– thanks for all the hard work Team Castfire!

Google Analytics integration

We recently added the ability to integrate Castfire with your Google Analytics account. Additionally, each account can support multiple Google Analytics IDs to track more granularly.

To track all your data, visit your network’s player configuration page. Enter your Google Analytics ID, and events from Castfire will start showing up in your network.

Important: This player configuration only works with Castfire’s built-in player on the web, and not currently mobile devices. (Stay tuned on that front…)

Universal player

We’re rolling out another feature in beta, this one enables a universal player for your account which will play on any Android, iPhone or computer.

To enable, head to the plugins page (must be an admin) and activate “iframe” for your network.

Old user accounts demise

Some of our customers are using old “global” style user accounts. We’re going to be turning those accounts off next week.

If you need assistance with transitioning off of them, or need help with any of the features we’ve talked about, shoot us an email: support [at] castfire.com.

Today, AOL announced that the company is launching AOL HD, a suite of apps designed to take AOL’s high-quality video content and deliver it in the living room, and we’re excited to announce that their solution utilizes Castfire. Through Castfire’s API, all content appearing in the apps is transcoded appropriately for each platform, and utilizing our feed system, AOL’s apps for Boxee, Roku, Divx and Yahoo!’s connected TV platform pull and display the content on the big screen.

While the web delivery of video is still handled by a variety of OVP’s, Castfire powers all of the AOL HD experiences. Our unique digital asset management, feeds and API’s provide the infrastructure for AOL to develop the living room apps.

This isn’t the first AOL launch utilizing Castfire, earlier this month, AOL launched Play, a music app for both Android and iOS, which also relies solely on the Castfire infrastructure.

Simply add this code to the header of your page, and you’re good to go:

Any questions? Hit up support@castfire.com and we’ll answer them for you, or leave a comment on this post.

More: Castfire Support : Campaign Groups.

We’d love to hear comments on this idea, sound off below.

What are we talking about specifically? Rather than worry about adding branding to videos, instead the team can focus on getting the content and getting it out quickly. AOL built a tool (in less than a day) to upload videos to Castfire. Once the videos are sent to Castfire, our technology automatically adds bumpers to their content, and sends the final result on its merry way to Viddler, where readers catch the embedded video on Engadget’s site.

This quick workflow solution means the Engadget team doesn’t have to have copies of the graphical bumper on any of their machines, nor do they need to know which specific formats need to be delivered to Viddler. And, on top of that, it means Engadget will have access to this content in the future, and will be able to deliver it to any platform, including mobile apps and the like.

It’s another instance where Castfire can power a solution which fits into the content producer’s workflow, rather than the other way around. Happy gadget finding guys!

Of course, given that we’re a video platform which supports delivering to a variety of devices, none of which are cable TV endpoints, the news strikes us exciting. It’s great for us as TV continues to diversify and evolve toward its eventual endpoint with the internet, but we’re not taking a victory lap just yet.

To be sure, we’re going through a pretty tragic time for many— 9.6% unemployment in October, with new statistics scheduled to hit tomorrow. We’re going to say that the 500k people cutting the cord aren’t all doing so because they’ve fallen in love with the Roku yet, but instead they’re looking to skimp on non-essential lifestyle expenditures where possible.

Despite the rough economic outlook, we think some people are getting more accustomed to the idea of constantly available entertainment, not dictated by outdated schedules nor other archaic paradigms. And, luckily for the TV industry, the economic model isn’t completely disintegrating as it did for the record industry thanks to Napster. No, almost quite the contrary. With ventures like ESPN3, TV Everywhere and of course, our clients, traditional radio and TV stations haven’t hid their heads in the sand, but instead have seemingly embraced technology.

That doesn’t mean there still won’t be dramatic shifts, but the shifts are likely to be styled differently. For instance, rather than the distribution mechanic drastically altering the consumption of the medium (Napster), I’m expecting broadcast media to be drastically altered due to the decrease in the cost of content production. A quick look around Vimeo shows that amateur cinematographers could credit card their way into professional-grade DSLR cinematography. In the future, live video production, such as we’re used to with news and sports programming, is not going to be exempt from similar market forces. We could see a massively level playing field where anyone with the right ideas, and the right amount of people, could put on a production that’s as good as anything else we’re seeing on cable.

