Ooyala

Forrester's Five Rules to Drive Video Traffic

2009-06-17T00:00:00

Seventy-one percent of those online already watch Internet video; the number of streams consumed should more than double by 2013. Independent users, professional studios and marketers are the forces driving this growth. Forrester Research has identified five best practices that will drive Web traffic to videos. Click here to read their article entitled, “The Five Rules to Drive VideoTraffic”, written by Bobby Tulsiani, Senior Forrester Analyst.

Announcing the Launch of Swift, The Next Generation Player

2009-05-29T00:00:00

Today we're proud to announce the launch of version 2.0 of the Ooyala player, codenamed Swift. It's an exciting time for us as a company and our new player is a big part of our excitement. The Ooyala engineering team has gone to great lengths to ensure that the player is rock-solid, modular, beautiful, and will meet the ambitious and diverse goals of our growing customer base in the years to come.

For the engineers, this product has given us an opportunity to refine our development practices and to sprint forward while steadily increasing the level of quality and robustness of our product. We've come together as a team over these past months, squashing bugs during numerous late nights, vigorously writing code for great new ideas, and breaking up the long hours with intense ping-pong matches.

For our customers, this new modular player platform is already starting to bear fruit. In just a few short weeks, we've been able to develop solutions for exciting new areas in online video at a breakneck pace. The FAQ for Swift has more details, but here are a few examples:

* Live streaming playback
* Seamless integration with Visible Measures
* Support for many new ad networks, including VAST-based ad systems

And there is more to come - much more. We know it's going to be an incredible year in online video for Ooyala and our partners.

The Relay

2009-05-14T00:00:00

We met at Ooyala headquarters early Saturday morning to load up the vans and drive up to Calistoga -- the starting line. Everyone was full of nervous energy. Those of us who had in previous years run The Relay, knew that they had signed up for 24hrs of aches and pains, exhaustion and fun. Those who had never done this, questioned the sanity of those who were returning for more.

Once the starting gun went off, it was 199 miles of non-stop chaos. Each person ran a 3-9 mile leg -- starting in Calistoga – past the Napa Vineyards, through beautiful Marin, across the Golden Gate Bridge, along the streets of San Francisco, down the Bay Area's Peninsula, among the giant Redwoods, next to Santa Cruz, and finishing on the coast in Davenport.

I've competed in a lot of fun races but these long relay events always stand apart from the others. However, this experience was quite unique since it was my first time running on a corporate team. We had a number of runners who had not only never run The Relay, but who had never competed in any kind of race, before. One of the highlights for me occurred at 3:00 am. It was cold, dark and raining and I couldn't see anyone out there on the roads. All of the sudden a van pulled up next to me with a bunch of screaming teammates cheering me on. I couldn't help but smile, just as I am smiling now remembering the moment.

After 36 hours of non-stop racing, we all came together in Davenport to run with - and cheer on - the final runner as he rounded the corner to the finish line. It was great feeling having the whole team running side-by-side for the last few steps.

And if you think the running was hard, the drivers had it harder. A huge thank you goes out to them, as they didn’t get a drop of rest the entire time. Also, thank you to The Relay staff and to all the volunteers who stood out there in the rain telling us where to turn -- and cheering us on in the process. It was great to be able to have this much fun at an event, all the while raising money for Organs R' Us, a nonprofit that promotes the need for organ donations.

You can check out the results, here. I can't wait until next year.

Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs

2009-05-01T00:00:00

We are thrilled and honored at having made BusinessWeek magazine's list of America's Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs of 2009 (under age 30). The publication features our CEO, Bismarck Lepe, who co-founded Ooyala along with Sean Knapp and Belsasar Lepe, in April 2007. In all, twenty companies are featured, including three other startups founded by three fellow ex-Googlers: Cloudera , WeatherBill , Mechanical Zoo (Aardvark).

Click here to read to find out more. There are a lot of exciting things happening in the world of technology.

Ooyala: Coming To You LIVE

2009-04-19T00:00:00

Things move pretty fast here at Ooyala. One day I'm working on putting the finishing touches on video playback in our new player and the next I'm told "let's integrate live streaming." Fast forward two weeks and we have two partners using our player to stream live events this weekend. How did I get from customer request to live product in two weeks? Well, our new player is modular from head to toe. That means integrating live streaming is as simple as building a small module that conforms to our APIs. Everything else -- from analytics to ads to shiny controls -- gets hooked up seamlessly. We're really proud of this and we can't wait to let our customers build their own modules of all kinds very soon. As for live streaming, we're excited to let our customers deploy live streams with the same ease and elegance they've come to expect from Ooyala.

You can check out our new player streaming live video in two places this weekend:

- The 2009 AVP Cross Tour Riverside Open Volleyball Tournament. See the full schedule and watch the competition live on AVP.com.
- The Green Apple Festival -- America's Largest Earth Day Celebration on the National Mall. Watch the speakers and music acts (including The Flaming Lips) live on EarthDayTV.net.

Armani Launches Innovative E-Commerce Experience with Interactive Video

2009-04-08T00:00:00

Emporio Armani is revolutionizing the online shopping experience by leveraging Ooyala's Interactive Video technology on their new interactive site. Viewers can purchase clothing by clicking directly on runway models within the online fashion show. This novel and innovative e-commerce experience promises to increase revenue and demonstrates a new method for monetizing online video content.

Learn more about Interactive Video by emailing us at: ivideo@ooyala.com

New Ooyala Website

2009-04-07T00:00:00

As a User Interface Designer, I am not limited to improving just the user experience of Backlot and the Ooyala player; I also improve the Ooyala website. Recently, the impetus to improve the Ooyala website came from feedback from the Ooyala team, some ooyala.com visitors and data from Google Analytics. Design simplicity is always my goal, so I started off the redesign with the KISS principle in mind - "Keep it Simple, Stupid." So how did I keep it simple? I focused on two core sets of users - the potential customer and the existing customer. Both sets of visitors now have a more seamless user experience at the redesigned Ooyala.com. From the homepage, potential customers can immediately learn what Ooyala does, as well as see the Ooyala player in action on the fun new homepage video. They will also find it easy to learn more about specific products, sign up for a Backlot trial account and contact the Ooyala sales team. For existing customers, there is the quick login to their Backlot accounts from most pages on the website, as well as accessible and easy to find answers to common questions at the Ooyala Support Center. And if there's something a visitor can't find... well now we have our handy new search bar available at the top of every page. How's that for Keeping it Simple? I hope you're enjoying navigating the new Ooyala website and feel free to send feedback to me at wendy@ooyala.com

GamesBeat 2009

2009-03-28T00:00:00

Last Tuesday, VentureBeat put together the inaugural GamesBeat 2009 conference; it was a very comprehensive and exciting day. We at Ooyala are bringing you these videos so you can experience the conference. Check it out.

