Veodia Launches Screenjelly for Snackable Screencasts
We knew when enterprise live-casting service Veodia purchased screencasting tool ScreenToaster last month that it was already working on a product based on its acquisition’s technology. Last night, Veodia “quietly” launched Screenjelly (get it? Toast — Jelly?), a sort of snackable screencasting service.

Screenjelly is a browser-based tool that lets users create short recordings of what’s happening on their computer screens and instantly share them via Twitter, Facebook, email and other social media outlets. Veodia CEO Guillaume Cohen wrote via email:
“It differentiates from Screentoaster, which is for producing a tutorial or demo meant to be hosted on a blog or web site. Screenjelly focuses on the communication/sharing aspect, not on the ‘production’ aspect, and its interface is simpler and designed for that. Main use cases are sharing software tips, bugs, or anything on your screen that would take too long to describe via text.”
Our initial tests show that Screenjelly works as promised. I created a simple screencast, and the service automatically created a URL for me to blast out on Twitter. Unfortunately, there’s no embed feature; I can only provide a link to my amazing screencast.
Michael Jackson Funeral Live Streams, By the Numbers
This post has been updated multiple times as new stats have come in.
While it may not have topped the Obama Inauguration, as some expected, viewership for Michael Jackson’s memorial service today was immense. Here are some of the initial stats.
Akamai says via email it had its second-largest day ever of total traffic, after the inauguration. The CDN delivered more than 2,185,000 live and on-demand streams, with more than 2 terabits per second during the service. For the inauguration, Akamai had a peak of 7 million active simultaneous streams, again with more than 2 terabits per second traffic.
Between 12 a.m. and 4 p.m. EDT today, CNN.com had 72 million global page views, 10.8 million unique visitors and 8.9 million live video streams, according to Omniture. The site had 781,000 peak concurrent live streams, according to server logs. Update: New total numbers through 5 p.m. are 81 million page views, 11.8 million unique visitors and 9.7 million live video streams. (By contrast, CNN delivered more than 25 million streams in the 12 hours surrounding the Obama inauguration, with 1.3 million concurrent live streams just before Obama’s address.)
However, people did have a lot to say about Jackson, and early reports are showing significant and possibly record-breaking levels of interaction with live video feeds. Facebook reported 300,000 users logged in through its integration with CNN.com as of 10:30 a.m. (when the service started), with 500,000 status updates total and approximately 6,000 status updates per minute at that time. For the election, the integration had produced 4,000 status updates per minute, with a peak of 8,500 statuses per minute.
UPDATE: More stats are coming in:
Live-Streaming Grief: Saying Goodbye to Michael Jackson
- Editor rating:
Like any memorial service, this one was full of complicated but heartfelt emotion. There were moments that genuinely felt like the best sort of memorial, such as Berry Gordy’s speech, full of recollections about family baseball games and 10-year-old Michael out-Smokey-ing Smokey Robinson. “It was magic,” he said of seeing the Moonwalk for the first time. And Brooke Shields, who was actually a friend, made me tear up when she talked about Jackson laughing.
If you were wondering why this memorial was two hours long, that’s because everyone got a voice — Al Sharpton busted some rhymes before telling Jackson’s children that “there was nothing strange about your daddy; it was strange what your daddy had to deal with.” Queen Latifah acknowledged the 16,000 fans gathered in Staples Center, speaking to them as their representative and reflecting on her first Jackson 5 album purchase before reading an original poem for the occasion written by Maya Angelou. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee reminded us that just because Jackson dealt with many allegations of child abuse during his lifetime, he was innocent until proven guilty — then revealed House Resolution No. 166 to honor Jackson as an American hero. The feed cut to the Jackson brothers, who seemed genuinely moved. That was a nice moment. Read more of this story
Watching the Michael Jackson Funeral Live
10:30 a.m.: The Michael Jackson funeral has begun. Watching CNN.com Live feed with Facebook integration. Facebook reports 6,000 status updates/minute, on a more global scale than what they saw with live Obama Inauguration coverage. CNN doesn’t have audio from the Staples Center, switching to MSNBC.
