Online Videos with Surround View

Immersive Media has already been introduced here. The service is offering a video solution enabling online video with a 360 degree surround view. Lately the service has put some examples onto the website. The application does not require additional software and is navigable by standard web browsers. The navigation within the videos happens by moving the mouse cursor around. Here are the videos.

YouTube enhances the interactive Video Experience

YouTube has made a further step to give more interactivity to videos. An enhancement has been made to the Video Annotations feature, which has been covered here. Video Annotations do enable a video producer to add comments and further information like texts to a video. Now people may open up this feature to collaborate with others or enable other people to add annotations to an own video. This feature has been introduced at the YouTube Blog.

This is great and reminds on video discussion services like Seesmic.. Too, there is a relationship to an early but still active similar approach called hypertext fiction or collaborative writing. The term hypertext fiction describes a literary approach, where people write together a story. While one clicks through such a story, there is just one beginning but several ways to come to the end.

Interactive Video and Commerce Solution

evenhere is offering a complete interactive video solution for commercial usage. Whereas other solutions have not been analyzed regarding the readiness for commercial use, it seems that evenhere has something unique to offer. Beside a content management system the solution has a product management modul. By this modul retailers are able to choose products from a database to become shown within a video. Furthermore a key issue of the solution is the ease of navigation, which makes it simple for users to navigate the application even with a remote control on tv sets.

Last but not least an up to date study has shown that about 60 % of marketers are totally aware about interactive video features and aim to employ this technology soon. Here you may find an introduction to this online video study.

This Interactive Video Feature deserves Ovations

Innovid, a provider of an interactive clickable video solution, has put a demo video on its website that deserves applause. One may even describe it as an art piece. They have integrated a couple of possible features, even a playable ping pong video game and clickable rss feeds. Everything happens within a living room. By two tabs at the left and at the right one may change the scene and various elements within the video are clickable. This is the best feature of interactive video I have seen for now. The video is available at the Innovid homepage.

Interactive Video Features at Overlay.tv

Overlay.tv has added a couple of new interactive video features since it has been covered by the very first post at this blog about interactive video. Also the website has been completely redesigned. As far as I remember the site has been dark and it has been turned into a bright one now. Furthermore videos produced by members now are in the center of the page instead of being placed at the bottom to showcase the interactivity of the video platform. Whereas promoting own products is still a key issue of the site this gives it a video sharing touch.

Some of the new interactive video features are unique as far as I know. These features are amazing and come along with the embedable proprietary video player. At first there is a chat, which is placed directly within the video screen. One may suppose this might be intrusive, but I have not felt like that. It rather improves the comfort and enables to chat without diverting the video watching experience. Technically it is a true overlay feature like it has been shown in some science fiction movies. A second tab at the video player is for information purposes showcasing the author and possible third party sources.

One of the key intentions of interactive video is to represent additional information or products within a video and to enable to shop for represented products. At Overlay.tv this feature has become enhanced by a new bar at the bottom of the player. This is a comfortable step, too, as one now may find presented products easily after watching a whole video.

Furthermore the player now is full screen enabled. Below there is a nice video with product presentations.

Video Discussions and Presentations with VoiceThread

VoiceThread is an interesting multimedia presentation and Video application with some unique features. The presentation may include mostly all kind of media. The key feature of VoiceThread is the the interactivity of presentations. Visitors are able to add comments beside or within a presentation like it happens at some interactive video applications. The comments may become added by text, audio or video. With this feature VoiceThread is a great application for various purposes like collaboration, education or discussions. Related to video discussions VoiceThread may be compared with Seesmic.

New Overlay Advertising Solution for Internet Video

Keystream is a new video advertising provider, which uses the overlay feature of interactive video. An ad becomes implemented within a video and opens in new windows, if one clicks on it. The system is supplied as software as a service serving both advertisers and publishers. What is different with other providers of interactive video advertising is that the solution searches and finds blank spaces within a video automaticly. At these spaces the adverts may become placed.

Video Gift Guide enables Interactive Video Shopping

There has been a lot of posts about interactive video and video shopping lately. Video Gift Guide now is launching a new service that will seriously use interactive video to feature goods. The site will launch finally on 24th November, but there a video introduction available showing the interactive parts and aims to use them and giving some general information. So there will be shopping shows that are live. At the range of shopping this is another innovation. At the shows special deals will be introduced by real people and viewers are encouraged to request product introductions and deals.

The concept reminds on crowd sourcing to facilitate affordable prices. For now I wonder how the website will look, when the service does launch finally. As the shows will be live it will rather not become a video shopping directory like the introduce video shopping sites Shopflick or Talk Market. It might be one show every day like Woot does it with one product every day.

There is a Twitter Channel to keep updated with news about Video Gift Guide.