Coverage on the BBC: Searching for the next Google

2009-03-25T00:00:00

Ooyala Developer Community Update

2009-03-25T00:00:00

There have been a lot of exciting things happening in the Ooyala developer community, lately. Our customers and partners are finding creative and innovative ways to leverage the flexibility of Ooyala’s APIs into the many custom implementations we are seeing in the field.

Content Management Systems (CMS) are a critical component of any video delivery and management platform; we are seeing active integration projects with several commercial CMS systems. We would like to recognize the efforts of Heron Ordoñez. Heron has started an open source project to facilitate the integration of Ooyala with Drupal, a popular open source CMS. More information on this project can be found here.

If you haven't had a chance to see Control Group's implementation of our iVideo API, check out Alex's blog entry.

We can't say enough about the great work coming from Chris Ross, Scott Anderson, and the rest of the Control Group team. I also wanted to give a shout out to David Rowland and his team at EA. EA Games has done an incredible job of customizing the Ooyala player interface. You can check out EA's implementation of our Player API here.

In the next few months we will be launching several services aimed at supporting our developer community. The first to launch will be the Ooyala DevTV channel. DevTV will provide tutorials on working with our APIs -- as well as interviews and discussions with Ooyala's engineering team. DevTV will be part of a larger launch of the Ooyala Developer Network (ODN). Stay tuned for more details.

If you have any suggestions or comments regarding Ooyala's developer resources or the upcoming ODN launch, please drop me a line at jeff@ooyala.com.

Special Promotion for Highwinds' Customers

2009-03-16T00:00:00

We would like to offer 3 months of FREE DELIVERY for all Highwinds' customers that sign up for a Director or Studio Backlot account by March 31st, 2009. To take advantage of this exclusive offer call 877-3-OOYALA to speak to a sales representative or visit our promotions page.

Experience Interactive Video

2009-03-04T00:00:00

Ooyala and Control Group have teamed up to showcase a new way of consuming and interacting with video. By leveraging Ooyala's Interactive Video technology, Control Group has created a customized demo that gives viewers the ability to control and personalize their video experience. Click on objects in the video to discover more information. Search across video content by entering keywords in the demo's left-side search panel. Link to third party APIs like Flickr and YouTube to enable rich sources of information on objects within the video. Use the word-cloud, which spans the top of the demo, to see what objects appear in the video stream. Seek within the video to find objects of interest by first clicking on an object within the word-cloud and then selecting one of the generated thumbnails. This is an early concept, but I hope it gives you an idea for the potential of online media when you start to unlock the information contained within it.

Experience the demo here: Control Group and Ooyala Demo of Interactive Video.

Learn more about Interactive Video by emailing us at: ivideo@ooyala.com.

TechCrunch Cloud Computing Roundtable

2009-03-02T00:00:00

"This is the biggest shift in computing in two decades."- Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com

If you want to learn about one of the most exciting, emerging trends in technology, check out our videos from "Whose Cloud is It Anyway", a roundtable discussion on Cloud Computing hosted by TechCrunch.

Shown in the Ooyala player, the 20 videos feature a lively, roundtable discussion that includes Marc Benioff, CEO, Salesforce.com, Vic Gundotra, VP Engineering, Google, Amitabh Srivastava, Corporate VP, Windows Azure, Lew Tucker, CTO, Cloud Computing, Sun Microsystems, Scott Dietzen, SVP Communications Products, Yahoo, Paul Buchheit, Co-founder, FriendFeed; creator of Gmail, Werner Vogels, CTO Amazon, Mike Schroepfer, VP of Engineering, Facebook, and Gina Bianchini, CEO, Ning.

You can also listen to topics ranging from cloud computing in the consumer space to security in the cloud. Don't miss interviews with folks from Appiro, Ribbit, Liveops, Cloudize, and Incent Align. Our channel also features Ooyala's own Sean Knapp, who shares an overview of how Ooyala leverages cloud computing for our online video publishing and monetization solution. He also addresses the question, "Is enterprise ready for Cloud Computing?"

The cloud computing discussion, led by moderators Steve Gillmor and Erick Schonfeld from TechCrunch, drew a sold out crowd at the Mountain View Microsoft Conference Center and according to TechCrunch, attracted a steady, online audience of ~1500 viewers during most of the event.

Coming Soon to a Site Near You: The Next Generation Video Player

2009-02-06T00:00:00

As someone who has spent two years working at Google to make web search as fast as possible, website speed is something that's completely ingrained in me. A fast site means happier users and more revenue. Thus, one of my big goals as the technical lead of Ooyala's video player is making sure we help make our customers' sites as fast as possible.

The first rule of making a web page fast is to not download what you don't need. The second rule is to only download what you do need when you need it. Most flash players don't follow these rules very well, present company included. They usually take a one-size-fits-all approach - the user downloads a single monolithic package (sometimes split up into a couple files), which includes all the features the player supports. Don't use ads on your site? Too bad, your users download the ads code anyway...

That is, until now. Starting this week, Ooyala is testing our next generation video player, which has a completely modular design. Don't use ads? Great, your users won't download the ads module. Don't need any UI at all? We won't make your users download all of the modules containing pretty chrome they'll never see. Moreover, your users won't download the code for a feature until they need it. For instance, if your video is configured to start playing when the page loads, we'll download the UI modules after the video starts playing.

Here's a demo video running in the new player, thanks to one of new customers, Bonnaroo:

Using the numbers from Bismarck's recent post, here's how the latest version stacks up against other players:

YouTube: 113KB
New Ooyala Player(core): 206KB
Brightcove: 225KB
MySpace Player: 244KB
Hulu: 265KB

However, the modularity doesn't end there. Is there an advertising network we don't support that you've been dying to use? Want your own custom branded UI? Want to add a user survey at the end of your videos, or some other feature we don't yet support? In the coming months, we'll be opening up our module api to the world, allowing our customers and partners to write modules that run inside the Ooyala player, with access to the powerful core framework, with all of the relevant events and apis to do just about anything you can dream up.

The awesomeness of the new player doesn't stop there. It comes with a completely new, crisper look and feel that's designed to be easy to customize to fit in nicely with the rest of your site. We've significantly improved our bandwidth detection and adaptive bitrate playback algorithms so that we can deliver higher quality video over the same speed network connection without buffering.

We are currently doing an alpha test of the new player on ooyala.com to work out any last kinks. Kick the tires, and tell us what you think at nuplayer@ooyala.com. In the coming weeks, we'll contact specific customers for a closed beta test. Once we feel confident the new player is solid and ready for prime time, we'll have a general beta testing period where all current customers can try out the new player, make sure there aren't any issues with their site, and switch their traffic over at their convenience. We'll be contacting all of our customers in the coming weeks with the specifics of the beta test and migration plans.