By then, with more people wanting to distribute more content broadly, folks who’ve already started gathering their audiences will be in a better situation to profit from the impending doom of the cable cord.

What does that mean? Well, there’s the obvious HTML5 benefit of being able to watch a video in a browser without a crash-prone plugin, but even more than that, there’s a huge potential for interacting with videos in ways we haven’t really been able to do before now.

We’ve still got a few years before it’s going to work effectively, and let mere mortals implement their crazy ideas, but just to get started, check out some of the tech demos that the big browser makers are putting on. Let’s start with Apple’s TRON demo, which works in Safari and Chrome. As you can see, users are able to intelligently scale a video, and even add a mask to it.

That’s fun and all, but pedestrian by HTML5 standards. Check out this demo from Mozilla, which works in Chrome and Firefox. It’s actually keying out the green in the browser. That means a real-time green screen in the browser. Pretty impressive stuff.

Lastly, there’s this demo, which uses Javascript to dynamically inject content into a square, which is created by two phones creating “hotspots.” Again, Firefox and Chrome only.

Right now, a lot of internet users can use HTML5, but creating cross-platform solutions isn’t exactly simple, so most content creators are waiting on the sidelines. Keep watching though, because things will continue to become more simple as time goes on.

In experiencing the different plays on “interactive television,” the one thing that I am certain of is that bringing social streams (twitter, flickr, facebook) onto the big screen – especially while watching video with others – is broken. It’s out of place. It distracts from the social experience of television.

As my wife and I watch some of our favorite shows, we each have some sort of computing device open. Perhaps we each have our own laptop open. Or iPad. Or mobile phones [Yeah, our house is sort of crazy like that]. Regardless, each of us is able to interact with a variety of services while we watch the “big screen” together. This is key – my wife would get very frustrated watching my twitter or facebook stream on screen. She would go insane trying to follow my ADHD brain as I bounce through IMDB and Wikipedia trying to track each actor.

If interactive television, however, is to connect my personal device, be it an iPhone, iPad, Android or laptop, together with the programming on screen, than we have a HUGE WINNER. I can follow my own whims while my wife can have her own interactions. However, the social aspect of us watching Glee together remains. We can both sing along. We can laugh. We can pause the video and comment. It is an experience that has been with us for our entire life and is comforting.

A couple of Castfire clients are about to launch products that will incorporate behind the scenes footage and additional video on iPads, iPhones and Android at the same time as it is airing on broadcast. The audience can be fully immersed with not only the broadcast, but can explore additional streams in conjunction. An amazing first step.

The future however, will utilize IP delivery and the processing power of the set top device (or directly in the television) to enable audience members to move content from the “big screen” to their personal device. It will keep “companion” apps in sync with the big screen, pushing relevant information to those who display interest. Want to learn more about that Lexus advertisement? How about being able to open a driving simulator on your own device. Want to purchase that same shirt that the star is wearing? What if the Gap store opened in conjunction on your laptop? Want to find out Tim Lincecum’s stats for pitching to left handed batters? Want to know how your fantasy football league is doing in real time? And on and on and on…

In the near future, the majority of people will carry a touch device with an internet connection. These devices should be leveraged to provide the interactive in interactive television. These devices should be the connection between both the content creators and the advertisers with the audience. These devices will allow us to enjoy the television experience together while connecting to our different circles online.

Television is social; social media is personal. Don’t confuse the two.

Apple far and away has not only helped create this market, but continued to catapult it along. A recent estimate says there are over 50,000 app publishers and over 200,000 apps in the US App Store alone. Apps built on the Android platform are growing, as are Blackberry and Nokia (Symbian). Microsoft is well behind, but it is reportedly offering some developers revenue guarantees even if the new Windows Phone 7 fails. A completely new market for apps are also being built on the growing number of tablet computers that are or will soon be sold. Though the operating systems are the same (iOS and Android), the apps being developed for tablets can be very different than the apps on their phone counterparts, and are often much more media rich.

