-05-05T05:14:00.003Z

I've been backed up on this blog post, partly because of a holiday, then because of an ashcloud, and then because of the ashcloud backlog I've been working through!

That said, before my break I got to spend some time with the ipad, to satisfy my thirst for such things. Much has been said now, but as we (officially) still don't have the iPad here in the UK I think can still share a couple of quick comments. So here goes:

1. Its smaller than you think
2. Its the second screen I've been on about

I'll elaborate a little, as that seems a bit vague. I have spoken to loads of people (UK based people in the main) and pretty much unanimously they were expecting the ipad to be bigger. Not huge, bit big - like a4 (or maybe foolscap as so many would prefer it to be widescreen). But its not, its not at all. As you can see from this picture its pretty small; that book is a5 for comparison. Now, that makes it a little disappointing at first, but the interesting point is that the more you use it the more you realise why.

I've elaborated on this and the other point in a blog post here...

iPad upgrade path

2010-02-02T16:59:00.000Z

Take a look at this post from Mission:Repair (they fix iphones and stuff). It shows that the replacement parts for the existing ipad already has a space fitted for a camera - although the release version famously doesn't have one yet...

iPad Camera rumor becoming a reality? We think so. « Mission:Repair Blog

A Lego me...

2010-01-13T13:45:00.001Z

Courtesy of their little iphone app.. nice - but it doesn't let me order all the pieces... yet :)

Now who wouldn't want one of those...

2010-01-12T12:36:00.000Z

I wasn't at CES this year and i haven't really had time to follow it so i am gradually seeing all the things i would have wanted to see if I was. First on the list a remote control helicopter thing you can control from your iphone, feeding back pictures and even with added AR games...

Stereotypes predicted by google

2010-01-11T15:36:00.000Z

via http://www.predictablyirrational.com/?p=704

My dad...

2010-01-05T11:14:00.000Z

Perhaps if my father had read the american edition...
(via youmightfindyourself)

Analytics annotations - at last!

2010-01-04T13:49:00.002Z

I missed this before the holidays but Analytics launched a Holiday Bonus pack of new features that finally includes... annotations. No more will we have to churn out and reformat to explain changes in data and performance. If, like me you have some sites that you monitor closely, but others that you are more irregular with, and you work on with a distributed group - then this is for you. Should make it really easy to combine information from different people employing simple marketing tactics and infer results without spending too much time in the meeting room... Its also pretty cool if your memory is a bit shaky :)

Tank

2009-12-08T22:50:00.001Z

Nice to see many at my first drinktank for aaa-aaaages...

Elearning, music, engines, 3d, collaboration and cheese all made an appearance - so the usual diversity was in evidence.

Best to all of you off to leWeb tomorrow. Bob voyage!

Location:Sutherland Grove,Wandsworth,United Kingdom

Profligacy, profundity and prevalence

2009-12-07T23:31:00.002Z

Some p words today, to celebrate me blogging again, and because they all just seemed to come up over the course of the day...

Supper tonight was a splendid prawn green curry for which I didn't have to lift a finger. Thanks. What a treat!

Location:Victoria Dr,Wandsworth,United Kingdom

Stop motion with wolf and pig.

2009-04-20T14:59:00.001Z

Blimey - there's plenty of love and time gone into that!

The next step for mac

2009-03-07T08:50:00.001Z

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

And we're off

2009-02-26T11:23:00.001Z

______________________________________________________________________
This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System.
For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email
______________________________________________________________________

IMG00127-20090226-1116.jpg

2009-02-26T11:21:00.000Z

Immortalised in chocolate...

2009-02-07T11:44:00.001Z

Thanks to the Axe Chocolatiser - another facebook app. I'm not sure what it has to do with the deodorant but its a bit of fun.

Nice....

2009-01-21T12:49:00.000Z

Smoke without fire? Branding without logos?

2008-12-08T19:15:00.001Z

An interesting article here about a study conducted with smokers to establish their response to branded and unbranded imagery.

http://adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=132845

It seems the little grey cells (at least those with the addiction) are even more stimulated without the logo, when there is the association but without the explicit mark. That whirring at the back of your head when you recognise a single identity element sounds familiar though, doesn't it?

Why this widget makes me happy

2008-11-25T19:23:00.001Z

So, it seems like a small meaningless thing. In so many ways it is unremarkable, a small piece in a big puzzle - one that you wouldn't think much of, or could mean much to someone.

The problem is the puzzle is my washing machine - and we have been waiting for that part for a month! That innocuous little grey piece of plastic has been keeping peace out of the question for 4 weeks at chez millar. So now I find myself so pleased it has arrived I can hardly be bothered to mention the half-arsed customer service team at MayTag who managed to keep us on tenterhooks for so many bad reasons.

I also still have the small matter of reconstructing the puzzle (at least a dozen pieces form the door of the washing machine alone) which will also give me some pleasure in being able to assist in the remedy.

I feel a bit like someone with Stockholm syndrome - I have been subjected to pain and misery, yet I am loyal to the architect of that misery simply because (in this case) the ordeal of having no machine has gone so far to prove how great it is when it is working!

Had someone come to fix the machine, charged be 200 quid for the privelige would I have appreciated my maytag so much? Who knows - I'm off to wash some socks!

2008-11-11T16:06:00.002Z

Take a look at this site from sprint - basically a collection of little flash widgets that collect data from across the internet on things that are happening now.. Watch the number of eggs produced grow, alongside the webcam from the boston aquarium. See how many houses are being built - with the top google searches of the day and the number of seconds to go until national Donut day... (if that's what interests you!)

You'll be ectatic to hear that the top word being used online now is 'the' but that number 107 is 'er'. There's some nicely designed little animations in here and an interesting look at how data drawn from the web needn't look like its just been generated in excel. Its a bot of fun...

People still love great quality video

2008-11-11T11:04:00.001Z

Today I'm content simply to blow our own trumpet a little as I came across the following plaudit for Mydeo "This is best sharing site for quality that I have come across to date, much better than Blip.tv, google and the tube. Blip.tv offers a flash format and also a choice of WMV under its movie pane, still good, but the quality is not on par with Mydeo as of yet." found on Sport-Touring.Net.

