webcast
Following the huge success of FILMCLUB’s first ever live webcast, we’ll be live on 14th July 2010 for a close encounter with Oscar-winning make-up artist Christine Blundell.
Christine is one of the UK’s leading make-up artists whose credits include Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Junior, Finding Neverland starring Johnny Depp, Casino Royale starring Daniel Craig, The Full Monty and Vera Drake.
The webcast will be live from Central Foundation Girls’ School in Bow, East London, with a live studio audience and questions from schools across the UK via our funky chat application.
Follow FILMCLUB on twitter: @filmclubuk
The sell out conference Thinking Digital
is live from The Sage Gateshead 26/27th May 2010.It’s £99 for a video ticket – and well worth it. :)
We’re streaming live on Weds 18th May 2010 from the Connected TV Summit in London.
Our friends at muchosmedia have just put a new demo online of EventChat, the app Kinura uses for turning ordinary webcasts into interactive online events.
The app now has social media built in so you can log in from twitter, yahoo, LinkedIn and facebook. Check out the features and admin tools here and see the demo. It’s probably more fun if you get someone to log in and chat with you so you aren’t just talking to yourself!
We have some plans to integrate further with twitter so watch this space. You can now follow @kinura on twitter if you want to keep updated.
There’s an interesting discussion happening on LinkedIn at the moment in the Virtual Events Forum Group.
Someone asked “What are the benefits of live streaming vs. pre-recorded video”
- and quite a few people have answered, covering pros and cons, interactive options, audience engagement, moderating feedback and so on.
Check it out if you’re wondering about such things!
FilmClub, the fantastic organisation that enables pupils and teachers to expore the world of film, is running its first ever live webcast on 21st April 2010 from 3.30pm – 4.30pm: an exclusive interview with Tom Felton, star of the Harry Potter films.
During the webcast, Tom will be asked a selection of filmclubbers’ questions and he’ll be tweeting throughout the day. A chat room will be provided for the participating schools to send in their comments.
The folks at Kinura are rather excited about working with FilmClub!! And if this pilot goes well (as we’ve no doubt it will) there could be many more live link ups between filmclubbers in future, extending the reach of FilmClub’s live talks with actors, directors and creatives of the filmic world.
I pasted in the copy from a document I wrote last year on webcasting and webinars and this is what emerged. Click on the image to see a bigger version. Pretty isn’t it?!
BectaX is a project bringing together thinkers and influencers from the worlds of education, digital media & policy. It aims to explore and shape future learning.
On 31st March 2010 at the Wellcome Collection in London, the first full day BectaX event will take place with an accompanying online event made up of a live webcast with some seriously interactive twitter and chatroom activity.
Schools from across the UK have been invited to join in, with their comments appearing on an interactive map as they tweet and chat whilst watching the live stream. The chat room has been provided by our genius friends at muchosmedia - with all the live vision mixing, archiving and global streaming delivered (of course) by Kinura.
BectaX is part of Becta’s “Fit for the Future” programme: the project is being produced by Just-b.
Kinura are providing live streaming for the Opening Ceremony and Inaugural Summit of One Young World on Feb. 8-10, 2010.
Join the webcast and connect via YouTube, Facebook, Flickr and Twitter here.
One Young World, nicknamed Young Davos by some media outlets, is the world’s first global youth leadership summit. Bringing together several hundred delegates age 25 and under from the world’s 192 countries, One Young World combines the social power of the Internet with the energy and ideas of global youth to address the most challenging issues of today. Founded by David Jones, global CEO of Havas Worldwide, and Kate Robertson, Euro RSCG group chairman, One Young World focuses on plenary sessions at which delegates are guided by a group of international luminaries including Kofi Annan, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Bob Geldof. The inaugural London summit on Feb. 8-10, 2010, will be open to the entire globe and people of all ages through online streaming and real-time updates.