A huge ecosystem is building around supporting the App development industry. From app developers, to app exchanges, to app aggregators, and of course app stores; many different businesses are popping up to support the app industry. The growth we see continuing to flourish is in that of publishers of informational or entertainment content. Virtually every show or brand that has any kind of content where they need eyeballs will eventually need an app if they are to remain current– and they will need apps across devices. Granted, they may not think they need an app for every single phone or tablet, but any device that has sold millions, they will want to get there. Anything from news to sports to weather to fantasy football to full length shows are available from many of the apps that have been specifically built by the owners of that content. These apps are generally made available for free, and there is a huge competition amongst networks, brands and content owners to get the most downloads for their apps.

The decision of what apps to provide can be extremely difficult, however. For instance, a network like CBS may want to build apps for CBS Corporate, CBS News and CBS Sports separately. They may even want to provide apps for specific shows like Survivor or 60 Minutes– or for categories of shows. And then for each of these decisions, they must decide if they are making apps for all the devices out there. Costs to develop all these apps and publish content to the devices can really add up, and it is important that the content owners have a way to monetize all of their shows published to apps moving forward. The mobile ad industry is still in its infancy and will continue to grow and hopefully flourish over time. A platform like Castfire enables publishers to monetize and analyze consumption of audio and video across all platforms by integrating with any ad server; even if the ad server is set up to work within Flash. Therefore, publishers can continue to use their same ad system and same ad ops they use for the web and monetize their content no matter what apps they decide to develop and publish content. Another host of companies like Transpera are focusing on the mobile ad market and rich media ads, and provide other ways content producers can monetize their apps.

One thing is certain: apps are here to stay, and they will only grow in numbers in the foreseeable future as more and more smart phones and tablets hit the market. Those publishers that create the apps that are easy to find, fun to use, and can advertise there without being intrusive will be the ones that win over this ever growing consumer base that will demand more and more mobile content moving forward.

Unique email addresses

All accounts in the new system are tied to specific email addresses, so any email you use needs to be a valid, working email address. Each new user will receive a confirmation email, at which point they’ll be able to add individual information like their password, phone numbers, and other contact info.

User Classes

We’ve created three new classes of users: Admins, Users and FTP users. Admins have full control over a network and can change all aspects of a network. Users can be restricted by individual content producers, and can have specific rights turned on and off. FTP users can only connect via FTP, and won’t have access to the CMS.

We’ll be phasing out the old network logins over the next week, which means the technical contact for your organization needs to set up user accounts for everyone in your network by the end of October.

If you have questions, send them our way: support@castfire.com

Check that out… it’s the first chance many of us have had to see the Google TV on video. We’ll get you briefly caught up on what people are saying about Logitech’s Revue.

Among the highlights? Check out Nilay’s full impressions at Engadget. He thinks the keyboards are pretty cool, and the web browser works effectively. He notes the Logitech unit has IR blaster ports on the sides, which means the Google TV can control most of your other home theater equipment if it’s placed within range.

It’s not all roses, however. The box itself isn’t cheap. At $300, some, like ZDNET, are declaring the box virtually dead on arrival. And a lot of other people are piling on with the same sentiment.

Then there’s Lance Ulanoff at PC Mag. He’s concerned because the browser really is just a desktop style web browser without the interface. That means if a whole bunch of windows start opening, it’s going to be difficult to close them at all.

Also making its way around the Google TV announcement-scape? Apparently, Sony’s Google TV powered TVs are going to go for $1,300 for the 32-inch flavor, up to $1,900 for the 46-inch set.

Oh, and lastly, Google has opened its official Google TV page. It should give you a starting point if you’re going to get into developing content.

It’s easy to take this new behavior pattern and infer that the day of on-demand is just around the corner. I think a lot of smart folks will take that approach, and there’s some sound logic behind it. Now that consumers are willing to “bookmark” shows and watch them on their schedules, that has to mean internet-enabled TVs will lead a monumental shift away from primetime, right?

It could be the case, but rather than walk down the road that’s likely to get overcrowded and overhyped in the next six months, let me recommend starting with the road less traveled. Think about why people like TV.

Why do I like TV? Curated content, brainless interface. When I show up to my TV, I don’t actively need to search for a topic, find an actor, look by keyword, but instead I can simply show up expecting to be entertained… and guess what? I’m entertained. I simply swap between 3-4 cable networks and I can (usually) find something that catches my fancy. That’s the way it’s been for 50 years. People expect TV to entertain them without asking much from the user.