Given that we haven't updated much on the consumer side for so long it is gratifying to know that people are still loving great quality video, which is what we are all about. Also today we are attending the MediaTech 100 where LibraryHouse are celebrating the hottest 100 private mediatech companies in Europe. Mydeo have been selected by rigorously assessing companies using Library House proprietary data filters, and an expert advisory panel, and its good to see friend of Mydeo such as WAYN and Rummble there too!

There's a monkey on my bus!

2008-11-06T08:44:00.000Z

Who's using facebook?

2008-10-27T07:20:00.001Z

Thanks to Matt for doing the legwork and extracting this useful presentation from the facebook ad targeting data. Face of Facebook September(application/pdf Object)

Who is this?

2008-10-17T12:52:00.000Z

The company that couldn't say no...

2008-09-30T03:43:00.001Z

An interesting summary of the first 10 years of our favourite search engine in The Google Hive Mind. Its a pleasing thought that a fuzzy business logic and an inability to say 'No' to things that make sense to consumers could help to mould such a formidable creature. And on the scale of things, who can really say that the failures were that bad? Busy busy bees...

We have a winner!

2008-09-29T20:00:00.001Z

Unbridled joy abounded at Cranmore school this weekend when the lad took to the field for his first ever football tournament. The Donhead year 1 side came through the group stage unbeaten and having conceded only one goal and put 4 past one unfortunate opposition.

A pretty convincing semi-final win over the Millbourne set up a nervy final with the Rokeby A side who had an impressive record to that point. A sturdy performance saw the opposition pinned back for much of the match but the Donhead defence maintained their shape to cope with a few counter-attacking breaks.

Suffice to say, the mighty Donhead prevailed with a 2-1 win and much slightly-embarrassing parental jumping up and down ensued. After much clapping and quite a few photos (see above) we eventually went home puffing with pride and full of glee. Well done to all the boys - an excellent achievement and much fun for us too!

Last night I ate...

2008-09-26T06:00:00.001Z

yum...

A new type of tart bar

2008-08-06T18:02:00.000Z

And very smart it is too. To be found in Farringdon on Charterhouse.

Oops

2008-07-10T08:13:00.000Z

Looks like someone won't be getting any calls today...

Give it the boot

2008-07-09T05:29:00.001Z

Well there's not going to be much to this bar a sincere recommendation not to bother with the boots.co.uk online service. I'm not really sure what drove me there, apart from the prospect of saving a few quid on things we need plenty of like e45 and a couple of specifics you can't get at the supermarket but I've been surprised at how badly a high street brand like Boots could perform.

The customer experience on the site is ok, there are some peculiar foibles in the navigation like a terrible search and weird filtering by special offer or brand and these take a bit of getting used to but that's not a big problem. They haven't really got the idea that once someone puts something in the basket they are displaying an intent to purchase - being a busy chap I was several times distracted from my goal and each time the site completely forgot what I was after. This meant I got much more accustomed to the interesting navigation but it meant I didn't manage to complete the transaction until at least the 3rd time of asking and several days after I originally started. I basically ended up doing it at the weekend when I was less likely to be diverted! I doubt many would be so patient.

That being said I did get to the end and thought I'd done well, got a few family staples to save on the burden of weekend shopping. The thought of paying for delivery seemed a little steep considering I'd amassed about 50 quid's worth of stuff but I went ahead with it - I didn't bother paying a premium for next day as it was saturday anyway. So I went about my business, pointing out to the mrs that I had done a family chore; hoping to amass a brownie point or two.

I even got it delivered to the office so we'd be sure not to miss it. I asked on tuesday, wednesday, and even thursday if it had arrived - on friday I just assumed it must have been but the novelty had worn off. 11 days later... Nothing! Now I know this isn't the worst delivery story - I have had much worse myself - but this is a high street service, a relatively high value order, and an office address that is open all day!

To top it off I contacted them at the weekend, by email as the phones were off, and got a reply stating that my enquiry would be dealt within approximately 2 days!? 2 days later and neither a response or a parcel has arrived. Another reminder I guess to remain focused on the two things that boots have failed upon; experience and service. I hope that with our meager resources we can always do better than this!

I have now officially joined the ranks of grumpy old men :(

What's m3 then?

2008-06-20T17:18:00.001Z

It's here! at last... I'm happy to say that m3, our rich media content delivery platform is ready and launched - in beta for now.

So what is it? Well we have, for a long time, been fielding requests from all sorts of businesses looking for something slightly different from our core consumer offer. These ranged from corporates looking for quick turnaround and low setup costs for the delivery of rich media campaigns to small businesses seeking an affordable entry level for content delivery to relieve the pressure on their web infrastructure. m3 is the result of that and more specifically of negotiations we have been having with some agencies and hosting providers who are desperate to provide rich media content delivery services to their clients.

The service provides users with the ability to very quickly register and upload assets in any format for delivery over the sort of scalable global content delivery network usually only affordable to large corporates and media owners. It has a very low entry level at £50pm and no setup costs at all. It currently supports progressive download for Flash, Quicktime, h.264 or any other video format, http content delivery for html, pdf, mp3, ppt or any other file format you wish to distribute, and Windows Media streaming. Next week we will be adding full blown Flash streaming as well.

More to follow

Technorati Tags: mydeo,m3,video,cdn,content delivery,streaming,hosting,rich media,flash video,video hosting,agency,agencies

...

m3 on techcrunch

2008-06-19T17:18:00.000Z

So a few long nights later and we have a release, a beta, but a release. m3 is our new content delivery platform for enterprises and agencies to manage their rich media assets. And no sooner is it out than its on techcrunch (well UK anyway).

Hears a wordle of it if you cant be bothered... :)

Technorati Tags: mydeo,m3,techcrunch,video hosting,streaming,content delivery,rich media

Twisted

2008-04-30T13:49:00.001Z

Perhaps we are all twisted but this experiment paints a picture of the Twitter community: http://twistori.com/

Some mind boggling stuff in there, I was lucky enough to see;

i feel like a sex offender going braless to drop off my kid at school.

i believe the enemy uav is airborne. pity.

