Laurent Bridenne's web log about multimedia strategy, design, usability, technologies and much more... Multimedia

Video is on every major web sites today.

As I've talked in the past with my counterparts at other companies (Cisco, Applied Materials, Intel, Oracle) as part of the Bay Area Streaming Media Group (BASMUG), it really astonished me that all of them were at various levels of implementation, deployment and usage... yet most of them had the same problems: managing that content.

From using streaming video as a grass-root movement to have it be part of the corporate culture. All of them had a system/process in place to create, encode and post.

But as content grows and the need to effectively manage all types of online media in a flexible, branded environment, a new system has to be in place.

That system needs to provide design flexibility in how media is laid-out. Will it be embedded into a blog or into a product page? how about a launch page for a live webcast? A simple URL variable can set that. Web designers can work with it, not around it in order to create a seamlessly integrated rich-media experience.

Now, what features/content do particular users see? Can a generic viewer access partner content? Can they view internal (confidential) content? Absolutely not. Should you set up multiple instances of that system for each audience type? No, because managing all of these would prove prohibitive.

How can web publishers effectively have recourse to these media assets, and for these media assets to be part of a content management system, tagged with proper meta-data to improve search results... and maybe even dynamically generate content playlists without the human need to hand code/pick specific UUIDs?

Should we all just hand it all to YouTube to manage this for us? Well... sometimes, that would make sense. That's the easy way out. I don't like easy way out... not challenging and it never is a long-term solution in my humble opinion.

However, as I think about the bigger picture and all the integration points within a company, that system could help generate leads, train/inform sales folks faster, leverage existing content to maximize ROI, help drive marketing campaigns, boost employee communication effectiveness, boost brand awareness and have all these supporting metrics to prove or course-correct any multimedia program... This type of stuff gets my head spinning... in a good way :-)

Don't forget about offline media. Tradeshows, customer briefing centers and digital signage systems could also benefit from it. This system could transcode, or make raw assets available for download and local playback, or create specific playlists based on the customer card being swiped at a tradeshow or building lobby, to bring that extra little something to the client to say: "we know what YOU care about"

As this medium grows exponentially, the system needs to be flexible/scalable to meet new users, integrate in internal/external workflows from various organizations without breaking in the process.

This is what keeps me up at night. Ensuring that multimedia is being used as effectively as possible, tied into all the various departments through a single system that would be flexible/scalable enough to have at least a 5 year lifespan...

Now that I wrote this down, I could try to go to sleep... for a while

Was talking earlier about Virtual
Tradeshows...


People automatically think it's another Second Life. Well... not exactly.

First, the audience is probably not the one you want to sell stuff to. So then, for a corporation, how do you prove ROI? Well, for Second Life... you don't. You can increase the Brand awareness and create an entry point into web sites. That's the big win.

Seems to me like the virtual tradeshows are slanted more towards sales and hard ROI $$. I'm on a mission to generate $$ for Sun... can't you tell? ;-)

If you're thinking about managing your own media infrastructure... The Wowza Media Server Pro is $995 it has familiar feature-set as Adobe Flash Media Interactive Server ($4,500).

hmm... let me see... basically the same product, just 4-5 times less expensive... I just can't decide which one to use!! oh... and Wowza runs on Solaris (Adobe runs on LINUX or the soft-to-hack-in OS)

So, in theory, say you have a start up business (with streaming video in there as a component of your services), you could acquire a try and buy box from us, download Solaris for free, and wait for your first paycheck to get an inexpensive system.

Talk about the flash video business heating up!!

Red5 is free and open source, but it doesn't offer the same usabiliy.

This might be more targeted at larger companies...

Trying to figure out a localization strategy for multimedia, inside and out.

Each geo has their own culture, terminology and language. On top of that, certain facets of an industry/market is more developed in some than others.

How do you set up a creation, translation and distribution systems that lets you create once, run everywhere in all languages?

Right now, the cheapest (if you can call it cheap) is to provide close-captioning for specific languages for audio, video.

But how about presentations and interactive tours where graphics have text in them, voice over is mixed with on-screen video of a presenter and everything is so closely bundled together as a rich-media experience that it hinders your localization process?

