Mediafly, Inc.

Mediafly’s Predictions for 2012

Jason Shah — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:49:50 +0000

We at Mediafly have a unique perspective on media consumption. We have straddled consumer- and business-targeted media the entire year, and our conversations with customers and peers have given us a unique perspective on what each kind of customer wants. Looking back, our predictions were fairly accurate, though they were made in private.

This year we’d like to change that. Below are Mediafly’s predictions for 2012.

1.) iPad will continue to dominate as an enterprise sales tool, but Android tablets will finally start making inroads.

Nearly every tablet-adoption-in-the-enterprise story today centers around the iPad. Our own data justifies that; while enterprise talk about wanting to be able to support Android, up through 2011 this hasn’t yet become a priority. We believe that in 2012 this will start to change, as Android’s latest Ice Cream Sandwich operating system and beyond close the ‘sexiness’ gap between Android and iOS.

2.) Sales and executives will continue to be the first recipients of tablet devices.

No surprises here. Mobile staff that interact with customers and decision makers have been, and will continue to be, the first to receive these devices within every organization.

2a.) These recipients will continue to carry around their laptops until they get a more robust feature set from their tablets.

While tablets today are fantastic for email, media consumption and gaming, their web browsers are mediocre and their enterprise app support is in its infancy. As enterprise software and service makers continue to evolve their products for tablets, the PC will become less necessary. But outside of a few key markets and their leading vendors (CRM: Salesforce, Presentation creation: Keynote, Business Media Presentation: Mediafly), we will not see the true migration in 2012.

3.) IT departments increasingly turn to vendor-supported solutions for enterprise apps.

For IT staff that typically work on backend systems, building an iPhone app is shiny and new. However, for IT managers with mandates of migrating to vendor-supported solutions, building an iPhone app in-house goes against the mandate and can be very costly. We expect to see internal IT groups increasingly migrate to vendor-supported app solutions for critical business functions over the course of 2012.

4.) IT departments continue to migrate to cloud-based solutions, as costs continue to drop, functionality continues to grow, and service providers continue to mature.

Cloud computing functionality and reliability are still raw, but improving steadily. 2011 saw some severe outages from nearly every major cloud vendor, against which each of these vendors have honed their architecture to improve. At the same time, each month reveals new features to make migrating to the cloud a little easier. As these outages are mitigated, and as the functionality improves, traditional IT departments will continue the steady migration of data and processing to the cloud.

5.) Live streaming to mobile and TV devices will become more reliable, as Android and BlackBerry finally adopt HTTP Live Streaming (HLS).

Displaying live streaming video to iOS, Roku, and Flash work like a charm. Live streaming to Android is clunky and awkward. We believe that Google will finally fix its broken implementation of HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) in Ice Cream Sandwich or its successor, and finally enable the hundreds of millions of Android devices to seamlessly play live streaming video.

6.) While HTML5 will make further inroads in the web and on TV devices, native apps will continue to dominate on mobile (iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7).

Lots of talk has been made around HTML5 and how it will revolutionize cross-device development. Unfortunately, we are many years away from HTML5 apps providing as seamless a user experience as a native application. User interaction is less responsive, cross-device UI is inconsistent, support for advanced UI and CSS features is mixed, and other issues exist. While progress will be made towards HTML5 surpassing native as the platform of choice, 2012 will not be the year of the tipping point.

An important update about OnAir

Jason Shah — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 15:00:07 +0000

Dear OnAir user,

Since 2006, Mediafly has maintained OnAir, Mediafly’s podcast management system, as a free service. Millions of users worldwide have used OnAir on over 20 different device platforms. Mediafly has grown as a company with the tremendous help and support of users like you.

In late 2009, Mediafly began serving enterprise customers using the same technology that we built to power OnAir. Since then we have received tremendously positive response from Fortune 500 companies looking for business media delivery solutions such as sales enablement, video review-and-approve, and corporate communications. In addition, smaller customers looking to distribute native apps have flocked to our Broadcaster product.

As a growing business with limited resources, we have decided that we must focus our time and energy on our enterprise customers. Effective March 31, 2012, Mediafly will be shutting down OnAir and OnAir-related apps. We at Mediafly are excited by our growth and success, yet also saddened by the need to make this decision. Like many of you, OnAir has become one of our primary ways of listening to and watching various programs.

Over the next three months, we will be releasing a way to download your existing subscriptions into an OPML format which can be imported into any number of Podcatchers (iTunes, Doggcatcher, PodTrapper, etc.). Stay tuned to the Mediafly Forum for more information on this transition.

We are going to miss providing this service to you, as well as using it ourselves. Thank you for your years of support!

The Mediafly Team

Mediafly Industries

Jason Shah — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 22:40:23 +0000

Mediafly serves customers across a variety of industries. Often, these customers use the same Mediafly solution, but have vastly different challenges. To better help customers and prospects understand what we can do for them, we are introducing Mediafly Industries, a section of our web presences devoted to how Mediafly’s solutions help customers in specific industries. We launch with our first industry today, Education. Please stay tuned for future Industries as they become available.