I love sugar coated children. They're delicious. *chomp*

I wish I could tell a certain person how much I miss them.

o, hormones. how
i hate thee.

I think the internet is in a good mood lately. With the usual exceptions.

So a pretty rounded view of the world overall then...

Great stuff

Ola San francisco

2008-04-20T15:54:00.001Z

Well we're here. After 11 hours on a United plane with a token for either 'a free alcoholic beverage' or 'a set of earphones' we arrived slightly jaded but intent on seeing some more of San Francisco. A jaunt with some of the more charming entrepreneurs around the piers and union square, punctuated with some chowder in sourdough, meant for a reassuringly touristy start. It was however followed by the techcrunch cocktails which brought us back to the purpose of the visit - to network, network, network! We seem to have successfully irritated the locals already, with some chavvy stranger pointing out that we thought we were cool, but that our jackets were 'contrived' - granted there was a bit of the entrepreneurs uniform going on but I guess i am going to have to think less about clothing from this point on!

Lots of familiar and friendly faces, good to see Scott and Rob, and get a little closer to some of the start-up teams I haven't had the chance to meet yet. Last night, a day that had been going on for ages and seemed to be culminating with rather a long time in the bar here at the Clift, rather randomly ended with a chilly trawl across the city to a place called Vessel. A few of the more hardy travellers amongst us made the trek over there and made full use of the DJ's services taking us to a respectable 2am - a decent attempt to avoid any major jetlag issues methinks. That being said I am up and blogging now, so maybe its not quite sorted yet!

Today holds a brunch event with some press and PR folk, and after that I'm planning on meeting my old friend Johnny and going sailing in the bay - which sounds absolutely amazing - or there's a barbeque 'in the valley' if that falls through.

Lazy, lazy, lazy...

2008-04-07T15:28:00.001Z

Well you have to get out there when there's snow right? Here's our effort!

San Francisco webmission here we come...

2008-03-14T00:08:00.004Z

It was GGGRRrrreeeaaatt to hear this week that Mydeo, amongst some great other UK startups had been selected to take part in the Web Mission 2008 supported and sponsored by the UKTI, Polecat, Make Your Mark, Microsoft, Ten and TechCrunch (apparently).

We're really happy and proud to be going (especially me as I get a week in California) and looking forward to meeting new friends, foes, partners and potential investors - not to mention some of the people in the US we've been dealing with for so long over the phone and web! The Web 2.0 expo is probably also an opportunity to talk to people about web 3.0, or 3.1 maybe?

Looking forward to meeting all my compatriots for the journey, and hopefully quite of new friends when we get there...

Technorati Tags: webmission mydeo

go giants

2008-02-04T14:03:00.000Z

Well a good day to arrive in the US of A, we managed to stay awake whilst watching the Superbowl here in Minneapolis. Pretty cool as the underdogs won and our accents were as well received as ever. :)

Been up for a long time now but its only 8am so we will see how we fare at tonight's dinner. Looking forward to getting picked up soon and seeing the BB world, their campus and touring some of the stores in and around the twin cities.

Chocks away

2008-02-03T11:40:00.001Z

Well the time has come to head off for the misty blue yonder that is the mid-american heartland of minneapolis. Our first trip out to meet partners Best Buy - yes all our negotiations to date have been conducted over the phone or the web - and looking forward to it!

hiring!

2007-11-08T07:46:00.000Z

Well its been an interesting time across my various roles the last few weeks. Having been on the look out for good people in project management for months agencyside I finally found one, only to be quickly followed by another. This doesn't happen very often so we'll go for broke and have both if I get my way. Looking forward to having a wealth of it however and I know that the account will benefit from it.

For Mydeo we're still seeking developers but have recently taken on a good guy who's going to help shore up both customer and internal tech support. In a start-up world you can't afford to have someone in every role so this flexibility is going to be a great help, take a load of weight off my shoulders and let some of the rest of team loose to get on with other things.

Thanks for all the messages of goodwill and congratulations on the BestBuy deal too, its been a long time coming and raised a few eyebrows. We are working hard at the moment on the very first phase of integration before any of the marketing starts in earnest so the early signs are good although there's lots to be done. Looking forward to a big christmas!

Partnering with the biggest electronics retailer in the US

2007-10-30T17:33:00.001Z

Well finally after quite a lot of to-ing and fro-ing we have signed the Mydeo – BestBuy partnership deal and it's out there for public consumption. The official press release is coming out from Best Buy today but its already been picked up by TechCrunch, the Washington Post and CNN.

With a long roadmap of developments and further integration that should hold all users and other partners in good stead there'll be lots more to come on this and the marketing efforts that will surround it.

A quick blog from Word 2007: some cool sites

2007-08-22T05:40:00.001Z

Well, call me a luddite but its there and it seems easy so I thought I'd try it. I am guessing this is going to result in an unbelievable quantity of unnecessary mark-up, and I am going to have some problems with the (unrelated) image I am trying to upload but its worth a try! A shocking week this week but some interesting finds - we were basically collecting 'aspirational sites' – which is pretty subjective but I have kept a few that seem noteworthy regardless – mostly flash content and interesting brand and immersive experiences…

http://nikeplus.nike.com/nikeplus - despite being on my Christmas list for at least 2 years I am yet to be able to say that I have the right equipment to be an active participant in this case-study online tool/community/product showcase/social network/interactive experience… a great site

http://demo.fb.se/e/ikea/dreamkitchen/site/default.html this is just a visually stunning matrix-style effect created for an ikea campaign. Audio effect is really well done too, I'm not sure I can stop spinning it long enough to see any of the products but certainly effective in its visual appeal.

www.vodafonejourney.com – north kingdom got a licence to spend money here and the result, whilst extremely corporate and cheesy, is still impressive even a couple of years on.

http://www.monocle.com/ - an RL site but a good example of video integrated into a well designed site. To quote a colleague 'nothing seems like an add-on' and it's also fantastically consistent with the printed magazine.