How do you know how to deliver content to in what language? IP or user selectable?

Let the user choose would be the best in my opinion. I could be trying to view a live webcast from France in Japan, and I wouldn't need to see Japanese text overlayed on top of the video, just because of my local IP address.

in the interest of corporate transparency and collaboration...

what would you like to see Sun do online w/ multimedia that isn't happening yet?

We have our own ideas (and so does management and BU's) and ongoing plans, but YOU, the potential customers, inquisitive minds and innovators, should let us know what is important for YOU. You're the last piece of the puzzle, the major piece of the puzzle, but the ones we don't have ongoing direct feedback with about this.

What should we communicate that we don't. How can multimedia help you get what you need to make informed decisions, help you a your job or school project??

I know multimedia is a wide array of things... so here are examples to get your mind going:
- weekly developer screencasts on best practices with our tools/solutions
- like video chats with Sun innovators
- more (or less) executive overview videos for our products and services
- online demos for our products (see it in action and/or interact with it?)
- cell phone delivery (for audio, video, screencasts)
- chat with BU's about particular products
- more YouTube videos of BU's giving a 3mn marketing monologues
- having all SunU classes available for free, online
- ???


you get the gist... thoughts?

I've been looking at various vendor solutions (Mentorware and ZiffDavis) that provide that "Virtual Tradeshow". It's always pretty expensive and too new to be fully understood. I, personally thought that these solutions just duplicate what can be done in Second Life... but Second Life has its sets of limitations, like not being able to gather attendee's info, business needs to generate good Leads for our sales force.


It's also pretty cool if we can showcase our exciting tools and technologies online, while having a place for mavens to participate and collaborate to such an event.

Came across an interesting article about it, which stirred up this whole topic again... and you know what? this article says "know your audience" and "content is king"... funny how everything we do online revolves around that formula ;-)

Question to our audience: would you want Sun to have a Virtual Tradeshow??

Well, the conference ended. Sessions covered a lot of various aspects of streaming video. Went to all the booths. Talked to a bunch of folks.

There more CDN companies starting up. There's more videos being put on the web through YouTube types of applications. No matter where you look on social media sites, video is there. IPTV is also growing.

How people search, view, interact with this ever growing content is great business for everyone involved in the chain.

First, it's great for content producers. Finding good producers with fresh ideas to inject a lot more creativity and innovation. It's open for anyone to create video content and be the next big thing.

Second, it's great for viewers. Being entertained, taught, informed in new and refreshing ways by getting what they want, when they want. It's a Tivo world out there and people are only getting pickier.

Third, it's great for developers. I didn't much about JavaFX, but a lot with Flash and how it easily integrates with web tools, backend application/databases in order to provide rich-media custom experiences. With anyone being able to write actionscripts and for designers to play around flash features/players, this is going to be an exciting year.

Fourth, it's a GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY for Sun to cash in on all of it. We can potentially sell more IPTV systems, more servers (for delivering content, compressing files, automation, storage of raw and encoded media, powering digital asset management systems) and get that Solaris footprint out there.

There are so many startups that would have a better chance to survive if they were thinking big picture from the start. Using our 64-thread chips, high speed storage, virtualization... you name it. We can make people succeed, and share that success.

What makes compelling online media? the technology used, the audio/visual quality or the content (loosely based on a marketing strategy)?

I first went at this last year by analyzing various sites that had online media assets and compared it to Sun's.

1. Technology: We needed to identify what's the most available/deployed media player in the world. That one was fairly easy... that's Flash. It's the most flexible technology. We really wanted to use Java...

2. Audio/Visual quality: Everything we created must be of the highest standards. People are very proud of these production standards. When I looked at other corporate sites, production quality varied from ok to broadcast quality. When I went on YouTube, the quality was from "barely viewable" to broadcast quality.

3. Content: That was a tough one, just because of the targeted audience of various corporate sites/programs and the various marketing strategies behind them. The best were honest and useful information programs that keyed on real-world problems and their solutions... without all the marketing fluff. One of the examples didn't mention the company name until 12mn into the program.