Codeworks Connect, the trade association for digital businesses working in North East England are streaming best-selling author Dan Pink live from The Sage Gateshead on 26/01/2010 from17:50 GMT. You can watch the webcast at http://www.thinkandadrink.com/live
Dan Pink writes about ‘the science of motivation’ and is touring the UK for a few days to speak about his new book, DRIVE: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. He’s appeared on TED so you can watch him there-or I’ve embedded the video below for your convenience.
Good news for webcasters. Flash Media Live encoder comes to Macs. Stefan over at muchosmedia posted about this recently, so read more good stuff here on Stefan’s FlashComGuru blog.
We’re webcasting the Future TV Advertising Forum on 11th December 2009.
“This one day conference, on 11th December in Portland Place, London will bring together broadcast and advertising to analyse and debate the evolution of TV advertising.”
EMI, Unilever, Channel4, itv and Discovery will be in residence (to name just a few). So if you have a vested interested in exploring PayTV, product placement, branded content, interactive ads, etc., then get yourself a ticket, put the webcast in your diary – oh and you can keep informed via the event producers, PointZero, on twitter at http://twitter.com/pointzeromedia
This week we’re webcasting the C&binet Forum – a gathering of minds from across the creative and finance industries that will debate access to finance for creative industries, new business models for online content, developing talent and securing creative rights.
Hope you can check out the live stream and you can also follow on twitter using the hashtag #cabinetforum
Yes! It’s that time of year again. We’re webcasting the wonderful Power to the Pixel Cross-Media Forum on 14th October from bfi Southbank in London .
If you want to get the lowdown on collaborative digital film-making and multi-platform storytelling, or hear about the latest models in film financing and distribution, then you can’t miss this groundbreaking event.
The conference will be streamed live and then archived for your laid-back viewing pleasure. We’re also working with ScreenWM to stream the webcast into a venue in Birmingham if you’re based in the midlands. Sign up to Power to the Pixel’s feeds to find out more and stay updated.
http://twitter.com/powertothepixel
http://powertothepixel.com/feed
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Watching the Burberry webcast today was a great experience. I’m not sure who was behind the prouduction, but it was a pleasure to watch such high quality stuff. They had the bright idea of asking people to sign in for comments and add their location so everyone quickly had a sense of how many people around the world were watching. As one commenter said “this is the future of fashion”. :)
I recently caught up with Radar Music Video’s Caroline Bottomley. I saw she’d teamed up with Rebecca Caroe to solicit some business strategy advice via Rebecca’s excellent blog. We realised we had some issues in common and decided to share our conversation on my blog.
Caroline Bottomley launched Radar Music Videos in March 08. It’s a matchmaking service for indie labels and DIY bands to commission music videos from a worldwide network of music video directors. I started Kinura in February 2007 (Kinura are specialists in live streaming, online events and Flash video applications) so both our companies have been taking off during times of massive growth in video and huge changes to business models and the way we talk to our customers. Both companies are in the online video space; we had a look back at what we were aiming for when we set up our companies, what we’re doing now and where we think we’re headed.
SP: What opportunities did you see for Radar Music Videos when you started?
CB: I’ve always liked business models that are about curating or editorial and I love talent spotting. Previous jobs I liked were in those fields. I was also tuned into the potential for disruption with old models, I like being outside the mainstream :) It seemed very clear that there was opportunity in the music video industry – the old school model was all about gatekeepers at nearly every level and very elitist. I think it helped that my background is in related businesses – promoting clubs & events and in TV production. If I’d have known people in the ‘proper’ music video industry too well I probably would have talked myself out of starting Radar.
I’d spent a year or so running UGC/made-on-spec music video competitions for some major and bigger indie record labels, so I knew it was possible for diverse and outsider director talent to create some great videos. It had been clear for a long time that more and more artist/bands were choosing to work outside the label system and would therefore need to commission videos more directly. However, the matchmaking model I started with wasn’t quite right — it needed changing, partly to become better aligned with directors’ needs and wants (this only works if enough directors value the model) and partly to allow for scale. That’s how Radar Music Videos ‘proper’ got made – a lot of experimentation. It’s still very fluid but the basic building blocks are the right ones now I think. It’s been self-funded from the beginning.