There are loads more that I could mention – we had about 60; some of the car sites offer interesting experiences like the standard but immersive www.audi.com, the more artistic http://sixjourneys.mercedes-benz.co.uk/r-class/home.php or the wackier www.fordvehicles.com/flex. Apple, Innocent and Absolut stake their usual claims with really strong presences true to their consistently impressive brands. Others worth a tip of the hat included Diesel's slightly sleazy and fully customisable product showcase, the slightly peculiar www.michelinman.com/forward full of bibendums wandering about a 3d world and the unbelievable (for a site that's about milk) gaming experience that is www.gettheglass.com.

my view (kind of)

2007-08-19T11:08:00.000Z

I've been a bit quiet here lately, mostly because I've been incredibly busy. Graham however managed to squeeze this article out of me (with the help of a writer who somewhat sanitised my rants). I'm not sure it actually gets anywhere in the end but there's some useful pointers in there for the audience; mostly mid-level marketing managers in blue chip firms...

Video Toolbox: 150+ Online Video Tools and Resources

2007-06-28T16:56:00.000Z

A very exhaustive list of video resources from mashable here...
Video Toolbox: 150+ Online Video Tools and Resources
Nice to get a mention for Mydeo and some other useful sites in there for the moment.. :)

Media widgetised and ROW

2007-05-21T17:07:00.001Z

Well last week was a whistlestop week - at least in terms of the number of events and late nights I seemed to have, so I lost my way with the blog a little! Wednesday night saw the second installment of widget week in the chinwag event where a panel discussed widgetisation, intermediation and distributed advertising models.

There were some interesting discussions and points made but I thought the good news was we haven't missed anything just yet. The same questions were popping up amongst an engaged audience and there still seems to be opportunity and ambiguity around in spades. The entertaining HeGe from Nokia and WidSets, an enlightened and enlightening BT representative George, and the ever effusive chair lead the way.

After a few attempts to define a widget (probably the most succint of which, and certainly the only one I recall in its entirety, is 'a tear off of another site') the panel followed some Q&A making a welcome change from the 8 or so uninterrupted presentations that made up MoMo on monday.

We ended up having dinner with HeGe, the lovely Jenny and Priya who turned out to be good friends with my old friend Matt Postgate (whom I should congratulate on his new appointment - congratulations!). That was followed by a trip to Adam Street, wandering into the doubleclick party and then meeting a fellow member of the Millar clan over a martini or two. What was more surprising was that I had never Fran before...

Thursday a much deserved night off, and Friday some dealings with the chaps at DotNetSolutions and Microsoft before a quick trip to Lianne's leaving do and a Curry back at the ranch. ROW just stood for Rest Of Week...

A great night at the Curve ball

2007-05-17T02:25:00.001Z

Well not so much a ball as a party for the launch of the new Blackberry Curve held at the Kensington roof gardens last night. The RIM guys know how to throw a party and every effort was made to make sure the assembled crowd of celebrities, execs and the odd misfit like me had a good time.

I'll name drop those that were there and I spotted but there were probably more that I either didn't spot or worse didn't recognise; Mark Ronson and Natasha Bedingfield (who both did excellent sets), Martin Offiah, a couple of All Saints, Sophie Bexter, and a lot of people from kids TV. Big up to the really nice guys from MTV we shared seats and bad photos with.

Widget report to follow...

MoMo london and the start of widget week

2007-05-15T23:32:00.000Z

Well I wasn't really sure why I went to this but it crosses over some of the consultancy I've been doing and mobile used to be a favourite area for me.

It was an interesting evening with a pretty good line up but surprisingly samey, with all sorts of people putting forward their overlapping solutions for mobile widgets. All, perhaps unsurprisingly, were convinced and convincing that mobile widgets were the future - at least to some degree.

David from Vodafone research gave a good introduction to the topic and talked through their hope that there would be a great deal of opportunity in this area by enabling the masses to generate their own bespoke and more personal content.

Qualcomm talked about their platform for building mobile applications; trigbuilder - a trig is a complete application and triglets are something smaller that goes OTA. Then a dutchman from Frog design talked about a widget app called Celltop they built on Brew and uiOne for US carrier alltel. Quite a nice looking approach, it used a universal horizontal scrolling mechanism but a rather bespoke widget world.

Nokia were represented by the S60 team boasting a 100 million devices and the leading smartphone platform across more than just nokia handsets. They were very proud of their new widgetplatform which extends the browser capability to widgets and other apps. Basically they have templates for expanding and contracting, auto scrolling and the like and apparently make it possible for content owners to generate 'standard' widgets in days.

Disappointingly up until now there had only been the same 2 examples for all, and the same we had years ago; sport (football) and weather. Thankfully Chaarls (the standards guy) from Opera came next and managed to drag us away from that a little with his focus on cross platform/cross device rather than solely mobile and a timesheet monitor widget that really might just work even for those of us with chronic ADD..

The rest were demos which I'll come back to but this is late enough, and tonight was a better story!

Blimey my analytics have had an upgrade

2007-05-15T14:42:00.000Z

Well perhaps i can be accused of not paying as much attention to my stats as i should but I just noticed the new beta of Google Analytics that I was kindly presented with on accessing the site.
First impressions are good - some nicer visual presentation of both navigation and graphs and charts and some roundy-corner rollovers for the charts as well. The goals have got a bit confusing for me, my site was confusing enough to track on this basis as it was but now i may have to rethink again... Great news is that there are now easy emailable reports and a customisable dashboard (another kinda ajax homepage).

There is a much more complete review of the new features here - frankly I haven't had time to go through it all yet.. It is a bit error prone and annoyingly it seems to have coincided with my analytics gadget in iGoogle no longer working but that could be unrelated - actually if it hadn;t broken I might not have spotted the upgrade for a little longer!

More mix

2007-04-30T19:12:00.001Z

Well that was a non stop presentation of some quite impressive stuff. Mike Arrington is now quizzing Ray and Scott on some predictable things but his opening point was valid - it was very hard to blog about because there was too much going on...