I came away trusting the company and feeling like they really want to help me, wether I buy their products or not. This was above and beyond content, and the information it contained... it was about a story. A light bulb went out.

I then focused on who does the best storytelling on YouTube.. and amazingly enough, quality didn't matter. People are viewing poor quality media as long as it contains relevant, useful information scattered through storytelling. That's useful data. It's the story, not the production value.

When we initially unveiled "Project Blackbox" back in October last year, I was wondering how it would do in the real world, and how we could use this innovative solution for our new multimedia approach.

It didn't take long until someone wanted an interactive tour for this product. This tour put our newest media container to the test. Some of it had to be re-engineered from scratch due to the interactive and rich-media nature of this
asset. I was brought in for the interactivity design and to make sure it would follow Branding, Publishing and Technology guidelines... some of which not fully documented since this multimedia arena keeps evolving, and we keep improving it as we go.

It was one of the most rewarding project I have been part of, mostly because this is the closest thing we have to a best practice of an interactive tour here at Sun. It using the proper technology to tell a compelling story, on Brand... at a fraction of the cost that it would have been if designed/produced by an outside agency. Overall, it was a success of cross-departmental collaboration with the media experts here at Sun.

In the past, we would have done a 15mn video (yawn...) going through all the technical mumbo-jumbo and call it a day. This new approach really opened some eyes. It covered both the technical aspects (with both physical, and conceptual animations) and the BIG PICTURE BENEFITS (what it does for you!). We need more of that, to complement -not replace- the technical details.

Results? We received kudos from Jonathan himself and have been tracking the hits on it ever since it got released. This tour eclipses the technical walkthrough videos. So, now that people are aware of these tours, so they are more receptive to moving their video-centric needs into interactive media. Our approach is to re-purpose [parts of] the video content (needed for various organizations and media outlets) into these tours, in order to bring these development costs even lower (and save Sun $$$)

I am not dissing "video" at all. The point is that some tools are better suited for specific needs/content. Video is the best suit for our Project Blackbox scenarios... like the shake. Pretty cool. People want to see more stress tests... the mojave heat, the antartic cold, thunderstrikes(?)... which reminded me of the blender tests

Can wait to see it in action for SLAC

Corporations are all about social responsibility these days (and eco-friendly)... all for good reasons.

But Sony did something really well. Who knew that the video game industry could help cure Alzheimer? Well, I'm proud to say that I'm a contributor. Thanks to my PS3 and to the power of the network (and Standord University), I was able to help the research.

Maybe all Sun servers should join the research whenever they're idle...  join humanity, one CPU cycle at a time

-- This post is dedicated to my grandmother who slowly faded away with this desease --

I started something new over the past year... a multimedia council, comprised of various groups that are interested in multimedia. All I did was present a high level strategic overview of how we should use media, how we can improve its functionality in a corporate environment and finally, streamlining processes from design to publishing.

Hopefully, if you've visited Sun.com over the past 12 months, you probably saw much improvements on the multimedia side. No more pop-up RealPlayer (w/ RealNetworks Branding) and gratuitous uses of Flash animations. We now have a Branded experience for all of our videos and our Flash assets are developed/designed with more thoughts behind its power for interactivity and rich-media experiences [see Project Blackbox for our high-level corporate-type of media] and technical drilldowns deprived of any marketing spin [like I showed in my previous posts]

That's just the front end stuff. On the backend, we've streamlined so many things on the Brand and Publishing side... but in my opinion, we've just scratched the surface. Maybe it's part of my personality, but I feel like we just got started...

Slowly, we're moving towards having a notion of dynamic publishing and online library of all of Sun's assets.

Here are my next wishes...

1) include screencasts for all of Sun's applications, available both online AND when you start the application (or OS)
2) screencast self-upload tool. Think of YouTube, and add some screencasts... ScreenTube??
3) podcast/vodcast mashup RSS feeds. Get whatever content you need into a SINGLE RSS feed (versus subscribing to 5 different ones)

Anything else you would like to see Sun do? The multimedia council is open for anyone to contribute.