CB: What opportunity did you see with Kinura?
SP: We knew the web video market was about to explode and it would be pretty straightforward to set up a company like Kinura, focusing on a niche in delivering and hosting Flash video. We started with no outside investment – we just put in a lot of our own time and a little bit of our own money to buy bandwidth, and got ourselves out there. We had a bit of a head start I guess, because I was a director of a streaming media company for five years previously, although it’s never easy building up a business from scratch.
SP: What are the opportunities and threats that you see right now?
CB: On balance the current recession is good for us. Our costs are low. We’re not accessing enough of the existing potential demand yet, so anything that keeps the cost of market acquisition down is good. Having said that, we don’t do paid advertising anyway, I’m not confident it would deliver significant ROI. We reach most communities via cross-promotion deals – the relatively low cost of access to new customers via social media is a great opportunity for us. Our biggest threat is new competitors. Hopefully the recession is keeping some new entrants out for the moment. Speed of growth is also an issue – we’re really agile but I generally want things to happen even quicker and that’s a resource issue.
SP: I know exactly what you mean. One of our main challenges is managing growth and making sensible decisions about product development. Our overheads are low, but we need more staff for the work coming in, so it’s balancing success with cash flow. The good news is that we are seeing a major increase in demand for online conferences and live video solutions. People now have faith that webcasting is reliable and they want to find ways of saving costs on travel, reducing their carbon footprint and so on.
We thought one of our biggest challenges would be selling Flash video hosting when there are so many free platforms out there, but many companies still want the reliability and flexibility that comes with using a CDN. The fact that some webTV platforms have file size restrictions has worked in our favour. Plus there are plenty of organisations whose content is sensitive and they want it managed properly, or want live streaming as part of the package, so the service we provide is still massively in demand.
SP: If you could choose investment to access right now, how much would you have and what terms would you want?
CB: I think we’re just coming to the end of a big experimentation curve and there are still some things to put into place before Radar stacks up as a profitable, secure business. I might look for a loan from a strategic partner soon, but it’s not priority at the moment, as the basic business is still being built. I got some great advice to hang on and make the business work profitably before looking for investment – from someone who felt he had invited investors in too early to his (very successful) business. For good or for bad, I usually concentrate on what’s happening in the next couple of weeks. There’s an ambitious aim for Radar, but seeing as a lot of this business is about working things out as we go, most resources go on working out the next step. It seems every week or so there’s news about another large scale music-related business folding or in danger of going under and I’m very happy for us to be playing relatively small right now whilst we get the main things working right.
SP: I don’t think Kinura is currently eligible for VC type funding. Our business model isn’t quite scalable enough. For us, I think the next couple of years will be about building value into our products, continuing to innovate and doing this via a bank loan if necessary. We might consider investment from a known and trusted business associate, but would rather build the business up and sell it all in one go. I think it’s important to think about your exit strategy from the outset, and also not to make yourself indispensable. You have to look at the operations of the business and separate delivery from management and so on. That makes it easier to hand over if it comes to it.
CB: What trends are you taking into account in your business planning?
SP: In the medium term, we’re focused on the trend towards ‘webinars’ and online training: simple ways of making video communications interactive and trackable. Companies want marketing data, and organisations want to make resources easily accessible online. I also definitely think live video is a big growth area. Bandwidth at venues is increasing all the time and serious fibre networks are being set up to link venues. Music industry wise, online gigs are becoming more common. Would you say so?
CB: Yes there’s all sorts of interesting developments in live communications. It’s very exciting and it’s having a positive effect at our end: more live content means bands and artists can feel more relaxed about commissioning a non-performance promo video – great news for a directors worldwide and for consumers too. Unless you know the band already or they are truly astonishing live, there’s very little reason to have the promo video as a performance video.