The MLB presentation showed some interesting gui advantages of Silverlight, and previewed some good stuff for the wm6 version including live monitoring and streaming video.

The top banana application built in c and delivered with silverlight showed a simplified video editing tool with some pretty cool means of interacting with the screen elements and extremely rich feel - repeatedly pointed out in less than 50k.

There was also the announcement of ironruby and some talk about the support for dynamic scripting languages. One demo showed a simple silverlight editor allowing editing in js, ruby or python with instant preview and switching between...

Mix07 keynote

2007-04-30T17:04:00.001Z

Ray arrived to whoops and cheers following the fanfare of the silverlight video you have probably seen. SaaS with the client; or software plus service was a feature early on.

He talked about bringing together universal web and 'experience first' approaches with silverlight, and the forthcoming 2 parts of the announcements about silverlight. As suspected he described it as the .Net runtime environment brought to the universal web as part 2.

Expression studio launched, and the 3rd part is silverlight streaming which provides a CDN for hosting silverlight content. Needless to say, providing consumers with the ability to take advantage of this platform will be a priority for us.

A new version of the silverlight plugin with .Net is available now.

Mixing it up

2007-04-30T12:57:00.000Z

So, after a 28 hour day with an 8 hour flight losing five and a five hour flight losing three I finally made it to my vegas pit last night. Registration at the mix conference was pretty simple; and it really is an innovative conference; no bag! I guess i always expect to get a branded bag to identify me around the conference city but this time my anonymity is secured (assuming i remember to take the zippy name badge off). We did however get copies of Vista and of Expression Studio - the latter will certainly save some downloading!

It was really pre the main event last night but i briefly hung around at the mashup thing that was being held. It was quite entertaining and there were various people pushing some decent ideas about but not really enough people just yet. Tonight there's going to be a competition where the best mashup created in 4 hours wins - its been done but i've never been so we'll see.

There was of course an ice bar so that's the photo... another hasty and disappointing shot from the BB8300.

An american experience

2007-04-29T18:29:00.000Z

What a curious meal I just had to purchase on my way to mix. Not that the others were any better but this was one of 2 options left and the alternative was nothing at all it seems. A tin of tuna, with pepper and lemon juice. A jar of hummus, dried pitta chips, raisins, a piece of cheese (I left that of course), some crackers and a tiny weeny toblerone... Who's idea was that?
Now I have been to the US of A a few times, but I am already sensing its going to be odder than ever this time... Wish me luck, I'm going in...

Home movies for home movers

2007-04-16T09:31:00.001Z

Following on from our press release earlier in the year the Telegraph this weekend reported on the growing trend for Estate Agents and even private sellers to take advantage of video for the promotion of properties for sale. Some interesting tips on shooting for property videos here, we are finding that many of the US based 'realtors' use simpler means still to avoid pitfalls of poor production values. Many of our users are collating still shots into videos using tools such as PhotoStory. With high quality video hosting like this you can really zoom into specifics of the property and control the presentation without fear of the dreaded 'wobble-cam'.

Silverlight finally announced

2007-04-16T08:55:00.001Z

So its finally out, announced and showcased at NAB this morning. The name is not what I was hoping for, but the reaction seems to be pretty good and it is a distinct improvement of wpf/e! Tim Sneath tells us all about what's in it here and for those of us playing with it for a while there's some more technical stuff here... More to follow on this soon...

What interested me today...

2007-03-29T08:54:00.001Z

In lieu of a really thought provoking post, and without anything actually tracking my attention today I thought I'd stick down a few things that caught my attention today, however briefly in the course of getting on with my stuff and browsing the constant reader feeds...
A fresh new BBC motion gallery giving you all an alternative to getty and access to a host of video footage both rights managed and royalty free.
I'va also been playing with Twitter a bit, including Twitteroo, the IM gTalk integration and most recently through Gtalk on my Blackberry. I guess most pointless but yet still fascinating is Twittervision which engrossingly demonstrates how skewed the twitter user base is at the moment, but is also a helpful reminder that there is plenty going on outside the US.

We start them young

2007-03-23T10:53:00.000Z

eventful week

2007-03-14T09:29:00.000Z

Monday saw Rob Loch's Creative Out address future trends in the creative industries. A really varied crowd observed some really interesting things (like the 'good enough' attitude to creative work perpetuated by relentless exposure to UGC) and some not so interesting (the likening of the English to the elderly and the suggestion that we should all focus more on woodwork). Either way it was good fun and there were some good eggs there:

Monday and Tuesday Cary and I were due at the UK technology Innovation and Growth Forum for what looked like a promising programme but turned out to be a little disappointing, mostly in terms of attendance. Last night the Supper Club's social evening was a more sedate affair where it was a pleasure to meet some really great people including the intensely knowledgeable Martin from CoffeeNation and the impressive Adam King of King and Allen

Fate

2007-03-08T17:44:00.001Z

This morning, quite by chance I picked up a copy of the Guardian's technology supplement kindly left by someone on the tube. My interest was piqued by the promise of a review of the Blackberry 8800 that i am expecting to receive shortly. Whilst picking over a few interesting things in there, something about Microsoft and the EU wondering whether the recent ruling will in fact undermine the whole tech patent process in Europe, the slightly disappointing review, and a comparison of the relative traffic being sent to and from GooTube by their content partners I spotted 'startup' in the title of an article by Victor Keegan. Turns out it is about Saul's OpenCoffee event, the first of which was last Thursday and the second today. This is Cary's rather shaky shot of today's OpenCoffee but there were some interesting folks there; you can just about make out David, Sam and Saul at the back there and she met some interesting potential partners and interested VC's to boot...