Sun was recently mentioned in a Washington Post article, regarding telecommuting. Couple of good stuff in there, but no mention of the positive ecological impact of not having to drive your car and pollute the air. Also no mention of the financial savings for both the company (like Sun is getting from consolidating their real-estate in pricey Silicon Valley - good move!) and the employee (with the price of gas these days, I can save a couple hundred dollars a month).

I really feel the disconnection from other on-location co-workers that may think a telecommuniter is just goofing off, not really working. When in fact, it's the other way around. I get a LOT more done from home because there are less distraction, no time lost in traffic. However, I do lose out in hallway conversations and face-time with co-workers, managers.

I still haven't found a cool collaboration tool that lets you be "on par" with the on-location employees. Instant Messenging is close. Just like walking into someone's office to have a quick chat, and merging multiple sessions for a hallway conversation. I just wished it had more "visuals". Maybe something like Second Life. It would be pretty cool to "teleport" to meetings and offices to talk/interact, even attend meetings in that world...

This in a quick addition to my previous post about flash 9...
"an." posted a comment on Jonathan's latest blog entry, and pointed me to the beta release of Flash 9 for Solaris

rock on!!!

Read an interesting article today in the San Jose Mercury News... how organizations use computer simulations, games and vlogs for training potential and/or
current employees. I have been looking at delivering content from our multimedia center to mobile devices, but I didn't see the ROI value in doing so. Training however, could be a good candidate. We need to train our sales force and partners to be armed with the info they need, that their customers need in order to make an informed decision on how to spend their money.

"Developers never seem satisfied with what they can do, and always seek to challenge themselves. Whether that means experimenting with technology, or simply adding nuances that were never possible..." - Quote from IGN's web site.

Indeed, the new animations look really cool. Take a look:

This [quote] can be applied to Sun's developer community, especially now that Java and Solaris are open sourced. And with tool like java studio, JavaServer Faces-based web applications are bound for the next great "killer app".

Please bridge the Digital Divide to my local ER, because they are in dire need of an overhaul. They have computers everywhere, the flat screen look really cool, but as I (and my wife) found out... very inefficient for both doctors/nurses and patients. Sun does this... but not for my ER. Please Sun... Pimp my ER!!

As you may have read my previous post, this week has been... how should I say... eventfull.

A couple of night ago, I had to drive my wife to the ER. Same problem as a few months ago. She was in a lot of pain.
Since we were there a few months ago, I expected for the service to be faster since they knew what they needed to do to relieve the pain. Instead? 5 hours in the ER, redoing everything again, asking her birthdate 6 times (after they put a wristband on her arm WITH her birthdate), asking the symptoms 6 times, taking notes on either a computer or notepad 6 times, asking for her primary care physician 6 times. How many people did she have to deal with? 6 of them at one point or another.

From the receptionist, the first nurse, the second nurse (first one left her shift to go home), third nurse (since the second one was on a break), doctor and the ecography specialist. How silly is that??

The worst was when the doctor asked my wife/I what drugs the nurses injected her with. Did that mean that no one's keeping track of this stuff?? Excuse my rant... there's probably a perfectly fine reason to the madness. During all of that, my wife was still in pain. What WAS displaying on their fancy big screens? Why aren't they using databases to keep track of any of this?

I wished my wife's ID card could do what my Sun Java Card does. I can plug in my java card and get my session/settings, the last thing I accessed, etc.

If they had something like that, they would have her DOB, allergies, current treatment, details of last visit and get us in and out within the hour. Imagine the ability to treat much more people using the same amount of real-estate/people, bringing the cost of healthcare DOWN for everyone. Wouldn't that be nice?

So please Sun... Pimp my ER!

What does a tow-truck driver from Russia has to do with Sun? Amazingly enough... some useful insight about our company and our products.

It happens to the best of us... our car breaks down. Thankfully, I was able to make it to work (barely). Called AAA (now I'm glad I paid for that service) and they towed me back home. Some 50 miles away. I wasn't looking forward to the big drive... but then again, it was the opportunity to learn about someone else. Everyone has a story, even if they don't think they have one (which is, in essence, one by itself).

And so, we started chatting. The usual, what I do, where I came from, etc, etc. Then came my turn to ask the question.