CBS launched Interactive TV Showrooms with Chat

These are hot news at all and to those who are in the media business it is something like groundbreaking. CBS, one of the biggest media companies in the world, is the first who launched internet tv with advanced viewing features beyond the availability of tv at the internet at all. The feature is called Social Viewing Room. This Social Viewing Room do enable visitors to chat while watching tv online and enhance the tv experience online by being interactive. Unfortunately the program is only available to viewers in the US.

A couple of other big players in the reach of internet video (not tv) are offering similar social viewing and do start to enrich the tv experience. In the reach of showrooms there is Lycos Cinema (US only), a video on demand service with social viewing of movies, and YouTube with Streams for social viewing of internet video, which has been introduced at the post Interactive Video goes Mainstream. At tv there is a project by Yahoo aiming to enrich the viewing experience by bringing widgets to the tv screen.

Interactive Video for Advertising and Shopping

With Live Link Video there is another service for interactive video. The solution has the typical interactive video features, which means that every part of the video may become a link. This link may be used for a shopping offer, for additional information or anything else. An additional feature are drop down banners, that may become inserted into a video. The business model of Live Link Video is based on delivering a service instead of offering a self service as most of the other suppliers of interactive video solutions like Innovid, Overlay.tv, VideoClix.tv or Vimation (Whereas they may do offer services, too.). At Live Link Video customers send in a video and get back the interactive enhanced version.

interactive video for sure will become an interesting and engaging option for shopping. The Innovid solution even has the Digital Video Ad Format Compliance Seal of the IAB, which is certifies that the solution is compatible with standard formats and that it may become used as an ad insertation within a third party video stream.

The road to Interactive Television

Interactive television is on its way to the market. There are several activities like the plan of Yahoo to develop a widget channel for tv. It is a useful strategy to transer successful business models. So it happens now with screening rooms, where people can chat while watching.

This is what the german service telewebber offers. People can chat while watching tv. This is done by an online service, which has epg features and lists the tv program so people can meet. Online streams of tv broadcasts within the service may be a future feature. This is what YouTube offers by Streams for internet video.

Another service enhancing the tv experience is blinkx BBTV by blinkx. It is an online tv software enabling full screen tv at the internet. Additionally the software suggests relevant information about what is on the screen. This feature is already offered by some digital television broadcasters.

Actually this all happens at the internet or while being connected to the internet because of the missing backchannel. Whereas this requires some installation opposite to being able to click within a broadcast like doing it on the internet, this is a real business case as real interactive television is or will be based on internet technologies at least in part. The related technology to make digital tv interactive is called MHP, Multimedia Home Platform.

A service using the technology the opposite way by streaming video signals from the internet into a tv broadcast has been introduced lately by the german news channel N-TV. For a talk show called busch@n-tv there is a software available to stream webcam video into the show.

Last but not least a link to a provider of interactive tv applications. At the right of the tru2way homepage you will find a list of licensees with a lot of big players.

Interactive Video with Omnisio

Omnisio is another video sharing site with interactive video features. The service offers typical features of video sharing sites like channels, but goes beyond this and does offer tools for compilations and presentations by using other media like text, images and photos beside video. In short, it is multimedia (view example). What makes the videos interactive is the ability to add comments and links. Additionally a menu beside the player may offer further information about the content. Something nice for sharing a video is the ability to easily build a link just for a part of a video by a button at the right. Comments become added by a simple click into a video, viewers have the ability to filter added comments.

There is a statement at the website mentioning that interactive video is just in the beginning and that new opportunities will come up. Lately the service has been acquired by Google and the team looks forward to work together with the YouTube team.

Interactive Video goes Mainstream

Interactivity at videos has become a more common quality at internet video sharing portals, a topic that has been an issue since the first post at this blog followed by an essay about interactive films. Already common features are clickable adverts and additional information like a menu to browse related videos as it is offered by Revver. Depending on the implemented properties now people can interact with a video to receive further information or to add video comments. In the following there are the newest developments.

Viddler has enabled commenting. Comments may become added by text or even as video comments. Tagging is another feature.

Friction.tv is a page for discussions. Answers and comments to video contributions may be done by text and video.

YouTube is offering Video Annotations, enabling comments and the addition of further information by texts and links. Annotations may be done even within a video to give viewers a choice to proceed or to link additional information. Another nice feature at YouTube now are Streams, something like screening rooms where people can watch together and chat.

Innovid is another service provider of interactive video solutions. They are offering a solution to enrich videos and to add further capacities like advertising and shopping.

By the way, interactivity is something that is expected to become implemented into television, too. This will go beyond messaging to a broadcast like it is already usual today. The timeline for the implementation of interactive tv features depends on country markets, where the UK is the most advanced. Generally interactive tv is awaited for 2010.