Victor says "Someone else is doing well selling high quality video streaming to companies" - honest guv, he means us!

mixing it in Vegas

2007-03-06T21:45:00.001Z

You may have seen from the graphic that I've plopped on the main blog that I am off to Las Vegas at the end of April for the annual Microsoft extravaganza that is Mix. It is rumoured that there are going to be some big announcements while we are there and it has quite a lot of design oriented stuff as well as the hard core tech stuff.There's a bewildering host of sessions to attend but I am looking forward to seeing a few people showing off some new stuff, finding out what is going to be said about microformats, the video stuff (obviously), and of course seeing some real development tools for wpf/e!
The icing on the cake is that we get a copy of Vista Ultimate to take home.. well its either that or the fact that it is being held in Las Vegas ;)

Technorati Tags: mix07

Red Herring's top 200

2007-03-06T18:09:00.001Z

Some good news today in that Mydeo has been announced as a finalist in the Red Herring 100 Europe 2007 awards. Its a good one to be mentioned in as the great and the good of the investment community always seem to be involved in the event. The full list is here - about five down in the left hand column on the second page you'll see us, you'll also see we are one of the few who kept our ".com" intact - more by accident than design though it must be said! There'll be a press release imminently but that's the highlight..

Watch out - addictive property

2007-03-06T10:58:00.000Z

I just tried Geni and I have to say that its the most addictive thing I've seen for ages on the web. So simple and easy, I found that within 10 minutes of starting someone had already added my great grandfather, and its still growing. I have to say i think the intuitive interface is what makes it at the moment but there is so much potential - presumably that's what got them $10m in six weeks of existence! Well done I say... perhaps we could add some video to the profiles?

update: 2 hours later I have 59 people on there and numerous clickable other trees to explore. And that even though i managed to break the habit after adding about 5 people. I know i'll be back but the question is what for and for how long will i be coming back? GenesReunited still keeps mailing me but i have to say I have long since stopped clicking the links... I'd have thought with the new spending money they'll think of something...

Serial second placers

2007-02-17T19:25:00.000Z

Well, another night and another close second it seems for Mydeo and for Cary and I. The ISPA's were good fun, with Lee Hurst providing the right sort of incentive to keep the acceptance speeches short - professional heckling! With him in the chair it was rare that anyone muttered much more than 'thank you' and the awards fair rattled along. He had basically shown fear of no man in his opening piece and that set the tone for the evening.

We were flatteringly up for the 'Best streaming service' award again this year, largely due to doing so well in the technical and performance tests that go to provide the shortlisting process for the awards. Unfortunately the judging criteria include a range of other production and consultancy services that we don't provide so it was with little surprise that we saw the awards won by astream; although i have to admit we thought we could win for 10 minutes or so leading up to the announcement.

I was sat next to the chairman of the judges John Fisher this year so hopefully we'll be a better known quantity next year and you never know, the criteria might even change... Anyway on to the next one and monday holds some hope for us with the Sharp Edge awards I already mentioned - there has been some particular scrutiny around this one so I really hope we get it and break our duck with a nomination that comes good. Wish us luck!

Living life on the sharp edge...

2007-02-15T13:40:00.000Z

So, next week Mydeo are a finalist in the Sharp Edge Awards for the Best E-company and as a result get to go to a swanky dinner and get interviewed by duncan the dragon for various bits of tv he's appearing in. We are up against an online local directory service and a ticketing exchange so there's a pretty varied bunch and the criteria are a mystery. Best of luck to all, and I fully expect to add to our growing list of marginal second places. :)

Something for the ladies

2007-02-07T09:45:00.000Z

A little more coverage, this time from Steve Pain in the Birmingham Post's e-business section following Cary's appearance at a recent Women in Technology event.

A new group is set to give greater support for women in ICT and encourage more girls to take up careers in technology by strengthening links with colleges and universities.

Around 60 people attended the launch of UKi-ta's Women in Technology group, to hear keynote speeches from leading women in ICT, including entrepreneur Cary Marsh, founder of video streaming success story Mydeo.

Mum of two Cary founded her company despite reservations from "business angels" and has since gone on to major acclaim, collecting numerous awards and attracting 100,000 customers worldwide.

The group, a special interest and innovation group formed by UKita - the UK IT Association - has been pioneered by Julie Eyre, of Birmingham-based Bronte Business Networks, and Julie Conway, from Ukita, and also aims to share "best practice".

It also heard from Marla Nelson, of the Women's Business Development Agency, about the challenges faced by female entrepreneurs. Less than 12 per cent of UK businesses are wholly owned by women.

Julie Craddock, from Coventry's Henley College, talked about its computing and e-skills initiatives which are boosting take-up of ICT among female students.

The college is spearheading efforts to make ICT more accessible to young women through a range of activities including a computer club for girls.

Julie Eyre said: "Women are often put off progressing their career within ICT as it can be seen as a male dominated industry, as a group we want to celebrate the differences between men and women and look to encourage and support existing women in technology.

"We will encourage more girls to choose technology as a career path. We had some exceptional speakers at this first event and are passionate about now going from strength to strength on behalf of our members."

Julie Conway said: "Hearing the Mydeo success story was a real inspiration and shows that women can be as highly accomplished in business as men.

"We were delighted that WBDA have joined UKita as they provide superb support for women entrepreneurs.

"National moves to help women in business through the Government have been suggested and this is something that WBDA are already doing at a regional level.

"One of the difficulties for young women entering the

ICT professions is that there aren't many role models. In fact it is an excellent career choice as it can be very flexible.

"As our ways of working change, women in ICT find that it can work well alongside other commitments.

"We hope to arrange opportunities for Women in Technology members to go into colleges and universities to let students know about the advantages of such a career and banishing stere-optypes associated with "techie" men.

"Helen Brewster, of ATL Solutions, led the event with structured networking, showing that networking in the right environment with the right people can be both fun and professionally rewarding."

Future meetings will continue to provide a platform for discussion and action, leading to development and business growth opportunities for women.

I am not sure what this means for a stereotypical semi-techie man like me but we still seem to be getting on fine around the place :)

Fingers crossed

2007-02-06T11:51:00.000Z

This afternoon we are up for another award. This time its the IWA (the International Webcasting Association's) Best Streaming Innovation Award and we are up against some completely different propositions so it will be a tough one to call. Hopefully our attempts to open up quality streaming to all consumers and small businesses, our very different approach both to managing the rights of users' content, and to not exploiting the distribution of their content will hold us in good stead. Cary Marsh will be there to pick up the award if we are that fortunate, or otherwise to network at the ceremony and the Video Forum also going on today.

