Posts for 'Wistia'

As more and more companies begin to exploit the power of video for promotion or product support, many individuals who have never managed the process of actually creating a high-quality video are getting a taste for how hard it is. Market7 is a new company that streamlines the collaboration process essential to producing high-quality video. Market7 was born from the frustrations that founder/CEO Seth Kenvin experienced trying to create company and product videos while VP of Strategic Marketing at Big Band Networks. Last week Seth explained to me how Market7 works.

As with other marketing or promotional collateral, at high level, the video production process starts with getting all stakeholders on board with the project, its goals and budget. But once approved, there are myriad production steps such as writing and finalizing the script, shooting and then managing the assets, editing, gathering comments on rough cuts, editing some more, and of course trying to keep the project on schedule. Often these steps are managed by a 3rd party video producer, but they still involve a lot of client interaction. While there are individual products for each of these process steps, Seth believes Market7 is the first all-in-one solution.

Market7 allows the project lead to manage process, including setting up tasks, timelines/deliverables and team member responsibilities. Producers upload video assets and other team members are able to annotate the video with their comments, including on the video itself at specific points. That allows feedback to be highly targeted ("the background is too dark in this scene") and thus more actionable by editors. Market7 is not meant to be an online editor, but rather a collaboration environment that moves a project from script development through to final cut as efficiently as possible. The full product suite is available as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), with pricing based on storage, admin accounts, support level and branding flexibility.

While Seth believes there are lots of different potential customers, he sees the sweet spot in corporate video production, with the videos used for online promotion, trade show support, on-site product demos or internal use. That said, there are a number of agencies using the product, along with an animation studio, infomercial producer and a couple of broadcast and cable TV networks. Market7 is a little bit like Wistia, another early stage company I wrote about recently that's also enhancing collaboration around video production. I'm very intrigued by these kinds of companies that are sprouting up around the video ecosystem. Neither one is likely to become a direct substitute for big budget video productions, but with so many new companies now trying to tap the power of online video, cost-effective yet robust tools like Market7's address real pain points in the market today.

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VideoNuze readers know that I focus mainly on the media industry and how broadband video is creating disruption and opportunity across the value chain. With so much media-related broadband activity it's a constant challenge to maintain a wider lens so as to not miss any of broadband's impact in non-media segments. These can be just as exciting and significant. That's why it was compelling for me to recently have Chris Savage, CEO/co-founder of a local Boston-area early stage company called Wistia, explain their model.

Wistia is all about online video sharing and collaboration for businesses. While collaboration tools have been around for ages, and have become increasingly cheaper (think WebEx, GoToMeeting, etc.), Wistia's difference is that it focuses mainly on video.

The company's assumption is that as the cost of creating quality video has become ridiculously inexpensive and the popularity of watching video online has skyrocketed (by sites like YouTube and others), the environment is now right for businesses to embrace the medium to achieve increased productivity and cost-effectiveness. Given the economic climate and knowledge workers' geographic dispersion, these are no doubt goals for millions of businesses.

Wistia makes it simple for a project manager to set up an account and begin uploading videos which are all automatically converted to Flash. Users are invited as "viewers" or "collaborators" depending on what privileges they're to have: viewing and commenting only or uploading media and inviting others as well. When commenting users have the option of turning on a time-coded option so that when others read their comments they are jumped to that specific point in the video. Wistia also provides a powerful analytics package that tracks actual consumption of the videos, including time spent in specific segments and completion rates.

No surprise, the types of companies and their uses of Wistia vary widely. Chris explained a few: Cirque du Soleil, the circus arts performer, is using it for managers in disparate locations to review audition video when making casting decisions. Tribal DDB, a large ad agency, is using it to share rough cuts of ads with its clients to get immediate feedback. Kiva Systems, a robotics manufacturer is using it to share demonstration videos with prospective customers as part of their sales cycle. And many companies are using it for training distributed workers. When you take a moment to think about all the potential business applications, the list is mind-boggling.

Remarkably, Wistia is still just a 5 person company that has been largely bootstrapped to date. Chris and his co-founder Brendan Schwartz are twenty-something Brown University friends who have built the product by focusing tightly on customer feedback. To be sure, customer acquisition tactics are still a work in progress and pricing models are being tweaked. Currently, basic customers pay as little as $79/mo and heavy users up to $5,000/mo.

Business communications may not be as sexy as the media business, but Wistia is showing that innovative entrepreneurs are finding unexpected and exciting ways for broadband video to create new value.

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