10:35: MSNBC has Twitter integration — automatically tags posts “#MJ #MSNBC.” Updates are coming in too fast to read. Chris reports seeing a pre-roll on MSNBC as well as Hulu.
10:39: Checked back with CNN, it’s way behind the other feeds. Also the “friends” filter isn’t that effective for me since many of mine are not watching. There should be some sort of semantic filter to bring in friend updates that are actually relevant.
10:43: Here’s a screenshot of my overloaded desktop where you can get an idea of how the different feeds look:
10:45: Man, CNN is not handling all the traffic it’s getting. Keeps stopping up.
Vid-Biz: Pay TV, Streamlogics, OWLE
Study: DTV Switch to Boost Pay TV Subscriptions; analysis from Wells Fargo Securities says cable will get 475,000 new subs, satellite will get 137,000 and telcos will get 41,000. (MediaWeek)
Thomson Reuters Acquires Streamlogics; terms of the deal not disclosed; Streamlogics provides webcasting-based services to enterprise, government and pharmaceutical organizations. (The Business of Online Video)
OWLE Mount Augments iPhone Video; snap-on device provides better grip to reduce camera shake, a bigger lens and an outward-facing microphone. (CrunchGear)
“mememolly” Takes Over Rocketboom News Desk; the “right-handed vegetarian Scorpio” has the tenth most-subscribed YouTube channel in the UK. (Tubefilter)
VH-1 Takes Great Debate to the Masses; show that pits pop culture icons against each other will use out-of-home screens and social media sites to let viewers join in. (MediaWeek)
Roughly 10% of HD TV Owners Don’t Have HD Service; 46.3 percent of homes have HD sets, and 35.9 percent get HD programming. (TV by the Numbers)
Inlet CEO Neal Page Passes Away
Neal Page, CEO and co-founder of Inlet Technologies, passed away last night. Page was 50 and had been fighting Acute Myeloid Leukemia for the last year. We knew Page as a frequent and passionate commenter on NewTeeVee, and his company is at the center of the booming new industry of high-quality live video with its streaming appliances. Following is a statement from Raleigh, N.C.-based Inlet, and you may also want to read a heartfelt personal post from fellow co-founder John Bishop on the company blog and check out Bishop’s LIVESTRONG fundraising page in honor of Page here.
With more than 20 years experience in digital media imaging, Page, 50, was a true pioneer of new media and a recognized leader in the streaming media industry. After founding Inlet in 2003, he helped build the company into a leading provider of new media encoding solutions that quickly became the standard for live streaming over the Internet, especially in the sports arena.
Prior to Inlet, Page founded Osprey Technologies (now a division of ViewCast Corporation) in 1994, where together with strategic partners such as Microsoft and RealNetworks, he established the Osprey brand as the industry’s “de facto” standard for enabling video over the Internet. Previously, Page held various management and engineering positions at Sun Microsystems, General Electric, and Data General.
In a statement, colleague and friend John Bishop, an Inlet co-founder as well as the company’s senior vice president of strategy and business development, said, “Neal truly strived to live each day of his life to the fullest, both on a personal and professional level. He was immensely proud of the team he built at Inlet, and we remain dedicated to fulfilling his vision of bringing technology to the market that fundamentally changes the way people consume media.”
Among his many honors, Page was selected as one of Streaming Media magazine’s 2008 Streaming Media All Stars. He was also dedicated to contributing to the local entrepreneurial and educational communities, having founded and nurtured two successful technology companies in the Raleigh, NC, area, and occasionally guest lecturing at North Carolina State University, his alma mater. Most of all, Page was deeply committed to Inlet’s employees and customers, and developed a strong people-focused culture at the company.