A mention from the Geek In Disguise

2007-02-06T11:50:00.000Z

Thanks to Steve for his views on the site - Steve Clayton: Geek In Disguise : Mydeo - streaming video hosting for everyone

Mydeo sent global by Microsoft

2007-02-05T17:22:00.001Z

Well this weekend saw the web's quality video hosting provider featured in the Financial Times no less. Not a bad story at that, a few things that aren't quite right in there - but i guess we are practically married... :)

And although the FT coverage is lovely (despite the photo), it's even nicer to see others passing it round. Thanks very much to Thierry for the article Mydeo sent global by Microsoft on his blog and to others for taking the time to read about funny old us.

Computer to TV ? .Shouldn't it be the Other Way ? - Blog Maverick

2007-01-23T17:49:00.000Z

Another interesting article from Mark Cuban on the convergence of TV and the internet or is it Computer and TV? .Shouldn't it be the Other Way?

MyBlogLog

2007-01-23T10:13:00.000Z

Well since i joined i thought i'd better add a note about it. MyBlogLog seems an interested amalgam of other things, but does somehow compell you to try out a little of the community features... Certainly interesting to see how few people actually view the site ;)

Tech Digest: MediaTech Live highlights: Mydeo

2006-12-01T10:42:00.000Z

Thanks to Ashleyn for coverage of Cary's presentation at MediaTech Tech Digest: MediaTech Live highlights: Mydeo

Making Startup Magic | AlwaysOn

2006-11-14T18:07:00.000Z

another nice little piece on Mydeo for you Making Startup Magic | AlwaysOn

Startups Awards 2006

2006-10-17T11:19:00.000Z

Another big day for Mydeo on Friday when we are nominated for the best use of technology at the Startups Awards 2006. Lets hope the Gootube purchase has the same effect on our chances as it has on our valuation...

Licensing sweetens the deal

2006-10-11T15:02:00.000Z

Well the world is still spinning on this opne but where is it going to stop? Streaming media speculate that Licensing Sweetens Deal as Google Buys YouTube but how will this affect all of the intermediate level media owners, will google become evil and the target of the huge number of suits predicted by Mark Cuban?

At last...

2006-10-10T11:21:00.000Z

Well at last the speculation is over and Google Has Acquired YouTube pretty much as predicted a little way back... All seems a bit fuzzy at the moment, not much news on whats going to happen and how and when... the revenue models and copyright issue seem to me the interesting bits to watch unfold but will google enable YouTube to move forward from its current pitiful quality restrictions?

Kitlers..

2006-10-06T11:20:00.000Z

not to do with anything really but it amused me

Who would buy YouTube? only a "moron"?

2006-09-29T10:58:00.000Z

Mark Cuban says only a "moron" would buy YouTube but others feel that Steve Jobs fits the bill - so who will buy it? One of these 6 companies? Given the comscores from the last post and Sony have got grouper perhaps Google are the likeliest candidate now?

Yahoo! & MySpace beat YouTube & Google video

2006-09-29T10:35:00.000Z

Not all that surprising i guess but Yahoo! and MySpace beat YouTube and Google in terms of the number of streams served. Probably proving the point that it is isn't actually all that compelling to have a site that is purely about goofy videos. There has to another reason to be there and you can add your video to puctuate that.

See, we do get out and about

2006-09-28T15:21:00.000Z

A kindly mention from techcrunch reporting on the buzz in the London start-up space.

Techcrunch » Blog Archive » Yahoo! has acquired Jumpcut

2006-09-28T14:47:00.000Z

So, Yahoo! has acquired Jumpcut it appears and for a much more reasonable sum than Sony were charged for the P2P stuff behinf the otherwise unimpressive Grouper. What does this mean for online video overall we ask?

Well it seems that, as one VC pointed out to me the other day, everyone wants an online video hosting provider in their portfolio at the moment, and also that they are all looking for some kind of differentiation for their services... Editing might be it but we have found that the vast majority of our customers are actually looking to take some of the pain out of editting - rather than take the tiresome activity to a less controllable environment. Online video host Mydeo have partnered with Muvee and Microsoft Movie Maker to try to enable those who want to keep it simple to upload content whether it is heavily edited or otherwise.

Keeping it alive

2006-09-28T14:15:00.000Z

Right, time for this blog to come to life a little more. From here on in we'll try and keep it a bit more up to date and cover some more of the key stuff going on in online video, as well as maintaining support for the best video hosting site on the web - Mydeo of course.

Kingston company named South East's best business

2006-07-21T08:42:00.000Z

A Kingston company has been named the South East's top business in a bank's Start-up Stars award.

Internet-based firm Mydeo was crowned regional winner of the awards at a ceremony held today at Newick Park Hotel and Country Estate.

Cary Marsh set up the company which provides video streaming facilities for homes and businesses 16 months ago.

She had been inspired to start the company after setting up a website to let friends and family watch the progress of her new baby.

So she could show off her new arrivial she wanted to include video footage that could be seen by people around world.

She knew there was technology avaliable to allow people to do this without having to put up with lengthy downloads.

The technology was then only avaliable to professionals but Cary realised there must be thousands of people like her would like to stream personal videos on home websites, so set up Mydeo to allow them to do it.

The business was launched in March 2005, just after the birth of Cary's second child, and has already won a Department of Trade and Industry Technical Innovation Award - making Cary one of four women to receive the accolade.

The company now has more than 30,000 members in more than 160 countries worldwide with membership growing by 25 per cent each month.

Cary's company will now go forward to the award's national judging panel who will select the top 10 national finalists.

The 10 national finalists will win a prize package worth £4,000.

The Start-up Stars Awards are organised by HSBC.

Simon Wainwright, head of business banking for the bank, said: "Last year HSBC helped the entrepreneurs behind nearly 80,000 new businesses get started that's one every six minutes - so we understand what it takes to set up a new venture and go it alone.

"Starting your own company isn't easy, and we hope the success of Mydeo in this year's HSBC Start-UP Stars Awards will help the firm go from strength to strength."