At a macro level, I’m really interested in what’s happening with video streaming and download sites. All the reports suggest that ad-supported services just don’t cut it, and business models for nearly all streaming services depend fundamentally on ads. I don’t think any of them have successfully substituted subscription models – Imeem tried this recently but with limited success.They are currently getting propped up the major labels to stop them going under and peer to peer taking their place. Crackle - also very big in the US – have very recently stopped accepting ‘general’ uploads. Because more content = higher server costs and all these services depend on fresh content – they’re in a bind.
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We’d be very interested to hear your thoughts about anything discussed here, from setting up and running a business to ideas and predictions for where online video is headed. Post a comment below.
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PRWeek are running an online event Facing the Challenge of Social Media, which will be streamed live around the world from 9:00 GMT on 10th February. The videos were recorded at PRWeek’s social networking and blogging summit in London, and will be streamed alongside live synchronised PowerPoint slides, giving people the chance to view conference presentations from social media experts at MySpace, Bebo, The Guardian and FT.com to name just a few.
We worked with Muchosmedia to develop the live slide sharing application so now presenters can keep their online audiences synchronised in real time.
You can book a place to the event at PRSummitOnline.com
If you’re thinking about running a webcast or webinar then you should find this guide helpful in thinking through the process from start to finish. It covers pre-event planning, promotion, archiving for on-demand viewing, and a little bit of technical info (but not too much). Basically this document sums up the kinds of issues I would discuss with my clients. Hope you find it useful. If so – let me know – you can post a comment below.
You can download a PDF version of this article here:
9-things-you-need-to-know-about-webcasting-webinars
Licensed for free non commercial distribution
9 Things You Need to Know About Webinars & Webcasting
1. Webcast or ‘webinar’ might mean different things to different people
If you’re thinking about broadcasting an event on the web, be clear about why you are doing it, who you want to watch it, how you will promote it and what needs to be delivered around your web event to make it successful and worthwhile.
A webcast is usually understood to be a live online video broadcast, but it could be audio and slides only. It could be a video message from a remote speaker streamed into a conference you are holding, or even a pre-recorded video delivered ‘as-live’, with a live chat room, slides and downloadable assets.
Beyond the audio or video stream you can now add any number of collaborative or interactive elements so it makes sense to be clear about your goals. If you’re thinking about communicating via a web broadcast, take a step back and think about how you can get the most of it
2. Know your connectivity
For a quality video stream, the place you are streaming from ideally needs a dedicated broadband line with a minimum of 1MB upstream. If this means nothing to you then don’t worry too much as your webcasting supplier should deal with IT issues and handle all the connectivity testing, etc. But at the same time, when scoping out the perfect venue for your event, it’s worthwhile getting written confirmation that they can supply the level of connectivity you need.
A lot of business broadband lines are ‘contended’ which means they are shared by many of the ISP’s customers. They may be advertised as 8MEG but on testing the upstream connectivity, you may find the reality is more like 300kbps, which isn’t great for webcasting. You can (roughly) test the speed of a line using a site like www.speedtest.net
Golden rule: More bandwidth does not necessarily mean a better quality stream! (For the techies out there – in our opinion SDSL 1 meg is far better than ADSL 8 meg or even some advertised 20 meg broadband lines! You have to test it..
One other consideration here is your audience’s bandwidth. Most individual users will be fine receiving a stream at 300k upwards these days, but if many people from one organisation want to view at the same time it’s better to set up a screen or a few computers dedicated to watching the webcast, otherwise the corporate network might creak at the seams!
3. Make an impact – consider your video and graphics sources well in advance.
Attention spans are short. The more lively you can make the message you’re delivering the better. At live events it’s very straightforward to mix in PowerPoint slides, video clips or anything your speakers are showing on screen as part of their presentations. Filming the screen is not the best option, as the quality will suffer, so taking a feed from the speaker’s laptop into a vision mixer is the best bet. You should also think about your branding for within the video window. Pre-roll graphics can be displayed with your logo (or sponsors logos), and you should also think about messages to be displayed during any breaks in the live stream, and a message to be displayed after the event has finished.