SEO Meetup Recording

2009-01-28T00:00:00

Last week, Vanessa Fox and Nathan Buggia from Jane and Robot led an informative session on the importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). We had a great time hosting the event. Enjoy the recording and keep optimizing!

Jane and Robot SEO Meetup @ Ooyala

2009-01-20T00:00:00

We will be hosting a web development and SEO optimization session at our office this Thursday (1/22) starting at 6 pm. Vanessa Fox and her team at Jane and Robot will be leading the session and will focus on implementing recommended SEO strategies. If you are interested in attending, please RSVP by clicking here.

Good food and drink will be served, so we will see you, here! Don't worry about taking notes, just check back on our blog for a recording of the session.

VaaS: Video Services – What are the Components Required for a Video Solution?

2009-01-14T00:00:00

The growing use of online video, as it rivals written text on the Web in 2009, will lead company CTOs and IT Directors to incorporate online video into their web initiatives. In order to be successful in this effort, they will need to decide whether to “build” or “buy” their online video solutions.

Implementing a simple Flash player is a relatively trivial matter. However, as the need for greater functionality arises (to accommodate scale, workflow, monetization, security, and countless other features), the player’s complexity increases and an enterprise-grade video solution becomes a necessity. A video solution has the following key components: video ingestion, storage, transcoding, player and content delivery. In this post, we’ll discuss some of these key components and points to consider when evaluating your options.

Video Components:

Video ingestion: FTP is a very common way of getting content online. While it requires 3rd party software, it will work for the majority of the population.
Video transcoding: Knowing the input and required output format of a video file is very important. This will dictate the hardware or software needed to transcode the content. There are expensive server-based systems, software and on-demand transcoding solutions available for this purpose. For example, Encoding.com is a new cloud-based encoding company that works well for most video content.
Storage: Amazon S3 and Nirvanix offer on-demand storage solutions in the cloud. Prices start as low as $.12 per gig.
Delivery: If your audience extends beyond friends and family, you may want to consider using a CDN to deliver your content. In a few weeks, Sean Knapp, CTO at Ooyala, will be writing about how to select a CDN provider.
Delivery format: For video that is delivered online, there are four main options: Flash, Windows Media Player, Quicktime and Silverlight. If a file is encoded into H.264, Flash and a soon to be released version of Silverlight, are able to read the file. Of all the available formats, Flash has the greatest reach and adoption.

The components listed above are the bare essentials needed to get started with video, but if your goal is to scale a video site or business, the following should be considered:

Scalable and reliable infrastructure: Building a system that will reliably load a video player and play back videos as the number of users consuming video grows -- is paramount. By utilizing an origin server and CDNs, a handful of front-end servers can serve video to several million concurrent users. One caveat, if complex ad serving or analytics processing is part of your requirements, even a traditional LAMP (Linux Apache Mysql PHP) implementation won’t scale to fit your needs.
CDN: Level 3, Panther, Limelight and Bit Gravity, along with other bandwidth providers, are selling bandwidth at cost these days. By singing up for a large monthly commit, unit pricing will be very attractive. Akamai also offers application acceleration and secure delivery at the edge, which is useful if video is being incorporated into other applications. PoP (Point of Presence) coverage in the region where content will be delivered is very important to ensure high quality delivery and user experience.
Fast-loading player: Tip 1: Use extensive caching Tip 2: Make the player as small as possible. Although Flex is a great framework to build actionscript/Flash-based apps, it will increase player size by 2-3x due to its large number of programming libraries. Although developers often don't like to program in Flash, it will allow for a smaller and faster loading player. A heavier player can increase the overall load time by a couple of seconds. Here are the sizes for some of the more popular players out there.
- YouTube: 113KB
- Ooyala: 190KB (New Player that we’ll be launching in a couple of weeks)
- Brightcove: 225KB
- MySpace Player: 244KB
- Hulu: 265KB
Improving the performance of the video player also has the added benefit of lowering abandonment rates.
Analytics: There are a number of analytics providers like Visible Measures, Divinity Metrics, Streametrics and of course Omniture that provide detailed video statistics. The main use of analytics is to find out where, how and how much content is being consumed. These statistics help to more effectively syndicate to/ monetize an audience.
Monetization: When most people think of monetization, they think of advertising. It is very true that advertising is an important piece of the monetization equation, but there are also subscription and pay-per-view models that should be considered in the revenue maximization equation. For example, Major League Baseball makes several hundred million dollars from subscription-based video services - this is more than YouTube and Hulu's advertising revenues combined. One thing to note is that paid services usually require custom development, and other than pornography and the MLB, there have been few industries/companies that have seen real success with this model. In order to get advertising to work, an ad-server is required. Doubleclick and Atlas are the current leading 3rd party ad-servers, However, the largest providers may not always have the technology needed to best complement your business. Freewheel, a company started by several Doubleclick alums, has done a great job deploying 3rd party ad-serving technology for video sites. They currently power video advertising on Joost.

Now, I am a big believer in the outsourced model for video. In the same way that studios and broadcast networks outsource their transcoding, storage and syndication to third parties, we are starting to see that many video based sites are realizing it is more cost effective to outsource than to build an in-house solution.

Stay tuned for the next installment of our VAAS blog post focusing on video reliability and scalability.

Wishing you the best in ’09.

Industry Webinar - Screen Digest (Arash Amel)

2008-12-17T00:00:00

Last week Arash Amel, Head of Broadband Media at Screen Digest, hosted a webinar on the economics of ad supported online video content. Click here to access the recording. Enjoy and stay tuned for the next one!

Economics of "Free" Webinar

2008-12-08T00:00:00

Join us tomorrow for the next installment in our webinar series as Screen Digest's Senior Analyst, Arash Amel, and our Founders, Bismarck Lepe and Sean Knapp, discuss the economics of ad-supported online video distribution, and the development of Ooyala's VaaS - Video as a Service - terminology.

Date: December 9th, 2008
Time: 8:30am PST/ 11:30am EST/ 4:30pm GMT

Register today!

VaaS - Video as a Service

2008-11-18T00:00:00

A week ago, we visited Ascent Media Group in Burbank, California. Burbank is "the media capital of the world." It is home to Warner Brothers, Disney Studios, NBC and countless other small and large companies that make the "moving picture" industry, possible. During the tour of the Ascent operations, I couldn't help but draw parallels between Ooyala and Ascent. Ascent provides post production services: transcoding, storage, distribution, editing and management services for over 50% of media that is watched on the big-screen and on TV. Ooyala provides similar services, but for online video. The main differences lie in the tangible. When we think of storage, we think of hard drives that can store petabytes of information - when they think of storage, they think of hundreds of thousands of square-feet in warehouse space used to store millions of physical master tapes. Our host mentioned that over 90% of media companies outsource post production services because it is much more economical. This makes sense - at the end of the day, media companies should focus on what they do best, create content.