"We've been impressed by the vision and determination shown by Cary, and hope that other budding entrepreneurs in the area will be inspired to take control of their own lives by becoming their own boss."

Kingston Guardian

Great shakes and news abounds

2006-06-27T16:47:00.000Z

Well a few good new things anyway. We were invited along by Microsoft to their VC event in Brussels as one of their SME’s to watch. We also got nominated for HSBC’s Start-up stars for 2006 which was a welcome boost. All this underpinned some exciting new partnerships that we have coming through the pipeline.

Check out the new mydeo pricing!!

2006-04-18T08:21:00.000Z

Well its finally here... for all of you thinking that the pricing per minute on Mydeo was a bit of a leap to far for you the solution is now here! We now have ranged pricing for short medium and long movies. For those of you who value your video, you'll find Mydeo is the place to go to safely and securely control the distribution of your content. There are no limits on the duration either so if you want to show your chil's full football game or school play without advertising on the end, signing away all rights to the content or having the whole world able to view it through someone else's portal then Mydeo is the place to do it!

Pocket-lint.co.uk WEBSITE OF THE DAY - mydeo.com news story in Online

2006-03-14T19:53:00.000Z

Pocket-lint.co.uk WEBSITE OF THE DAY - mydeo.com news story in Online

Well, need i say more... that's the news... :)

2006-03-10T10:03:00.000Z

Well all publicity is good publicity they say, and there's certainly been a flurry of late for Mydeo. This article in Business Week highlights Cary's part in the growing trend of women entrepreneurs. And she looks pretty good on the home page too!

mmmmbites

2006-02-27T14:33:00.000Z

Here's a little bit of press - in fact a podcast no less with her indoors, the lovely Cary http://mbites.com/node/554. Sorry about the silence there's a few to follow up with but we've been very busy with our migration of late, moving those thousands of video files across has taken some time!

London Scoble Geek Dinner

2005-12-11T11:52:00.000Z

It was with a little trepidation that we decided to go along to a geek dinner, but with great pleasure that we ended the evening amongst friends, champagne and flaming drambuies! Not that that was particularly unusual for us - we normally prefer sambuca, but you work with what you have :). Many thanks to Sam for sponsoring much of the evening (particularly the after hours part), to Robert for putting up with us, and to Cary for the drams; a pleasure to meet Tara, Tim, Tomas, Nick and many more along the way.

Talking-Head Video Is Boring

2005-12-09T16:49:00.000Z

Well its interesting to see that online video has become so prevalent that even Jakob is taking a look at it. He has pointed out a flaw of course, but a pertinent one. In this early experimental period, people are sticking pretty much anything up on the web as video content but it is the footage designed for the 10ft away screen that is proving the least relevant and attractive on the 2ft away screen. Bit of a shame then that encoding is still better suited to video with less motion within it. Or, if you are shamelessly showing other people's content for the purposes of generating revenue from advertising then you want poor quality and broadcast content, as straying eyeballs will inevitably generate more revenue. Still I have to agree, talking-head video Is boring (online or otherwise)... :)

Web sites invite people to share their video clips

2005-11-25T17:30:00.000Z

So more coverage of the community based sites, and another interesting viewpoint. 10% of DV users able to get video on to their machines? that roughly concurs with our forecasting but we are fortunate that it grows all the time and there is an ever increasing audience of people able to create video on their phones, cameras, wecams etc

Web sites invite people to share their video clips

Check out the Canon 3 minute thriller competition winners

2005-11-25T09:20:00.000Z

Well there are some classics here - who'd have thought you could get so much out of just 3 minutes!

In partnership with Digital Video magazine we are hosting Canon's 3 minute thriller competition winner and all the rest of the top 10. There's some real calibre here so take a look at them if you get the chance. Click the link at the foot of the homepage.

Its a digital lifestyle thing...

2005-11-24T21:06:00.000Z

A little more coverage of for Mydeo here - if you wanted to know how we were getting on. This digital lifestyles piece covers our recently announced parternship with Tiscali.

'Streaming is perfect for sharing home videos on the web because it allows
users to show people their videos without giving the files away. Downloading not
only means waiting to watch but, for the publisher, it also means you lose
control of your content,' enthused Cary Marsh, Managing Director and Co-Founder
of Mydeo.
'We know how important this is to our members sharing personal and
family videos,' Marsh added, earnestly.
The accent is definitely 'family videos' here. Unlike some of the other services that have sprung up since Mydeo first started, the video on it are definitely on the respectable side. It's the sort of place you'd be happy to point your family to without them seeing anatomy shots or someone having their head cut off.

Nice to get that perspective aired in an objective forum, to be honest. Obviously the youtube's and putfile's of this world have a place but they neither offer the blend of quality, control and trust that, we hope, there is an appetite for. :)

http://digital-lifestyles.info/display_page.asp?section=cm&id=2803

Sharing home movies with the world

2005-11-17T15:08:00.000Z

Sharing home movies with the world

Its a nice article, it doesn't mention mydeo which is a shame but it is encouraging that it is becoming such a mainstream activity. One point I could certainly agree with is that these businesses do not yet have any business model. They are on massive loss-leader programmes and it is a concern as to what they will end up offering. They cant follow in the footsteps of the photo people and sell offline versions (ie.photo prints) largely beause they all seem to go down the route of reducing the quality of the video to the lowest common denominator - ie. flash. I am not sure if Schlomo's opinion is representative but it is an interesting idea that the video owner might prescribe the kind of advertising that could appear in association with the clip itself. So we are back to the core issues of quality, privacy and trust. With no business model trust is hard to give, with automated flash encoding of everything quality (and your original file) is a thing of the past. Privacy, at least in terms of control is the final piece in the puzzle. These sites also enable anyone anywhere to get their mits on theses files as soon as you release them - few parents in our research were comfortable with that notion, and looking at some of the content on Revver, i must say I can understand why!

Press at last...

2005-11-07T18:24:00.000Z

Well a press release at least... :)
Global Consumer Streaming Site Mydeo Goes Native with Multiple Currency Support