4. Get it Watched: Advertise and Promote Your Event
Many people think of webcasting as an add-on to an existing event rather than as an opportunity in its own right for online PR or direct marketing to their end users. Advertising the event in advance via your own mailing lists, intranet and web pages is obvious, but have you thought about asking media partners and bloggers if they want to embed the webcast player on their site? You could also use social networking sites to create a presence for your online event. By doing this, people can create their own profiles, get reminders and continue the conversation. Ning is a good one. And of course there’s Facebook, LinkedIn and a host of other web 2.0 and networking platforms to exploit.
The earlier you can promote your event the better. If your event has a very specific audience, you could consider an advert in a relevant magazine or on a trade website. It’s also worthwhile thinking about any partners with real venues where they could set up a screen for people to watch the event. For example, if you are webcasting a conference about graduate careers, why not ask universities and key HR departments if they want to show it in their offices around the world? Some companies have linked up with big screens in cities or invited arts and community centres to set up screens and participate remotely. Think about the possibilities. It’s pretty exciting!
5. Make it Interactive
As well as thinking about offering options to download further information, email the speaker or send messages via live chat, you should make sure your speakers address the online audience as well as those attending the real event. It’s simple to set up a printer or screen to show questions that are being sent in so that people online have just as much opportunity to contribute as people sitting in the audience. You could even email people to ask if they want to send a question in advance, and then they’re more likely to tune in and see if their question was selected.
Live chat rooms can be moderated if you have any worries about rogue elements posting offensive or irrelevant comments. So go for it –talk to your online audience and get them talking to each other.
6. Track it. Find out who’s watching
Just as with any website, you should get statistics showing how many people tune in to your event. With video streamed from a ‘proper’ streaming server network, you should also get streaming stats for any videos made available to end-users.
If you want to get some marketing data it is straightforward to add an email sign in option before people can view the stream. There’s an argument this could put some people off, but if you have something worthwhile to communicate and are talking to the right audience, it’s likely they won’t mind being kept informed. You can also use RSS to send event reminders or updates.
7. Get Your Web, Video Production And Webcasting Team Talking
If you have a web agency or in-house web team, an external video crew and a webcasting company all involved, it’s essential they all know what the other party needs. Then there is also potentially IT, AV and front-of-house staff at a venue to consider. It’s sensible to get your teams talking to each other as soon as you decide to produce a webcast. Some things can be set up in advance, like pages to hold the archives once the event is over. Think through the process and communicate how you see it all working to everyone involved.
8. Do Your Research. Look at what others are doing (and not doing) well.
You can now choose to search Google for video results only, so it’s worth spending a bit of time exploring what others in your sector are doing. If no one else is webcasting you could have an angle for a press release, and if they are, then you can see what you could do better. There are a few ‘streaming industry’ news and information resources out there, like streamingmedia.com and Chinwag’s webTV list, but just a general Google search will probably turn up some interesting links. And of course, there’s more articles on webcasting on the Kinura blog. We hope you find it useful.
If you are using an external webcasting company, ask them what their other clients have done and if they have any suggestions.
9. Think how you can use the video after the event.
If you have the infrastructure sorted to host your video files after the event then don’t delay in getting your archives online. Even if you choose one session from a whole day of conference programming, it’s wise to make something available for those who tune in late or missed the event but want to see it as soon as possible. If you have a keynote speaker, it makes sense to prioritise big names or what you thought was the most well received presentation.
It also might be worthwhile thinking whether you need any additional edits or formats for webTV platforms. For example, YouTube has a limit of 10 minutes and a file size of 1 GB. If you want to upload clips to YouTube you should ask the video crew to re-encode the video to the optimum resolution and add any extra graphics you want. If your webcasting live using Adobe Flash and capturing Flash files straight off, then Blip.tv is great because you can upload Flash video (flv) files directly, YouTube does accept flv files as uploads but may re-encode them so some quality is lost.
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Thanks for reading!