Outsourcing core transcoding, storage, management, delivery and even monetization services is something that we're starting to see in the digital space, as well. A number of large video destination and sharing sites have decided to outsource 100% of their back-end to not only cut OpEx and CapEx, but to also keep up with the changing trends in online video. Recently, Brightcove took over the management of AOL's video business. Companies like AOL usually see a 50% to 80% reduction in total cost. There are a handful of companies that are already offering these types of services (including Ooyala). In the coming weeks, we will be exploring VaaS (Video as a service) and the things that should be considered when looking for a VaaS provider. We will be covering the following points:

1) Video Services: What are the components required for a video solution.
2) Reliability and Scalability: What your provider needs to do in order for your videos to play every time your users hit play.
3) Delivery and CDNs: When does it make sense to use a CDN? What are other options? What is required for live streaming?
4) Transcoding & Quality: Not all formats are Web friendly. What should you use in order to deliver the best experience to your end-user.
5) Monetization: Ad network, third party ad-servers and sponsorship support.
6) Extensibility: Using VaaS providers to build custom applications.
7) Economics: The economics of build vs. buy.

Keep your eye out for the posts. And if you're interested in receiving these posts via email, sign up for our RSS.

Cynergy and Ooyala Join Forces

2008-11-18T00:00:00

As our Partnership Program continues to grow, we welcome aboard the Interactive Agency Program, Cynergy Systems located in Washington, DC. Cynergy.ME is an application designer and developer that provides Ooyala customers with enterprise class software expertise in Rich Internet Application platforms. On Monday and Tuesday (11/24-25) we have a booth at the Adobe Max show in San Francisco and we look forward to seeing you, there.

Though interactive and creative agencies have built their own systems to support video delivery, monetization and syndication, the pace of innovation has made it difficult for these groups to stay ahead of the game. As such, we are contacted daily by an ever-growing list of organizations that are focusing on their core competencies and choosing to partner with Ooyala to expand their portfolios and increase customer satisfaction. Additionally, Interactive Agencies help Ooyala with custom creations, as we work to meet the development and strategy requests from our customers. If you would like to find out more about how to partner with Ooyala, please contact us at Channel Sales.

Exclusive Promotion for all Brightcove Network Partners

2008-11-17T00:00:00

We would like to invite all Brightcove Network partners to use our system for free through the end of the year. This exclusive promotional offering includes free unlimited video delivery and 5GBs of managed content. Backlot, our video monetization and syndication platform, provides a comprehensive suite of features that help customers build profitable businesses using online video. Visit our promotions page to learn more.

Industry Webinar: Forrester (James McQuivey)

2008-11-01T00:00:00

Last week, we kicked off our webinar series with James McQuivey, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, regarding the impact of online video syndication and monetization.

Enjoy the webinar and stay tuned for future installments.

More Stats Please

2008-10-31T00:00:00

Two new reports just arrived in the Analytics tab: Unique Viewership and External Publishing.

Unique Viewership provides metrics for how many distinct (unique) people watched one of your videos in a given time period. For example, if a user watches your video every day for a week, the Unique Viewership report would show you 7 total plays for your video, but only 1 unique play for that week. You can see these numbers by day, week, or month, and you can compare up to 10 videos in the same report. It's a great way to get a handle on the total size of your audience.

The External Publishing report displays how your content is fairing on external destinations. To enable it, head to the External Publishing tab under Account and set up publishing to YouTube. Once you do that, a new section will appear in the Analytics tab where you can see a daily breakdown of plays. The report looks and behaves much like your trusty Daily Delivery report -- you can see plays across your account or compare up to 10 videos against each other. Now you can manage your YouTube videos and analyze their performance without ever leaving Backlot!

Your Videos, More Places

2008-10-21T00:00:00

Here at Ooyala we spend a lot of time chatting with our customers about their online video strategy. They love Backlot as a platform to manage video on their own sites, but frequently hear that syndicating video to other places on the web is painful and tedious. Well, I'm happy to announce that those days are over with the arrival of our new External Publishing features.

The gist is this: Backlot can now get your video in more places than ever with just a few clicks.

Today we're starting off with five destinations. The first should be no stranger to anyone: the almighty YouTube. Backlot will now handle your YouTube syndication for you -- everything from uploading to automatically synchronizing video metadata. The next set of destinations help you submit your content to video search engines. We've got automatic submission to Yahoo and Blinkx Video Search, as well as automatic generation of Google Video Sitemaps to be used in Google's Webmaster Tools. Lastly, power users, bloggers, and developers will all love our Custom MRSS generator which produces a feed that can be used in countless applications across the web. Head over to the External Publishing tab under Account and take a look!

Keep an eye out for analytics integration with YouTube very soon and even more destinations for your video soon after that.

Compare Videos in Backlot Analytics

2008-10-04T00:00:00

Quick Friday update: Analytics learned a new trick. On the Daily Delivery chart, you can compare multiple videos side-by-side. Select one video to view its stats; if you select another video, it will be added to the same chart. Compare up to 10 videos or channels at once. We're looking to add this capability to more reports soon, so stay tuned!

Now With 800% More Channels!

2008-10-01T00:00:00

We wanted to make it even easier for you to organize and present your videos to your users. We created Channel Sets to do just that. Channel Sets allow you to put multiple channels of your videos in a single unified player. Your users can then browse through the various channels using an easy-to-use tabbed interface. Click on the thumbnail above to see it in action.

To create your own Channel Set, just click on the "New Channel Set" button in the Content tab of Backlot, add some channels, and embed the Channel Set on a web page. You can setup different Channel Set player styles in the Player Branding subtab of the Account tab. We provide two overall color schemes, one for light background pages, and one for dark background pages, which you can customize with your own accent and text colors.

JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge '08

2008-09-20T00:00:00

Photo by Pierre Moreels

New Analytics (with full API), improved Billing, Ad Sets, and Multiple Item Settings -- it's been a busy couple of weeks. For a repeat showing at the JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge, however, Ooyala team members converged from around the world (more on that soon) to nearly double our numbers from last year.

Similar to Alex Holub last year, this week's new hires Keith and Jonathan also stepped up to the challenge with only a few days notice. While we're still waiting for the final results, we can already say it was a fantastic showing and we're well on our way to filling two teams for our next 200 mile relay race.

Something for developers: Analytics API

2008-09-19T00:00:00

The same data that drives Analytics for Backlot is now available to developers via the Analytics API. You can use it to program custom dashboards and integrate Ooyala's powerful analytics data into your own applications.

