VodPod Video Search Engine and Video Services

VodPod is something like an all in one video site, not all but a lot. At first it is a video sharing site with an up to date video search engine. The search enables to search for videos at the web, the site itself and displays shared videos in realtime. Other ways to discover videos are by popularity, genres and tagging.

To members some further tools and services are available. People may create video widgets to display their collections at third party sites and blogs. Best of all might be a community feature, which enables the creation of whole video sites. This community feature is available in a basic free version and a premium version with business opportunities by advertising.

New Live Video and Personal Broadcasting Service

Floobs is a new and promising live video service. The service is still in beta with some features already available and some in preparation. Floobs surprises with some features that have not been found elsewhere. At first this is an integrated VJ tool, which enables to mix live streams with other videos. This might be most useful for presentations and of course music shows.

According to the FAQ various different video formats are supported enabling the usage of nearly every camera device as mentioned at the company wiki. The up to date beta version already supports webcams and computer connected digital cams. The usage of smartphone cams and even tv cameras is in development, but may become tried by arrangement.

Floobs is available in various languages.

MotionBox offers HD Video Sharing

With MotionBox another video sharing service is now offering hd video services at the internet. MotionBox is a place for private sharing with friends and family or to showcast videos at the internet. To share videos at the internet there are options to embed the uploaded videos at websites or at social media services. There are free and premium accounts. Premium members have unlimited storage and there is no limit to the length of a video. What makes this services interesting in particular are a couple of tools. Members may archive and organize their video collections. Furthermore there are online tools for video editing, to create a dvd or collections and download tools to download the videos to computers and portable media 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.

Earning Money with Video Sharing and Video APIs

Video sharing is popular and some video sharing networks do offer affiliate programs to earn money. The usual business opportunity is to get a share of the advertising revenue. This happens by embedding videos into websites or sharing it by newsfeeds or widgets.

One video network offering such an affiliate program is Revver. Features they offer are automaticly edited playlists and newsfeeds, customizable widgets, embedding options of course and an api for developers for more options.

blinkx is a video search engine offering two different affiliate programs. The first is blinkx AdHoc, which is dedicated to video sharers. A nice feature is a video wall, which displays a broad choice of video thumbnails to click on. Lately they came up with a second busness opportunity, blinkx Red Label. The latter enables small and large publishers to integrate the video search engine into web sites.

If you got own videos, video advertising networks might be another opportunity.

HD Video, a Reality on the Internet

Today everyone should have heard about HD Video and most internet people should be equipped with a Full HD or HD Ready tv set or device already. This is what one may expect from a techie. But do you have content to view or listen to? The hd video scene is a bit confusing. There are tv sets ready for hd but mostly there is no hd content. High definition on tv for everyone is something that is expected in the near future.

But there is one single and large platform ready to deliver hd video. And yes, it is the internet. It is indeed the largest continuous network for hd video today. There has been an article about hd media with a statement that even most hd drives (60 percent) become build into computers today. This of course is something interesting as one may expect hd content and hd viewers at the internet. By available hd equipment like digital cams you may even expect hd content producers there. And this is happening, too. But hd video on the internet is a bit different to common video sharing communities. Whereas everyone may participate, mostly it is a semi professional environment.

For example there is Dovetail. It is a video community for indie filmmakers to show their stuff and for film fans to watch. Videos at Dovetail are free and may happen in high definition. A similar community is Jaman. Here you get free films, but you may rent videos, too. Both communities do feature festival films. Last but not least there is VideoCommunity, a community for film enthusiasts and producers.

But common video sharing communities will embrace hd, too. A couple of services already do offer video sharing and storage for hd formatted videos. For hd video sharing there are Dailymotion, Viddyou with Full HD and Vimeo.

Watching Films together online with Friends and at a Digital Film Festival

Online video showrooms are places where one can watch videos together with friends. This may happen by special software and actually there even happens an online film festival in a 3d virtual reality environment, where people can watch films together like being in a cinema.

At first there is SeeToo, a service offering simultaneous video viewing for friends. To show and watch a film SeeToo offers an application, which works by a plugin. The one who wants to show something chooses a video similar like it happens at a file sharing service. After this a link will be generated. The link has to be sent to a friend. By this the video can be watched together and chat may happen by using an instant messaging program. You can watch a video introduction at the SeeToo homepage.

Actually simultaneous video viewing too happens at a film festival online. The Bitfilm Festival is dedicated to digital films and film making. The festival is arranged by the Bitfilm Network, a community for film and media professionals. For the festival they have opened up the Bitropolis Room at Twinity, a virtual reality world and commmunity. Unfortunately the sign up process is a bit complicated as the Twinity community is in beta. To get to the festival at its best you follow the instructions at the Bitfilm Festival Homepage. Will we meet there?