There’s a checklist below and a list of links that might be useful, which link to more useful links!
CHECKLIST
- Have I defined my webcast goals and communicated them to my team?
- Have I checked my venue has suitable connectivity?
- Does my client have enough bandwidth to watch multiple streams?
- Have I planned my pre-roll graphics, notices for breaks and post event messaging?
- Have we thought about how we can promote the event and planned time for emailing reminders, etc?
- What other elements should be on the web pages around the webcast?
- Do we want to capture email addresses or make this event by password invite only?
- Does everyone working on the webcast, both at the venue and online, know the process for before, during and after the event?
- Have I checked what my peers or competitors are doing?
Don’t take it for granted that webcasting is a day-to-day occurrence. You might find that some of your speakers haven’t been live online before, or that no one else in your sector is communicating with live web events. Webcasting is still quite new and it can be pretty exciting. These days it’s very reliable and shouldn’t even cost you an arm and a leg. So enjoy it, make the most of it. Happy webcasting.
You can download a PDF version of this article here:
9-things-you-need-to-know-about-webcasting-webinars1
Licensed for free non commercial distribution
This document was written by Sarah Platt, UK Director of Kinura Web Video.
www.kinura.com/blog
http://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahplatt
Kinura Web Video are always happy to answer questions.
You can contact us via our website or email sarah.platt’at’kinura.com
Just-b., the folk behind bTWEEN are holding an event this Thurs, 4th Dec, at The Public, enabling creatives from around the West Midlands to find out about two new funding opportunities: 4IP and the Digital Content Development Programme.
The day will bring decision-makers from key regional arts organisations and digital agencies together to explore how digitisation is revolutionising the arts world. The line-up of speakers includes experts from various media arts projects, including an old friend of ours Honor Harger and top digitally minded folk from the V&A, the Science Museum and FACT. See the full line up here.
The places are all taken I believe, as participants were invited (by special invitation!) to take part. But the good news is you can watch the keynotes and panel discussions live online, and there will be a snazzy chatroom for posting comments and questions, courtesy of muchosmedia.
It’s raining in London. As the banks wobble and businesses batten down the hatches, I smile and thank my lucky stars I’m in the webcasting game. “Alright for you!”, you might say – but really the possibiilties offered up by web streaming technology are good news for us all. People have been bigging up webcasting for years on the grounds that it saves time, money and the planet, and it seems these things perhaps have never been so important as they are now as we head with trepidation towards 2009 AD.
Now if your audience can’t afford the tube fare or the ticket to the gig, maybe they will watch in online and you can sell some sponsorship or adverts around it. Fabchannel have done this and Fabchannel is seriously cool. I love it. They have started putting live gigs out through Facebook too. Also glad to see ChannelBee are still going after launching earlier this year. And I’m also very happy that (should an intellectual mood overtake me) I can participate live with events produced by organisations like the RSA or the the Natural History Museum.
Maybe at annual conference time, putting up your sales team in a hotel for a night just isn’t worth the budget this year. Now it’s entirely feasible to stream a speaker into your conference from a remote location so they don’t necessarily have to take time out to fly over in person. Perhaps you’re a publisher and you’re filming interviews and events anyway – now you can make more money by offering these sessions as video packages alongside rich media such as PowerPoint, PDF reports or live interactive web chats. For example, check out this virtual symposia from St George’s hosptial. And Haymarket’s SpeakersChannel.tv is growing all the time. Whatever the conundrum, if you can do it online you can *probably* save yourself some cash. Webcasting works.
If you’d rather not get your hands dirty, you can commission a company like us to handle your webcasting and go for the full on 3 camera shoot with live vision mixing, etc. But if you’re on a budget and have your own camera (and a bit of time to spare) there’s a number of cool tools to run your own live web event. Amazing really, when you think about it. Just a few sites to have a look at are:
AND – you can also stream from your mobile if you have the right phone and enough bandwidth. I kid you not. I’ll be writing more about that soon. Happy webcasting.
