One of the most intriguing companies I’ve had the opportunity to meet recently is Veeker, a San Francisco-based start-up which has been under the radar until recently. The company has created a technology and public portal to share video uploaded by mobile phones. Unlike YouTube, the clips are seen by authorized viewers in a social network.
I visited with co-founder Rodger Raderman at the company’s loft office in an unmarked industrial building in San Francisco. Rodger, founder of the trailblazing iFilm, says that the clip are not necessarily going to be publicly shared, but are more for communicating between friends and family.
The videos are uploaded but not yet downloaded to phones, so they are viewed on Web pages on computers and other Web-enabled devices.
It is very impressive and I think the implications are profound. This whole revolution in consumer generated content has been made possible largely by inexpensive camcorders, digital cameras and increasing numbers of mobile phones with video cameras. Since nearly everyone has a mobile phone, and many models have video cameras, (check yours) there is going to be tidal wave of new video content. This is very exciting and particularly in parts of world where broadband is not available, but fast (3G) networks are in place.
Gadget Envy — The phone that Rodger is using is the Samsung SCH a990. I checked it out at the Verizon store today and it’s quite nice — 3.2 megapixel which is pretty much like a decent digital camera, plus it holds an hour of video, so maybe the $400 price tag isn’t too steep? Here’s a tip, if you are going to vlog with a mobile phone, the mic/sound will stink, right? Well, not necessarily. Use your hands-free mic — better yet use a Bluetooth headset as your mic. This way, you can mic your subject from several feet away!
Future Zunes will be for Video Sharing — In another indication of how mobile devices will drive consumer-created content, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Monday that future Zunes will have phones and video sharing capability — not exactly sure if he means video sharing or video making — but Zune will have a phone capability and I would assume a video camera too. We’ll see. Read the news report by Bloomberg’s Dina Bass, and see Newsweek’s Steven Levy’s take on Zune in his interview with Beet.TV He sees Zune not merely as a device but an entirely new platform.
Internet Video Coming to TV Via New Tivo, How Cool — An announcement is coming out Tuesday from Tivo about the new model that links Internet video to the TV set. Could "convergence" finally be here? Maybe not immediately but, it’s going to happen. The announcement of Tivo and the success of Akimbo means that the million channel TV set will be coming to your living room soon. Believe it!
Veeker, Rodger Raderman, Zune, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft, Tivo