The API fetches XML data from our servers, with more formats on the way in the coming weeks. You can easily ask for data broken down by day, week or month. Here's a sample of data for a video over the past two days:

<result>
 <video>
   <embedCode>A5bjM6ugP5LWOxnmXxgk6fjJ22Kn36dw</embedCode>
   <day>
     <date>2008-09-18</date>
     <displays>143</displays>
     <uniqueDisplays>122</uniqueDisplays>
     <plays>104</plays>
     <uniquePlays>96</uniquePlays>
     <timeWatched>1.8</timeWatched>
   </day>
   <day>
     <date>2008-09-19</date>
     <displays>185</displays>
     <uniqueDisplays>147</uniqueDisplays>
     <plays>123</plays>
     <uniquePlays>87</uniquePlays>
     <timeWatched>2.2</timeWatched>
   </day>
 </video>
</result>

Beautiful, isn't it? You can access this data by making a simple REST call. The Analytics API Documentation has all of the nitty gritty. Enjoy!

Multiple Item Settings

2008-09-19T00:00:00

At Ooyala, we take our customer's comments and suggestions to heart, so when we started hearing from multiple customers that they wanted a way to apply Syndication Group, Ad Set, Custom Player and Genre to multiple videos or channels at a time, we listened! As the newest member of the UI Design team, I got to work brainstorming how to introduce this feature in Backlot and after many sketches and iterations, I came up with the best possible user experience for bulk application of settings to multiple items. All you have to do is select multiple items in your content library (either by search or simple shift + click multi-select) and the Multiple Item Settings window shows up at the bottom of your screen. Select the Ad Set, Syndication Group, Custom Player and/or Genre you want to apply to the selected items and apply! It's that easy and that's what I'm here for - to make your experience with Backlot simple and intuitive.

Got Ads? Get Ad Sets

2008-09-19T00:00:00

Integrating ads with your video content just became much easier. Today we're introducing Ad Sets, a feature which enables you to quickly roll out new ad campaigns and manage ad placements across all of your content.

An Ad Set defines the placement of ads within a video. You can configure each ad in an Ad Set to play as a pre-roll, post-roll or in stream ad. This works with your own ad content and with ads from third party networks, like DoubleClick and YuMe.

Once created, you can apply an Ad Set to many videos in your account using our new bulk application feature. Now you can tweak your ad placements from one place, and have the changes immediately reflected in every video the Ad Set has been applied to. Awesome. Enjoy!

Updated: I've swapped out the image above for a full video so you can see Ad Sets in action.

Billing Made Easier!

2008-09-16T00:00:00

Here at Ooyala we're always striving to make everybody's online video experience more manageable, and with our new automated billing system we're excited to simplify it even more. Instead of constantly funding accounts with hours and monitoring your usage, the new system will just automatically bill your credit card at the end of every month for the amount of hours delivered and content under management. In case your funds are limited, we've also added the ability to set daily, weekly, and monthly caps on how much is spent for hourly delivery. Now we can all stop worrying about how many hours we have left to deliver and focus on how many hours we want to deliver!

A Taste of TechCrunch50

2008-09-14T00:00:00

Some call TechCrunch50 the "American Idol" of the startup world. I got to experience it first hand this year. Check out some footage from the show above.

Folks you may recognize in the video: Steve Chen, Jason Goldberg & Ashton Kutcher, Sarah Lacy, Marc Benioff, Meghan Asha, Yeongil Mo, Mike McSherry, Jason Beckerman, Jeffrey Wescott, Grant Allen, and Cyril Attia.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game!

2008-09-11T00:00:00

Explaining Baseball to the uninitiated is a lot like teaching Multivariable Calculus to a four year old; It is hard -- possible -- but to be avoided. A couple of weeks back, I found myself doing just that when members of the engineering team asked about America's favorite pastime, the game of Baseball. So why the need for the Baseball primer? Well, on that day, Team Ooyala was doing something very new for an offsite: Watching the SF Giants and Florida Marlins go head-to-head in the AT&T Baseball park. I have to tell you, it sure was a different feeling turning the tables on the engineers. For once I was doing the explaining and they were doing the listening. The already initiated baseball fans, of course, handled the snickering whenever they caught questions like, "But why run home?"

After some Baseball 101, Ooyala's freshly educated baseball experts hopped on a Bauer bus and made their way into San Francisco to sit back, take in a game, and enjoy the company of their colleagues. Who would have guessed that hot dogs, beer and free WiFi could go together so well? I've never seen so many Mac Book Pros at a ball game before! As soon as the action began, however, the laptops were safely stowed away under the bleacher seats. There was cheering, talking and lots of sunscreen. At day's end, we may not all have watched much of the game but that was only because we were having way too much fun enjoying each other's company. Needless to say the ride home was a silent one; sun, food and friends sure wore us out.

PS: The Giants Won!! Go Giants!

Who, What, Where, When, Why? - Analytics Reloaded

2008-09-10T00:00:00

We are thrilled to introduce an enhanced version of Analytics for Backlot. Included in the release are new reporting metrics that will greatly impact your understanding of your audience and how it consumes and interacts with your content. For example, the Domain Distribution report will track the syndication of your videos and report on the viewership contribution of each domain. The Geographical Distribution report will map your audience by country. (Bet you didn’t know your videos were so popular in Belarus.) The Engagement report will allow you to pinpoint the exact moment during which your viewers skip forward or trail off.

Another exciting new feature is the personalized Dashboard. You will be able to generate the reports that matter most and add them to your Dashboard for easy reference and tracking.

If knowledge is power, the new version of Analytics will guide you to make better programming decisions as well as to maximize revenues from partnerships and monetization efforts. Perhaps it’s time to formalize a partnership with the site that’s contributed to the popularity of your videos, or, increase your ad campaign to include viewers in a far off land. Either way, we wish you much success and enjoyment as you utilize Backlot’s enhanced Analytics.

Set Your Time Zone Today!

2008-09-09T00:00:00

Usually our product related blog entries cover some whiz-bang feature which is hot off the presses. But sometimes we make changes to enable those new whiz-bang features. Such is the case with the new account-level Time Zones setting.

By capturing your Time Zone, we can do a better job of presenting data to you. (such as in the Analytics tab)

The first time you log (or logged) into Backlot following our introduction of the Time Zone setting, we automatically set it to our best guess of your Time Zone based on your system settings. But given the number of Time Zones (did you know approximately 460 Time Zones are recognized?) and the complexity of rules governing them, there is a chance we got it wrong. But that is ok, because if we got it wrong (or you just move to a new country), you can set your Time Zone yourself using the Time Zone picker in Account Settings.

Great products are built on top of big and little improvements. We will keep on bringing those big and little improvements to you.

User Management Improved

2008-08-18T00:00:00

Big organizations and small upstarts alike will be happy to hear we've introduced more granular account permissions.