Introducing the Mediafly HTML5 Player

Jason Shah — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 21:46:09 +0000

We are proud to announce the availability of the Mediafly HTML5 Player. After months of development, we have opened the Mediafly HTML5 Player as a “beta” application for users of our OnAir podcast aggregation platform.

HTML5 is an important technology. It has the potential to dramatically simplify video playback, improve web application user interfaces, and increase online/offline synchronization for apps. We are not only seeing an increasing number of websites support HTML5 extensions, but also seeing embedded HTML5 applications running as native applications in mobile and connected TV devices.

However, video over HTML5 remains complicated. Codecs, browser support, device support, bitrate switching, security, Flash fallback, navigation+playback, and many other decisions fall in the way of a smooth, seamless experience.

Mediafly’s HTML5 Player streamlines all of these decisions and makes the implementation as simple as embedding a few lines of code and checking a few boxes. The HTML5 Player includes numerous features found on other Mediafly apps:

A fully branded Web Player (Flash with fallback to HTML5) that can be embedded into your pages with no more than 10 lines of pre-defined code.
Authentication. We offer multiple formats of authentication for your apps: single password, username/password, username/password/PIN
Security. Our token-based technology ensures that only our Mediafly-built web players will have access to your content.
Live streaming events. Want to host a live streaming event through your Web Player? With Mediafly, you can do so easily.
User-level analytics. Identify strong and weak videos, and learn more about how your users experience your media.

Try the Mediafly HTML5 Player out today with ACME Anvil, our demonstration company, or with Mediafly OnAir, our podcast aggregation service.

No surprises here: consumers hate video buffering

Jason Shah — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:00:10 +0000

With millions of users using Mediafly products to watch video on their smartphones, tablets, PCs and connected TVs, we understand what makes them happy. We know that a clean, compelling interface that gets out of the way of great content and high-quality video is the key to a viewer’s heart. Throw up confusing, outlandish interfaces, poor quality video, or poor quality content, and you stand a strong chance to lose engagement.

So, it comes as no surprise to us to see the conclusions presented in the Infographic produced by Conviva, as covered by NewTeeVee’s Janko Roettgers: people really hate buffering.

Of particular note is the lower left conclusion. In translation: “Viewers who experience a single video start-up failure return 54% less.” That’s a massive impact if your video is not delivered perfectly.

We are experts at removing buffering with HLS and RTMP, and our media apps have won awards. Contact us to learn more how we can help your business and see a demo.

Mediafly powers SmartTV, 24×7 linear channels for consumers

cconant — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:13:01 +0000

Entertainment Studios (ES) is the largest independent producer and distributor of first-run, syndicated television programming for broadcast television stations. Founded in 1993 by stand-up comedian Byron Allen, Entertainment Studios owns six 24-hour HD networks today (Cars.TV, Pets.TV, Recipe.TV, Comedy.TV, MyDestination.TV, and ES.TV), with many more on the way. The Television division produces, distributes, and sells advertising for 18 television programs, making it the largest independent producer/distributor of first-run syndicated television programming for broadcast television stations.

ES approached both Mediafly and our competitor, Nulion, with an ambitious project: create an a-la-carte, smart-device-focused replacement to cable, for ES’s growing line of networks. Mediafly won the bake-off with our broad device support, engineering flexibility, and significantly lower cost, and the partnership began.

In late October, the vision came to fruition. Mediafly and Entertainment Studios are happy to announce the availability of the revolutionary new service, SMARTTV (www.smarttv.com). Through SMARTTV, consumers can watch what they want, wherever they want it, for low monthly fees and without any contracts.

The launch of the service is just the beginning. Entertainment Studios can now create additional networks for their content partners quickly and easily, and add great new content to SMARTTV. Mediafly can enable customers to ramp up their own, branded eCommerce storefront to sell digital content across iPhone, iPad, Android, Amazon, Roku, Boxee, PCs, and other popular devices.

CES 2012: Sell Better with Mediafly

Jason Shah — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 21:37:28 +0000

Are you attending the 2012 International CES?

Last year, more than 140,000 people attended the Consumer Electronics Show. With more than 2,000 vendors clamoring for their attention, how can you rise above the noise, and get your message through to your inundated audience?

Mediafly can help. We make beautiful multimedia apps for iPad, iPhone, Android tablets and phones, Roku and Boxee, that are instantly updated and immediately available no matter what connected device your audience might be using. Business can even stream live video straight from their booths to extend the CES experience to consumers globally.

Imagine walking into a meeting with your customer with just your beautiful iPad or Android tablet and launching your company’s app. You walk through your presentations and mix in video, audio and pictures. When you are done, simply leave behind the presentation in the form of a secure app on your customer’s devices. No more hauling printed material, no more boring presentations.