It turns out Roman came from Russia and previously worked for Sun. He was installing Solaris on our systems, doing some debugging and optimization. That took me by surprise. But then again, it's the silicon valley.

Roman quit Sun; wanting more money. And so he went from job to job, and then... the .dot bust. No work for 7-9 months. He was laid off, his wife, his father and mother in-law... very tragic stuff. And so, he became a tow truck driver, making 1/3 of what he was making, but liking his job. All I know is that, as long as you like your job, you've got a great job!

Oh... did I say he also has an IT network consulting business on the side??

Then my curiosity came over... what was he thinking about Sun now? Is he up to date on what we've done lately? especially since he's still involved in the industry. Am I going to be soo obvious that I'm in Marketing?? Well... no reason to be shy... I've been interacting all day at an All Hands already... I was warmed up ;-)

So I told him to be honest, and that I wouldn't take it bad. And so, I fired away the questions...

The results? We're good. He would recommend Sun products. He really likes the new x86 servers... likes the fact that he could run Windows, but would rather run Solaris himself. Solaris made improvements; but still not a very good GUI, ease of use compared to windows. He mostly gets calls from Dell users running windows. He works for small companies, sometimes friends. Everybody knows Windows. It's easy, but it "craps out every so often", which is great for him. A nice source of
revenue.

So not too bad.

While I was at it, I asked about cars. Why? because mine was sitting in the flatbed behind us, not knowing its fate. I was also looking at getting a Prius, for the eco-friendly and awesome gas mileage. Since I work some 50 miles away... Collegues and friends have one and they love it. Great word of mouth to go and buy one...or at least, that's what I thought.

Turns out he gets at least 3 calls a day for problems with Prius cars.
Some don't start. Some need a jump start. Some have hydraulic failure. wow. Was he kidding? nope. Right after he said that, he gets a call on his radio that a guy in a Prius is on the side of highway 237.

That made me think about the Tipping Point book I read earlier this year... the power of the word of mouth. Who would you rather listen to? Customers, a maven? (in this case towing cars). Would I buy a Prius?? Probably not, unless I want to see him again (who knows, he was fun)

What about Sun? At least our word is getting around. Solaris may not be as easy to use, but we've got the performance and security features that squash the competition. And there comes a barrier to entry for driving Solaris adoption... make it easy(er) to use.

What after Second Life? Home.

Last week, Sony unveiled their version of Second Life, available for the Playstation 3. It's free. It's a community. It's a communication tool. But most of all, it's a commerce. Micro transaction galore for a thriving gaming industry. Just like the ring tones/games purchases for cell phones, "Home" will become a marketplace. Hopefully, generating
millions/billions in revenue... and recoup their loss on every systems they are selling.

I hope Sony doesn't make yet another poor decision on execution. For their sake (and their shareholder's sake), they'd better run on our coolthreads servers to save space/power (meaning: cut down their expenses), run Solaris (to avoid security attacks) and maybe give us a Sun Island where we can have a virtual global headquarters. I'd like to have a window office please ;-)

Sun (China) IS working on a Flash 9 plug-in for our user base (Solaris), this is great news as we'll finally be able to work with the full breadth of functions previously unavailable (alpha channels for example).

This was the final frontier since Flash 9 was released on every major platform, but Solaris.

Ok, so now I want to port all adobe apps for Solaris (dreamweaver, photoshop, etc.)... I know, it's never good enough ;)

Ok. I had this Toshiba laptop that was pre-installed with JDS and the latest "petri dish" OS. Unfortunately, a week after I got the laptop, the hard drive died. When they resent the laptop, it didn't have JDS on it... and I'm not that technical and the whitepapers scared me, so I was pretty much forced to keep my system "as is". Here's what I found online that would have helped me. A lot more visual step by step process.

Was this helpful?

[_] nope
[_] kinda
[_] where has it been all my life?

Ever wondered how to do this? How about a little "tech tip" for you all!

This is what I was talking about "useful" media and actually seeing the application in action. No smoke and mirrors, no marketing fluff, just simple honest truth. What do you all think about this type of multimedia?

[_] useless
[_] ok
[_] BRILLIANT!!