Take a gander at the User Management tab and you'll see four roles: Upload Only, Analytics Only, Manager, and Administrator. Upload Only users are restricted to just that -- uploading and editing the content which they've uploaded themselves. Analytics Only users have full access to the detailed graphs in the analytics tab but cannot touch any content. The Manager role is similar to our previous 'User', having the ability to manage all content, player branding, ads, and so on. Lastly, the Administrator has access to any and all functionality including billing.

Drop us a line at support@ooyala.com if you have any questions.

Brand Your Video - Watermark Today!

2008-07-10T00:00:00

Do you want to include your logo or signature within the video so others know you are providing the content? Do you want audiences to remember your name? Today, we are introducing Watermarks to our player customization offering! This feature enables content owners to brand their content using an uploaded image or logo -- a.k.a., a watermark. You have the flexibility regarding the placement and transparency of the watermark. You will find this feature within Backlot under the "Account Tab." For your convenience, we have also included the recommended size and format to ensure the optimal viewing experience. Get started and Watermark your video today! As always, if you have any questions, please email us at support@ooyala.com.

My Fair Lady

2008-07-04T00:00:00

In 1964, Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics, transformed an unrefined young woman, Eliza Doolittle, into a lady that was presentable in high society. At Ooyala we have been working hard to follow in the footsteps of the professor, as we transform our website into one that is more comprehensive, user friendly and informative.

Today we are happy to launch our new website! As you navigate through the site, you will find information about Backlot features, our customers, and Ooyala itself. Additionally, there is information regarding our new service packages, providing insight into how Ooyala can best complement any business model. Finally, to ensure ease of use, we have augmented our support center, providing detailed information on how to best use Backlot. Check back often for updates.

We hope that you will stay tuned as we continue to revolutionize the online video industry.

Schedule When Your Videos Go on the Air

2008-06-28T00:00:00

Want to schedule a video to air only after it shows on TV? Interested in making a video available starting tomorrow night at 7pm? Our newly added flight time feature enables you to control when a video is available for viewing. Simply change the syndication options for the video in Backlot's Darkroom by specifying a start time and an optional end time for a video. Users who access the video before it's available will see a countdown over the video's preview image. If you have any questions or comments email us at support@ooyala.com.

Interactive Video Comes to Ooyala

2008-06-17T00:00:00

Do you like that Dolce Gabbana bag you saw on Sex and the City? Curious about the stats on your favorite baseball player? Using Ooyala's patented Computer Vision technology, users can now click and interact with objects of interest within the Ooyala Player. This feature rich technology exposes information about the clicked object such as a detailed description of the object or hyperlinks to e-commerce sites. During our beta release, only select backlot accounts will be enabled with our Computer Vision technology. If you are interested in enabling your account please email: ivideo@ooyala.com.

Ad Server Integration Launch!

2008-06-11T00:00:00

We have recently integrated several third-party ad servers with Backlot and our Player, enabling the use of your existing technology and sales force with Ooyala. The first group of servers ready for trial includes DoubleClick, LightningCast, and Google AdSense for Video. If you are currently using one of these systems and would like to explore opportunities available for delivering and monetizing your video, please contact us via ads@ooyala.com.

Player Branding

2008-06-04T00:00:00

Here at Ooyala, we call it our player, and because you're using it as an integral part of your business, you probably know it as your player. Now the latest version of Backlot will let you quickly and easily personalize and distinguish the player as your own.

The Player Branding section of Backlot is now enhanced with greater options. You can change colors and accents, customize your sharing links, and decide what buttons to place on the control bar. It's easy--just a few clicks and you're done. You can even make multiple players to customize each of your different sites, syndication groups or projects. The live-preview feature lets you see the changes as you make them. You aren't committed to anything - you can change and change and then change it yet again, until you are satisfied.

We know customizing the video experience is important and that's why we continue to expand the options and flexibility of the Player API. Consider this the first set of many options on the way. With so many unique partners, everyone can make important player customizations from Backlot. Send us your feedback and let us know what you think should come next. After all, it is your player.

Ad Serving Now Includes In-Stream Ads

2008-06-02T00:00:00

We have enhanced our Video Ad Serving Beta by adding the option to place an ad at any point in a video stream. You can test this feature by selecting "Add at Current Time" from the Add Ad options, then dragging the INSTREAM spot along the Ad Track to place it in the video. Feel free to experiment with multiple placements and configurations. We have a number of additional advertising features that will be added in the near future including support for images, Flash-based overlays, and increased ad management capabilities. Let us know if you have any questions or comments at support@ooyala.com.

Parlez-Vous Français? Español? English? ...

2008-04-28T00:00:00

Se dice que en el mundo existen más de 6.800 idiomas y aunque para mucha gente el inglés sirve como un lenguaje universal la verdad es que la mayor parte del mundo no lo habla. Por esta razón hemos elegido traducir nuestra pantalla de video a varios lenguajes. De esta manera un televidente en la Argentina puede entender la frase “Pantalla Entera” tan fácil como un Australiano entiende “Full Screen” y un Frances entiende “Plein Ecran.” Sin embargo, es interesante notar que dentro del mundo audiovisual existen símbolos, como el triangulo acostado que denomina “Activar,” que se entienden en cualquier lengua. Quizás sea por la popularidad del betamax o el tocadiscos...pero bueno, de todos modos lo que importa es que ahora tu audiencia podrá interactuar con tus videos en su lenguaje natal.

  Por ahora hemos traducido la pantalla al español, italiano, francés, ruso y chino. Si quieres ayudarnos con otros idiomas por favor mándanos un correo a info@ooyala.com.

It is said there are over 6,800 languages worldwide and even though many people think of English as a universal language, the truth is that the majority of the world does not speak it. For this reason we have opted to translate our video player to various languages. This way, a viewer in Argentina can understand the phrase “Pantalla Completa” as easily as an Australian understands “Full Screen” and a Francophone understands “Plein Ecran.” However, it is interesting to note that within the audiovisual world there are symbols, such as the sideways triangle that denotes “Play,” that are globally understood. Perhaps it’s because of the popularity of the Betamax or the record player... Well, in any case, what matters is that now your audience can interact with your videos in their native language.

So far we have translated the player to Spanish, Italian, French, Russian and Chinese. If you would like to help us with other languages, please send us an email at info@ooyala.com.

"The Relay" - An Unforgettable Adventure

2008-04-23T00:00:00

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, an ADVENTURE is "an exciting and/or remarkable experience." Since joining Ooyala about a month ago, life has been nothing shy of an adventure. This past weekend was no exception. Under the Ooyala flag - I participated in an event that was both exciting and remarkable. Accompanied by ten incredible runners and two enthusiastic drivers, we completed "The Relay," a 199 mile race from Calistoga to Santa Cruz for the benefit of Organ Donation. We not only completed the relay, we placed 10th out of 250 teams!!