There are some smart folks taking a look at the passive entertainment experience online. For instance, take a peek at Google Reader Play. It’s a product that takes a bunch of sites online, and tries to serve you up content based on the ones you’re most likely to enjoy. Another fav worth checking out is Upl8.tv. When you show up to the site, it’s simply an old-skool rendered TV with a YouTube embedded player. Rather than leaning into the product, and selecting some category, or searching, instead the site throws a selection of hand curated YouTube videos at you, one after another. The beauty is in the simplicity: Just smash the spacebar when you get bored.

Those are two good examples where someone has ventured outside the lines, but I think content producers can take some adventurous risks without spending a ton of cash. Find a smart web developer, come up with some ways of presenting content that doesn’t look like YouTube, create it in some spare time, and find some users who will give you a shot. Worst case scenario? They don’t like it and you learned something about what people don’t like.

The reward is figuring out a non-traditional experience that users will love, and then being able to share your content in a way that connects with people. It’s not going to be easy, but the only downside is time. Try to carve some out to create a future, and your future self will thank you.

There are six upcoming API key enhancements that fall into two general categories.

1. Unlimited API keys
2. API key names
3. Ability to change an API secret
4. Ability to delete an API key
5. Limit access to specific API methods
6. Limit the access to specific content producers

API key management
API keys will be decoupled from a user login allowing for a network to create unlimited API keys. Separate API keys can be created and assigned to a specific task or third-party. For example, if you are working with a digital agency like Digitaria, an API key can be created and shared with just them.

The API key can also be given a name, such as “Digitaria” and if needed the API secret can be changed or the API key can be deleted easily in the Castfire CMS.

API key access restrictions
Keeping third-party integrations in mind, API keys can be restricted to one or more API methods. For example, if Digitaria only needs details about existing shows, the API key can be limited to the shows.getDetail API method. If later on, the ability to set show tags is required then access to shows.setTags can easily be added in the Castfire CMS.

Restrictions also encompass content producers, allowing for API keys to be restricted to one or more. For example, if Digitaria wants the ability to set foreign keys on all shows in the “News” content producer, an API key can be created that only has access to this content producer and the only the shows.setDetail API method

These upcoming API key enhancements will make API key management easier, give control over access restrictions and allow for more flexibility when integrating Castfire with third-party vendors.

In the last 6 weeks, we have started putting process in place and locking in our use of 3rd party services. Our engineering time is extremely valuable, so maximizing our time working on core functionality is key. On that note, here are some of the key companies that we rely on as we scale sales and account management while keeping our engineers focused on our publishing platform.

Highrise
We had been using Salesforce for almost two years but found that it was overwhelming for our small sales staff. Unfortunately, during setup, we tried to populate it with all of our contacts throughout the years. The result was a database filled with inactive records and poorly categorized. While Salesforce is a very strong SaaS platform, we needed something simpler.

Enter Highrise from 37Signals, which is a very simple CRM for small businesses. The cost savings was not only substantial, but it also allowed for everyone in the company to have access to the data. We have now begun consolidating all of user management, pipeline, and marketing efforts within Highrise. Our goal by the end of the year is to use Highrise to do monthly reviews of not only our pipeline, but also existing accounts. It will aggregate everything from marketing emails, billing, support and more into a single place. Even early into this process, it has increased our productivity and our internal conversations about Castfire.

Zendesk
We have been a Zendesk customer since July, 2008. They have provided a wonderful support system that has grown dramatically over the years. The email workflow for support tickets has been essential for us. With the addition of Randall Bennett, we have begun taking advantage of the knowledge base and forum functionality as well. We are looking forward to utilizing the integration with GoodData to provide reporting on our response times and the types of tickets.

In our goal to consolidate around Highrise, this October, we will be utilizing their webhooks implementation to add tickets to Highrise automatically. Unfortunately, it is not a simple process to integrate immediately, however, it should only take a couple of hours with some creativity.

Freshbooks
Prior to March, 2009, our billing process was a partially automated, fully pain in the ass system. While there is a separate datawarehouse for every client on Castfire, representing all usage of our platform, the actual process of getting invoices out was slow and painful. It involved quite a bit of back and forth over emailed spreadsheets and often incurred delays.