With the average CES visitor spending less than two minutes at each exhibit, you need a way to connect to your audience – something that both captivates them during their CES visit, and extends their experience of your company far beyond the week in Las Vegas.

Mediafly Broadcaster makes it simple. Load all of your content – promotional and live streaming video, audio, PDFs, images, and more – into our system. They are instantly available with your company’s branding. Withing just weeks, your app is available through the Android Market, Apple App Store, or even set-top boxes like Roku and Boxee. More importantly, Mediafly Broadcaster extends your audience’s experience with your company far beyond the week in Las Vegas.

USD$1,000 per month can get you started today.

For our CES customers, there is more! If you pay for a year of service up-front ($12,000), we will promote your app on Mediafly OnAir, our public podcast site that is used by over 2 million users, for free!

Hurry, because this offer expires November 30, 2011!

Contact Mediafly today!

YouTube for the Enterprise

Jason Shah — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 21:52:30 +0000

YouTube is for consumers

Google’s YouTube has made online video ubiquitous – on the web, on your phone, on your TV, and more. It is a wonderful, free service… for the right user. YouTube is built for the consumer. Videos that line up with your interests are right next to videos of cats playing pianos. Even if you are one of the largest brands on YouTube, your brand is substandard to YouTube itself:

Private limitations

“But I don’t care about public video. All I want to do is show private video.”
If you want to show private video, welcome to the Land of Limitations. Per YouTube:

Private means that only specific YouTube users that you choose can view the video, and they must be signed in to YouTube. You may only send a private video to 50 users.

Not very useful for a brand trying to either establish itself publicly, or trying to distribute video privately, huh?

Offline unfriendly

Stepping onto a plane, underground, into the middle of a commercial or industrial building, or deep into a hospital with your mobile device? You are out of luck, my friend. YouTube does not support offline playback, in any form. You won’t be able to access training material, show your
product’s marketing videos, or touch your video content in any way.

No documents

YouTube and the like are great for video. Try to layer in documents (PDFs, HTML, images, etc.), and you are left to your own devices. Put a mixed-format marketing pitch together, and you will be cobbling together screencasts and creating videos that start at single pages, a very sub-optimal experience.

Mediafly can help

With Mediafly’s “Apps as a Managed Service”™ philosophy, we create branded Flash Players, web pages and presence, and media apps for you and your brand. We manage the submission process for you. We include access to our full-featured Publisher service. We offer content security with username/password access, either through our system or tied back to your own. We encrypt your content on our servers, in transit, and on your device.

If you are looking to get started quickly and at low cost, read more about Mediafly Broadcaster. Or, dive into our solutions to see what’s right for you.

Welcome to the new Mediafly.com!

Jason Shah — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:14:29 +0000

Welcome to the new www.mediafly.com!

We have spent the last several months picking designing, redesigning, picking apart, and reassembling the best parts of the old www.mediafly.com. What we are left with is a brand new website with a wonderful capacity to grow.
If you have any feedback, please be sure to tell us.

Thanks,
The Mediafly Team

P.S. Here is a screenshot of the old website.

HTML5 is not a video panacea

Jason Shah — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 22:05:08 +0000

We receive a lot of questions from customers about HTML5. Most people who deal with video regularly in their business have heard that HTML5 supports a simple tag. Simply drop that tag into your page, and you’ve got a full-fledged video player, ready to go and able to be played on every modern web browser out there.

Well, that’s not quite the case. The tag, and HTML5 as a whole, was created by standards committee. And, just like every standards committee, multiple political and organizational forces push development of those standards in many directions. Video in the browser is particularly subject to this: many popular video and audio codecs are patent-encumbered, and many of the major players who create browsers are patent holders.

The net effect is that HTML5′s tag has a very confusing set of supported video and audio codecs. The following table is adapted from excellent Dive Into HTML5 by Mark Pilgrim

Video codec support in today’s browsers
Codecs/container	IE	Firefox	Safari	Chrome	Opera	iPhone	Android
Theora video, Vorbis audio, Ogg container	-	3.5+	*	5.0+	10.5+	-	-
H.264 video, AAC audio, MP4 container	-	-	3.0+	5.0–? **	-	3.0+	2.0+
WebM video/audio/container	-	4.0+	*	6.0+	10.6+	-	-
* Safari will play anything that QuickTime can play. QuickTime comes pre-installed with H.264/AAC/MP4 support. Extending QuickTime to support Theora and WebM requires users install plugins, which few are likely to do.
** Google Chrome will soon drop support for H.264.

Clearly, this is a complicated landscape that will require another 5-10 years to clear up and standardize. Furthermore, HTML5 has limited to no support for what an even basic native or Flash-based player will get you:

Events that fire on active (play, pause, etc.) and passive (video complete) events
Ability to determine location in video file for bookmarking and experience tracking
Adaptive bitrate switching (outside of, perhaps, HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) on Safari and iPhone)