When first recruiting runners for the team, our co-founders used two words to describe "The Relay" - "Fun" and "Unforgettable". Unforgettable – maybe… But I found it difficult to believe that running for 24+ hours (regardless of the weather) and sleeping (or trying to) in a van with 6 other people could be considered fun. Not knowing what to expect, I felt a combination of anxiety and nervousness as we piled into the vans and headed to Calistoga. All fears were washed away by the excitement of seeing our first runner, Bel, take the lead and disappear around the corner.

The next 24+ hours followed the pattern of running, cheering, resting, and then running again. The encouragement, motivation, and support (and of course the hilarious jokes, notable one liners, random conversations, and image of our very own video guru running up highway nine to get the perfect shot) provided by the team members made this a true team-building event! Not only was the experience fun and unforgettable - it was amazing!

I was the final runner for team Ooyala. And for me, the best moment was right at the final stretch… As I rounded the corner and headed toward the finish line in Santa Cruz, my team – Team Ooyala – was there waiting for me. We merged onto the course for the final couple steps, enabling us to cross the finish line together. It was the perfect end to an unforgettable adventure. Can't wait for the next one!

AWSome Meetup

2008-04-18T00:00:00

It's no secret we use Amazon Web Services extensively to power our architecture. So we jumped at the chance to host the AWSome user group's latest meetup at our brand new headquarters in Mountain View, CA.

The focus was on SimpleDB, Amazon's scalable database service. Three presenters — Sebastian Stadil, Alex Tolley, and our very own Sean Knapp — gave an introduction to the service, and spoke of its relative merits, tradeoffs, and limitations. There was pizza, snacks, bevy's, and no shortage of good technical discussions.

I'd like to thank all 40 or so attendees for putting up with our new-office quirks, and making this meetup a success!

Movin' on Up!

2008-04-13T00:00:00

A year ago, I started hearing the colorful stories about Ooyala's first office space. The server room doubled as sleeping quarters, the tiny sink bubbled over with dishes, and every available surface was covered with tons of snacks containing more sugar and caffeine than I care to mention. Despite all the detail, nothing could have prepared me for the 700 sq feet that made up Ooyala's first office space. Six months later, Ooyala moved into 1300 sq feet, giving us more elbow room. Amazingly, six months later, we were oozing out of the seams, and it was time -- once again -- to move.

When you think about a move, you don't appreciate the various details involved behind the scenes.The process wasn't as simple as going to sleep in one office and waking up in the next, First, you start with the obvious -- finding the space. You feel a bit like Goldilocks... "This one's too big. This one's too small. This one's too expensive. And, that one is just plain ugly." But the fun certainly does not end with finding the right office space. Did you know that new offices don't come fully furnished, carpeted, painted and -- in a word -- done? There were chairs to be bought and returned (and bought and returned), arguments to be won with the deliverymen (over whether the volume of the fridge was in fact greater than that of the elevator), lessons to be learned (like "flexible delivery" is code for "provide your own fork lift and driver"), questions that cropped up (like... "What do you mean this isn't drawn to scale!?!" Lastly, there was the shock and realization that came with finding picnic tables dropped off at the door to be assembled like tinker toys by ... us.

At the end of the day, good humor and hard work took the edge off the frustration - and we had a great time settling in - and reflecting on all that this past year did bring. We now look to upcoming adventures and the excitement that will surely follow.

Yes, the food is better and the sink is bigger, but that fun, quirky spirit that started it all --- that remains the same.

Beta Launches of Ads and The Exchange

2008-03-23T00:00:00

Ooyala is always happy to showcase Beta features in Backlot to provide a view into our plans past what emails or slides may provide. To this end we have recently introduced two new pieces of functionality for users to explore: The Exchange and Video Ads. In the next few weeks the Exchange will be opened for providers to make content available as part of existing syndication controls. See the Exchange portion of the Backlot FAQ for more information. To launch our monetization efforts, we have added basic video pre and post-roll ad functionality on a per-video basis. You can trial this functionality under the ADS subtab for any video in your account. For the beta period we are waving all ad serving costs, so feel free to try different things and feel free to contact ads@ooyala.com if you have any questions or comments.

New Player JavaScript API

2008-01-27T00:00:00

As promised, we now offer a JavaScript API for the Ooyala player. Similar to the ActionScript API, this allows Backlot users to tightly integrate the Ooyala player into the rest of their website. Below I've put together a fun little demo using the new JS API and the video from our team's Bocce Ball offsite.

Guess Who

Correct: 0 Incorrect: 0 Remaining: 0

$8.5mm from Sierra Ventures and Private Investors

2008-01-21T00:00:00

Earlier this month, we closed our Series B round of funding with Sierra Ventures and our initial group of angel investors. We are excited to welcome Mark Fernandes - Managing Director at Sierra - to our Board. Keep an eye out, as we move forward with great things in the coming weeks and months.

Live from NYC - it's Ooyala!

2008-01-20T00:00:00

They say if you can make it in NYC, you can make it anywhere. Last week, we opened our NYC office near 48th and 8th. We're very excited to have a local presence in the big apple. We're looking for a handful of BD folks to staff up this office, so if you want to join us in building out our East Coast team, drop us a line at careers@ooyala.com.

New Player Actionscript API

2008-01-20T00:00:00

Many have expressed a desire to integrate Ooyala within their personal applications. We agreed that giving Backlot this flexibility was a great idea. So... starting today, Backlot users may now embed and directly control the Ooyala player from inside their own Flash applications. This runs the gamut from triggering external events based on video play time to completely reskinning the player. The possibilities are limitless. We look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Also, keep an eye out for our JavaScript API for tighter integration with the rest of your web pages.

New Syndication Controls

2008-01-17T00:00:00

Ooyala has recently enhanced our syndication control options to include geographic restrictions on videos and channels. We have also simplified the Backlot interface to allow the creation of Syndication Groups under the Account tab Syndication Controls area. These groups allow content restriction by combinations of inclusion or exclusion of both domain names and country codes and can be applied on a per-video or per-channel basis. Existing domain restrictions have been automatically migrated to the new group format. Please contact Ooyala Support at support@ooyala.com if you have any questions or concerns.

Play Ball!

2008-01-15T00:00:00

To kick off the new year, we invited some friends and family for some Bocce fun. Have you ever? Bocce ball is a little like bowling and a little like playing pool. It is easy to learn and fun. Spread across two lanes at Campo di Bocce in Los Gatos, our team and extended family got to try it out. To see some bocce play in action, check out the video highlights.