We implemented the Freshbooks API in less than a week, fully automating the monthly process of creating invoices. While we still incur delays on certain months as we QA all of the billing, we have found that Freshbooks is rock solid and is a fabulous invoicing system. It is such a valuable tool for Castfire it is painful to think of the days we did not use Freshbooks.

In October, we will also be integrating our Freshbooks solution with Highrise. While there is not an existing solution, webhooks again to the rescue. This is a huge step in being able to review account status from a single application.

The most difficult aspect of our billing process has been the refinement of our pricing model. While the iteration process has led us to a greatly simplified model that is resonating with customers, it is a nightmare to keep up with the variety of historical models. We are beginning to consolidate all customers to a single model, but it has been a struggle. Simplifying our pricing model not only makes it easier for our customers, it makes it much easier for our operations staff to accurately bill each month.

MailChimp
There are a ton of email marketing companies on the market. As we have been heavy on video and engineering expertise, and admittedly light on marketing expertise, we looked for a solution that was easy, offered tons of functionality and, most importantly, would walk us through the process of managing our newsletter. Mailchimp has provided us all of the functionality in a simple to use interface with fantastic pricing.

As a bonus, their integration with Highrise is great. We are able to gather all of the stats from our email marketing directly into our CRM to provide a single dashboard to review our current and pipeline customers. All of the functionality was enabled in about 10 mouse clicks. Amazing.

Google Apps
This is the basis of it all for the Castfire team. Google has rolled out an amazing suite of tools for our team. I am not sure where we would be if we had to put together Mail, Calendar, IM, Office apps and simple wikis on our own. I can promise you that it would not be as reliable, would not be as complete and would not allow our engineers to focus on our core business. This has been a major win for Castfire.

The ability for web applications to interact through APIs and Webhooks makes life so much easier for start ups. We picked best of breed solutions and connected them, utilizing very little of our engineering time. We are thrilled with what we have put together in the past 6 weeks and look forward to refining this the remainder of the year. Thanks to all of the companies and open technologies that have made this possible.

So curling up with a good book in bed can also include all kinds of extras if and when you want: an audio track of the author reading the prose, movie trailers, videos of book critics or additional explanations, links to related articles, games or contests, or even promotions for book signings or giveaways.  Some might find it sad that we as a society want to merge a good book with mass media, but I find it very exciting.  And I do believe that it will eventually lead to more book sales, can actually spur people to read more by making it a little more fun, and will certainly assist with the dissemination of information.

Devices like the Kindle and Nook do enable some enhanced features to be added to E Books, but the real game changers are the highly successful Apple iPad and all of the new tablets based on the Android platform set to be hitting retailers over the next 12 months.  These devices can really bring all of these other enhancements to life and provide a broadband connection for the ease of serving media elements.

The current trend is for the publishers to develop an app for the enhanced E Book, and the app will be device specific (iPhone, iPad, Galaxy Tab, etc).  Of course this adds to the complexity and cost for publishers.  As more and more of these devices hit the market, decisions will have to be made to determine what apps they will provide and what devices they will support.  Standardization will be difficult as each device will have it’s own specs and SDK.

Enhanced E Book apps can be very large in size as well if a great deal of video or audio is embedded in the app.  The market will trend in the future to try to limit the size of the apps for both magazine and E Book apps.  The hard drives on tablets are not very large and really are not designed to hold vast amounts of data.  Some of the apps for magazines and E Books I have seen recently are over 1GB in size.  Think about it….that means that if I have a 16GB iPad, I could only have 16 books or magazines on it at a time!  It will be imperative that publishers think about this as they are developing their E Book Apps.  Embedding large video or audio files in the apps will not be sustainable over time.  Utilizing a media publishing platform like Castfire can enable these apps to serve media content to the Enhanced E Books and can publish audio or video to the multiple different devices you are targeting. These apps should be designed so that as much data as possible is coming from the cloud so that the file size is minimized.

Publishers really seem to be rushing to develop and nurture the enhanced E Book market right now.  I don’t think anyone knows what they will look like even in the next 12 months, but I know that I’m excited to read, listen and watch them as they rapidly come to market.

Thanks to broadband penetration in the earlier part of this decade, culminating in YouTube’s meteoric rise to pop culture icon status, 21st century web video feels a lot better than the days of Real. That familiarity with web video has led smart business folks to re-evaluate how they could connect with consumers in the living room. And now, we’re seeing next year as the year where bits start making their jump from computer screens and cellphones, and into your living room.