What is strategic media planning anyway? Here's the low-down...

We do not have advertizing budgets like Microsoft, IBM, DELL or HP. Every penni we spend much bring a penni or more back to Sun. So we have to be smart when we want to create costly Videos and Interactive Flash Tours. Here's the three step process on creating strategic media plans:

1 - Know Your Audience (or know someone who knows)

Marketing -vs- Field. What Marketing wants to tell, versus what the Field wants to hear. The Field are the ones sitting down with current/potential clients. Multimedia Programs are meant to support/enhance marketing programs, not replace them. Whitepapers are still being read, but emergence of multimedia lets users listen and interact about a particular product/solution even before they "try it" (Free Solaris Download and Free Trial Servers).

Viewing the application you're "sort of" interested is HUGE compared to reading a whitepaper or seeing a video of an exec saying "how cool" the application is. People want the truth and cut through the PR, Marketing pitch... they want to hear the unfiltered honest info, like Andy B on YouTube unboxing his systems. That is great stuff and didn't cost anything to produce. No penni spent, and many dollars back... that's what I like!

Now, who knows the audience best? The ones who interact with them every day. The Field is a great source of information. Listen to them because they listen to the customers.

2 - Know Your Audience (and what their pain points are)

Example: Is migration a pain-point or is Solaris 10 a pain-point? Most companies focus too much on hard selling their products/services versus "solution oriented" marketing.

It's not so much that people don't want to buy Solaris... it's the pre-conceved nightmare of revamping their entire datacenter, losing up-time and money, while spending money to migrate to Solaris. Sure, once they run our Solutions (hardware, software, services), they don't have to worry about their datacenter anymore (and go on vacation, finally!!), but it's like going to the dentist. You know you will be better off if you go every 6 months to avoid any major problems... but you're trying to delay it as much as you can because it's no fun to clean up your teeth (datacenter). But what they don't know is that we offer novacaine in the form of bootcamps, applications that ease the migration process. After they truly know what it would take (versus pre-conceved assumptions), it's easy to get them to migrate.

THAT is so much effort and time, when a simple "How To" multimedia guide would step them through the entire process, and all they have to say to the field is "Sign me Up!". We're here to make a positive impact, solve problems, reduce costs and complexity, bridge the Digital Divide... you name it. We've been great at the "big stories", but not as great when we get to the point products. Example: "Unleashing 10GB Everywhere. Buy the Sun Multithreaded Networking Card." Sorry, what? why would I care? Then how about this: "Save and generate money... at 10GB/s".

We should drive the "HELP ME, HELP YOU" approach, versus the preaching, bullhorn on top of a building for something we created (when everyone is doing the same thing - we just discard it as noise).

3 - Know You Audience (and how they would connect to your content)

Does your audience have blackberries? are they sitting behind a huge company/government firewall that doesn't let anything through? Do they have portable media devices they can take to for their jogs or plane rides? This all impacts how the media should be created and if it should be pushed or pulled.

PUSH, like posting a video on Sun.com and enticing viewers to come in to view it.
PULL, like having the audience do a single-click search/register to get automated notification when new information is available about something they're interested in.

I want the info to come to me. I don't want to hunt it down for days, from multiple competitors... they should come to me, because these companies are competing for doing business with me.

I'll get off my soap box now and do something about it.

25 years...

but I've only been here for 7 of them, ever since the dotcom bubble burst. It's been challenging, it's been stressfull and it's been sad to see some collegues go. But we've been turning the corner with inexpensive servers, green servers, open sourced Java, broke 150+ world records with our operating system, Solaris 10 (and we're giving this for free??), improving our earnings, and gained market share 4 quarters in a row...

Yeah... that was just the last 12 months or so... what a ride!

Multimedia-wise over the past 12 months, we moved to dynamic presentation layers that can be embedded for our launches, features pages and Multimedia Center. Oh, and we moved to Flash externally while providing work-arounds for our intranet which supports RealMedia (I call it redirects-galore-extravaganza). The Sun Publishing folks launched their Media Shell, which wraps embedded media, provides navigation and makes it nice and Brand friendly for improving the user experience. I guess it was the year of the emdedded media.