“Neal’s contributions to Inlet, its customers, partners, and employees are countless,” commented Don Bossi, Chairman of Inlet’s Board of Directors and General Partner with Technology Venture Partners. “Neal had a gift for using his humble spirit and strength of character to bring his visions of success to fruition. Under his guidance, Inlet has developed a strong leadership team that has helped grow the company and remains committed to sustaining Neal’s vision of technology leadership and operational excellence well into the future.”
In addition to his mother and sister, Page is survived by his four beloved children, Michelle (23), Robert (21), Stephen (18), and Kevin (11).
Funeral arrangements are pending.
Will Video Replace the Sunday Circular?
The newspaper industry has been battered over recent years, as people migrate their reading online and sites like Craigslist steal classified dollars. Now newspapers may need to defend another revenue stream — the Sunday circular — as Office Depot has decided to take some of the money it spends on the stalwart print ad format and shift it to online video.

Circulars, or free-standing inserts, are the colorful collection of ads stuffed inside the Sunday edition of newspapers. (They’re perfect for lining bird cages.) MediaPost reports that Office Depot, which typically spends “hundreds of millions of dollars” on print circular ads each year, will shift some of that money into an online circular that features video, community and commerce — something a print publication can’t do.
Star Trek’s Uhura to Boss Around Hayden Black’s Cabonauts

Photo Credit: The Bui Brothers
There’s nothing like star power to give a web series some extra pizazz. But what about Star Trek power? That’s what Goodnight Burbank/Abigail’s Teen Diary creator Hayden Black’s got working for him now — Nichelle Nichols, best known as the original Lt. Uhura on Trek, has joined the upcoming sci-fi musical comedy series The Cabonauts as a series regular.
Black secured the 76-year-old actress via Cabonauts casting director Erin Gray, who also runs the Heroes for Hire booking agency. Once he heard that Nichols was a possibility, he had about a day to develop a character that would interest her, and tailored the role of CJ, CEO of Cabonauts Incorporated, to her specifically.
“I didn’t want to write anything remotely stereotypical — or anything that smacked of Star Trek. I wanted to give her something she’d never done before. [CJ's] a very strong female, who comes from a long and powerful line of women CEOs,” Black said via phone.
After the jump, Nichols talks about what attracted her to the project (among her reasons: Hayden Black is a crazy person). Read more of this story
Starcraft Trailer Parody Promotes Warcraft Fan Machinima
To promote the latest installment of Illegal Danish, their popular World of Warcraft machinima series, D.W. Hackleman and his brother Clint came up with a clever conceit: They fully recreated the trailer of the hotly anticipated game Starcraft II with elements of Warcraft. Now instead of a cigar-chomping space Marine donning an armored helmet, the Hacklemans’ version ends with a spunky purple-haired gnome named Dirti G, ready to rock.
Converting Warcraft’s medieval fantasy trappings into Starcraft’s military sci-fi milieu was a painstaking task that Clint estimates took the brothers about 700 hours to complete. At the end, however, they had a machinima appealing to both Warcraft and Starcraft fans. (Both games, not coincidentally, are from Blizzard Entertainment.) That’s likely to attract more viewers to their Danish series, which according to Clint, has already been viewed over 10 million times. (He says the Starcraft II parody, which went online July 4, has already attracted 50,000 views.)
Sponsor Gallery
Recent
GigaOM Network
- Google Chrome OS: Distraction or Opportunity? [jkOnTheRun]
- Should We Force Marriage Between Broadband and Power Cos? [GigaOM]
- AmazingMail’s Web-to-Print Engine for iPhone [TheAppleBlog]
- Create a Free Poll Quickly With ProProfs [WebWorkerDaily]
- Solar Data Needs Standards, Too [Earth2Tech]
- List your LUG or Regional Meetings On Fossevents.org [OStatic]
- Operation Midnight Climax Depicts One of the CIA’s Dirty, Sexy Secrets [NewTeeVee]
© 2009 The GigaOM Network. Marketing consulting by ACS.