While savvy video creators have heard convergence claims before, 2011 looks to be different. How? I’d argue everyone in the TV ecosystem is watching how the internet will move into the living room, and some companies— primarily hardware manufacturers— are actually doing something about it.

Two startups I’ve personally been watching with great anticipation are Boxee and Roku. While they’re not the only companies in the mix, but the two represent both ends of the scrappy startup spectrum. In my mind, it seems Roku is taking the tactic of the $20 DVD player and applying it to on-demand content. Right now, you can pick one of these svelte boxes up for $70 and get full HD on-demand access. Boxee, on the other hand, is going for the high end of the market, where a higher priced box ($200 – $230) leads to more available content, and an attempt at unlocking a web-style ecosystem for video.

But let’s be frank: It’s going to be difficult for two startups to make a real dent in the living room. Sure, they’re partnering with content providers to push the envelope, but I’m not convinced that alone, these two guys can change the living room.

Lucky for them, they’re going to be able to draft off of the larger companies coming to play. With larger marketing budgets to educate the consumer, we should start to see consumers understanding the need for internet connected TV experiences, and even making the leap to prefer and purchase them.

Among the companies leading the charge? There’s Samsung, who currently is a client of Castfire. The company is working with Yahoo on the connected TV platform, allowing couch sitters to do things like check the weather, stocks and other basic news information. On the internet side of things, Google’s new Google TV project looks to woo some watchers, and since it’ll be running Android, we could see some mobile-focused developers give a crack at the box too. Oh, and there’s some marginally large company called Apple who has the double whammy of a media focused tablet and an updated Apple TV. That could help a little. Just sayin’.

Realistically, we’re in a phase where all of these technologies are going to be in the marketplace, they’re barely going to interoperate, and it’s going to be somewhat of a confusing time to be a content producer. That’s actually a good thing. After the hardware has done its survival of the fittest thing, and we start to see some consumer consensus, content creators will have better access to the living room, in ways they’d never thought of before.

While I’d love to place bets on who’s going to win, realistically nobody actually knows for certain. But even though there’s no clear winner, that’s not a good reason to sit on the sidelines. With all of the companies out there gathering data, trying new ideas, and iterating on the traditional living room experience, we’re going to see more progress than before with understanding how people want (and don’t want) their living room to change. 2011 is the year to sow seeds. Start planting in 2011 so you’ll see a plentiful harvest later on. I’m not saying to invest lots of money in all these technologies, but I do think having a presence on these devices shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg. It might take a content deal or two, but how much would it take for you to know the future?

If you’ve got the resources, be everywhere. If you don’t, at least pick one and start learning. Even though I’m not convinced next year is the breakout year for TV connected to the internet, I do think it’ll be the year that a lot of people experience it for the first time. And for you, that means it’s your chance to innovate and create the market you’ll be playing in for the foreseeable future.

An area that rarely receives consideration is the amount of time and effort that it takes to continuously produce content that adheres to the rules of each syndication method. It is actually quite insane when you think of it.

For instance, on most of the major portals, there are ToS that define what type of content, advertising, and cross promotion that you can include within your content. The method of advertising is quite different between flash playback and distribution on Android, Roku or iTunes; the latter three requiring ads to be stitched into the video file itself. In licensing deals, branding, bumpers and advertising may have to be removed. This list can go on and on.

All of this prior to even transcoding to all the different formats required. Between h.264, h.263, Apple’s http adaptive, ogg and WebM, you may as well hire a good size team just to handle what happens between editing the video and reaching the audience.  The process often does not scale well, leaving Business Development teams frustrated and production staff overwhelmed.

This is a key area in which Castfire shines: complicated syndication strategies. We enable the Business Development team to take chances while the production team can easily manage all of the curve balls. We have an extensive solution for constructing business rules for each of your syndication partners that immediately apply to your entire library. These rules extend far beyond a feed, embed and access control list.

They enable publishers to change bumpbers, branding, ad servers, analytics, players and even CDN’s used for delivery. It enables the Business Development team to experiment with different revenue models without having to hire additional production staff.

Coming up with new ideas for syndication is easy. Scaling the production of them is not.