Actually, we also experimented with Interactive Tours for Solaris 10 and Project Blackbox...

I've got a lot slated for the next 12 months from a multimedia perspective. We're brewing some really cool stuff for everyone (especially Developers, Partners, Web 2.0 and Enterprise - not in any order). Meaning, much better content (tips and tricks that you can use to save $$/time) that will be even more visually compelling and that will have you glued to Sun.com... or tradeshow floors... or at the EBC... or on iTunes... or on YouTube... hmm... ok... we're everywhere ;-)

24 has got to be the best thing on TV.

Maybe it's my hectic work day makes me feel right at home with this show. non-stop twists and turns, shocking surprises, hunting down information or hunting people that have the information, and finally getting the job done... yes, even if you have to stay up for 24 hours straight (as long as I have coffee)

One thing I noticed. Most of the agents at CTU are using Mac laptops. The bad guys are using PCs. Anyone else noticed that??

Also, CTU headquarters has a bunch of DELL servers. Have you noticed that at every other episode, someone has to manually reboot something in their server room? That's a reboot of something every two hours!! Can't they use Sun instead?? oh.. wait... maybe they need that time to unravel a major plot twist... it would be kind of boring to not reboot anything. Maybe they'd be able to catch the bad guys in 12 hours. d'oh!

We've been looking at Open Source solutions for live video webcasting over past month for Jonathan and his staff. Sounds like it would be great to endorse and pioneer enterprise-grade open source webcasts that runs on all platforms (Solaris, Linux, Mac, Windows, etc.). I'm not talking about passing proprietary data through Java, but a true-er platform. The winners? none.

We're currently using RealMedia for all live streaming. Quality is good for the bit rate required and plays on all platforms. It's scalable and sturdy but could be better with it's rebuffering and latency issues... The RealPlayer is also pretty cluncky/big to download and is not installed as a default on various systems. Most of the technical questions we get from live webcasts are users that do not have realplayer installed.

But Flash is bundled with browsers... either that or it takes a couple of seconds to download/install (versus RealPlayer)... that's why I'll be happy to test it going forward when the live quality is up to par or exeeds RealMedia. Just need Adobe to create a flash player 9 for Solaris.... and the server needs to run on Solaris too.

Vividas is the closest thing we could find in the open source world. Everything else has limited or zero support that may or may not run on Solaris (server-side) in a critical enterprise deployment. But maybe there's something else out there that's being the best kept secret in the industry... If you know of any, please let me know.

I have been invited to participate in late June on a dicussion panel at the Web Video Summit. That's pretty cool... but kind of scary because I'm not really a great speaker (like Jonathan), so I'll do my best at communicating the proverbial BIG PICTURE of multimedia (which includes video).


I've also been part of the Bay Area Streaming Media Users Group (BASMUG - much shorter and easier to remember) where most of us in this industry get together and share of thoughts, plans and success stories to help each other out. This is a great resource. Met with folks from Intel, Oracle, Apple, National Semi Conductor, Applied Materials and many others. All at various stages of implementations of a multimedia program.


It's fun to see groups starting their programs... with just a camcorder and free apps (been there, done that back at Netscape), while some others are WAYYYYY out there ahead of us (the up-to-the-minute metrics reporting at Oracle is just superb!!)
The emphasis is too strong on "video". The term "video" is sometimes used by folks who describe anything and everything visual... which isn't always video. I'm not a popular one when I say "video isn't everything". Don't forget about the power of audio and animations. It all depends on the content, the audience.

With browsers that have multiple tabs or instances opened, with instant messaging and email, video viewers are bound to take their eyes off the video of an exec talking and just LISTEN.

Do you have any idea on the price difference between having a live video webcast (studio, satellite, streaming) versus a live audiocast? It's HUGE.

If you're streaming video, it needs to be visually compelling from a visual design AND content standpoint. Oh... and another point: video requires high bit rates the bigger you want to display it. It's not uncommon to see 500kbps video streams out there. Every pixel is decoded real-time in video-land. The alternative? Flash.

Unlike it's video counterpart, flash can embed video AND animations, graphics that provides a bigger "immersive" and Branded environment at high-quality and lower bit rates.

Check out the blackbox thing we just did: http://frsun.downloads.edgesuite.net/sun/07C00868/


We've got rave reviews from both Jonathan and Anil... but what's best is that we've got great user hits on this. This crushes metrics of any video we've ever produced. It also solves another problem for companies with firewalls, proxies... this uses http port 80 versus streaming protocols and ports that are typically blocked. I'm personally thinking of moving of the videos we have (flash streaming video) into progressive downloads... and let media go through... the only downer is the download time for playing back long presos like keynotes (45mn)

I was enjoying my rainy weekend when I got an email that someone left a couple of comments on Jonathan's blog about not being able to view videos...

So replied to his comment. No bite. Used the email he left. wrong email. So, I'm doing this little training instead for everyone else who may want to know... It's actually REALLY EASY to get help for http://sunfeedroom.sun.com/ , simply click on the HELP button. I've personally never liked online help, so I can understand the relunctancy in clicking on it and being endlessly directed to info, which, in the end, doesn't help you a bit. This is not that type of HELP. It actually works and I made sure of that. Check it out in these screenshots:


In there are the latest FAQs, system requirements and a feedback form (my favorite) that sniffs your viewing environment and sends an email to the right folks in charge of maintaining a working external multimedia infrastructure.



Maybe I should make it auto-detect users that can't play video to launch the help automatically... might be able to cut the middle-man. If one user has a problem, ten other do but don't say anything.

For Vikas...

Then came the MacBook Pro... oh yeah baby...

Apple did a GREAT job from a usability standpoint. Just wished they didn't require folks to pay for .mac. I really like the fact that I was able to jump into it so easily and that it feels like a "consumer" UNIX
workstation... with much more fun stuff too. I really want an Apple|Sun alliance... it would kick so much -you know what-

The mac is a very "web 2.0" device that easily connects everyone in the participation age. From quickly producing YouTube videos, sharing pictures, getting your own web site, blogs, etc.

For web 2.0 success, the tools and applications need to be easy to use. If your 5 year-old kid and your grandma can use it to participate online... then you've got the next web 2.0 tool. Just make sure you're ready to play with the "big boys" by running a backend that is scalable with some major computing power... using open source


So... what does multimedia have anything to do with it? Anything we produce multimedia-wise needs to really grab people and become a "device" that allows them to see how easy our complete solution could solve many of their problems (sys admins, CTOs)... maybe even open the door to participation onto our developer network, forums, etc.

Alright, so like everyone else here, web 2.0 is the big thing. Everybody talks about it but no one can pin point it. It's a "thing". Not a customer base, not a particular online participation/sharing mechanism... I think it's all about USABILITY.


If blogs were too hard to write/publish, it wouldn't have been a big thing. If YouTube was too complex to view/search and upload videos, it wouldn't have been a big thing either. SecondLife? A bit too hard right now, so it's not taking off. I still prefer the SIMS video game myself.


A lot has happened for me over the past few months. Yeah, I've been hard at work, but I've been immersed into HOW to make things easier from a multimedia perspective. HOW to communicate and engage multimedia viewers versus preaching or giving a typical marketing pitch... I see enough of that everywhere.


Every single thing makes me think about usability. The ability to easily capture someone's attention and suck them into an environment where they participate and share online.



So first came my Bday... The PS3. I had my doubts... I still have a little bit since no real good games are out. I've tried them at all Blockbuster. Maybe it's because I don't have an HDTV but the gameplay/graphics aren't blowing me away yet. What DID grab me it everything else that the PS3 brings. The internet browser, the ability to play games with players from other continents, downloading games from an online store and viewing my pics on the big screen. Did I say Java was in there? ;-)






So anyway, it took me awhile to figure all the features, but when I did, I was really impressed. Then I was thinking... why didn't Sony play a short video tutorial on all the PS3 features versus reading an online whitepaper??



Also, I've notice some lag time playing Madden '07 with other folks... kinda cluncky... maybe they should start thinking about using an entire Sun solution (hardware, software, storage, services) to get this up to speed... if not.... I don't give the PS3 two years to live...