Latest Backlot Notes

2007-12-18T00:00:00

The latest Backlot release includes support for Adobe AIR Beta 3, new Account functionality, and a number of enhancements and bug fixes. Clicking the "Install Now" badge on the Backlot Download page will install the latest releases of Adobe Flash Player, Adobe AIR, and Backlot. The latest player supports H.264, which we will be fully integrated in to Backlot by mid-January. For those of you wondering when Adobe will release AIR as a product, AIR Beta 3 is the final preview before AIR GA which is projected for release sometime in January.

We are beginning to expand the options and controls available in our player, API, and with RSS feeds. In this release, you will find the initial offering of configuration options under the Account tab. There are now five areas under the tab, of which API and Player Branding introduce new controls. Among the list of enhancements is the presence of upload time and date in the content grid, the removal of the pointer while viewing a video in full-screen mode, and the ability to select multiple videos in the channel grid.

Early in the new year, we plan to introduce a variety of new functionality including full H.264 support in the player and Backlot, ad serving capabilities, more granular syndication controls with geographic restriction on viewers, and Omniture integration. Keep visiting our blog for updates as Backlot progresses. Happy Holidays from Ooyala!

Ooyala Wins AWS Start-Up Challenge

2007-12-08T00:00:00

It's official! After a long day of presenting to the AWS Judges Panel, Amazon announced Ooyala as the winner of the AWS Start-Up Challenge.

What a day it was. Among the highlights was meeting all of the competitors and learning the extent to which AWS has enabled other companies - spanning a gamut of industries - to rapidly innovate and scale.

A big thank you to the AWS team for hosting such a great event and of course for providing such a phenomenal set of services with which to build our platform.

AWS Start-Up Challenge

2007-11-22T00:00:00

Since learning about Amazon Web Services nearly a year ago, I am continually impressed and excited by the rate of innovation that AWS enables. Upon founding Ooyala, I quickly migrated from sideline fan to enthusiastic participant -- since day one Ooyala was designed to leverage the capabilities of AWS.

You can imagine how flattered and pleased I was when Ooyala was selected as one of seven finalists in the AWS Start-Up Challenge, a competition in search of "the next hot start-up that is leveraging AWS to build its infrastructure and business."

Later this month Amazon will post videos from each of the finalists at aws.amazon.com/startupchallenge where the public can vote for its favorite contestant. We think we've found yet another excellent use for Mechanical Turk!

Update: On the AWS Start-Up Challenge site you can now view videos for each of the finalists as well as vote for your favorite competitor.

Stream Media West 2007

2007-11-12T00:00:00

I attended Streaming Media West 2007 last week. Our very own Sean Knapp participated on a panel entitled "Evaluating and Choosing the Right Methods of Video Delivery." There were five panelists: Tejpaul Bhatia (moderator), MediaMerx; Bob Leverone, Dow Jones Online; Evan Berg, Brightcove; and David Stubenvoll, Wowza Media. Each gave his perspective and preference on CDNs, P2P, streaming, and progressive download for video. Each offered insight on what is available, as well as and how to choose a method when looking for a video serving solution. Here's a clip of the panel discussion. It's almost as good as the real thing.

Team Ooyala

2007-09-28T00:00:00

Nothing says "team" quite like lining up with your coworkers - in a field with 5,000 other runners - for a lively and windy 3.5 mile run around Crissy Field in San Francisco. With the Golden Gate Bridge in the background - and hurricane-like winds in the foreground - it was a great day for a run. We at Ooyala did just that on Wednesday of last week, when every member of the Ooyala team found him or herself at the 23rd Annual JP Morgan Corporate Chase Challenge.

Five months ago we signed up to run Chase. As each employee came aboard, we repeatedly encouraged participation and soon every member of the team was either running or cheering. In the end, we pulled together to form a mighty and fearless contingent of 18 runners. Of particular note was recent recruit Alex H., who - 10 minutes into his first day - found out that he'd be racing 3.5 miles two days later! He was a great sport as he joined us on the field. Ooyala had a fine showing, and we are proud of all of our runners.

While we may not have won the entire thing (next year!), our men's team placed in the top three and we had a number of great individual performances. You can find team results here and individual results here.

Now, our racing days are by no means over. Tomorrow we'll be traveling into the heart of Palo Alto for a Moonlit 5K run. In the coming weeks, we'll no doubt keep up with the racing - or biking - or any number of activities. So, don't be surprised if you see the colorful Ooyala dots flying down the road!

Ice Cream Strategy

2007-09-23T00:00:00

Since we are continuing to hire top engineering talent, we figured career fairs were a great place to start. Who knew they were a) expensive and b) sometimes such popular events, that even if you registered by the deadline, there was still a very good chance of being waitlisted.

When the Stanford School of Engineering's Fall Alumni Career Fair was held last Tuesday at the Computer History Museum, we couldn't resist stopping by to meet and greet the folks in attendance. Here at Ooyala, we don't just say hello by handing out a branded pencil or pad of paper, we do it the *old-fashioned* way. We incorporate good taste and fun into the activity. On Tuesday, we pulled up in an ice cream truck and handed out fudge pops, big sticks, Neapolitan bars, and all the treats Mom promised would ruin your appetite. As we doled out the ice cream, we chatted, accepted resumes, and watched as people smiled with nostalgic delight.

We're trying it again, soon... from the inside this next time. Look for us on October 9th at the school-wide Stanford Career Fair. We'll be there meeting folks and telling them about Ooyala. Can't tell you what the treat will be on that day, but I will promise you one thing; it will make your mother equally unhappy. That's right - no Brussels sprouts, promise.

Mmmmm. Lunch 2.0.

2007-09-21T00:00:00

Less than 48 hours after speaking at a forum focused on companies using Amazon Web Services, the Ooyala team accepted an invitation to present at Lunch 2.0 @ Adobe, held in San Francisco. We talked about how we've been using Adobe's Flash, Flex, and AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) in our aggressive product development cycles. Though they did have pizza, it was more of an intellectual lunch where creative minds networked and explored some of the most recent technologies built with Adobe products.

The minutes flew by much faster than expected as we discussed Ooyala Backlot, our video content management system, as well as other products in development. Thanks to the mid-lunch presentation by our hosts, we found a few minutes to roam the hallways and learn about other projects also leveraging Adobe technologies. We even managed to grab a slice of pizza as we returned to our table only to find another crowd had formed... we apologize for talking with our mouths full.

This was a great opportunity to not only inform the community about what we are doing here at Ooyala, but meet a number of talented engineers (enter plug here: "We're hiring!") and a number of potential partners looking for online video solutions. All in all, it was an extremely productive afternoon, and we look forward to more "lunches" in the future.

PS - Thank you to the security guard who patiently waited well into "dinner time" as we continued to field questions from interested participants.

Enabling Innovation

2007-09-15T00:00:00

This week the Start-Up Project – Silicon Valley hosted a forum in which I joined the panel of speakers and shared my experiences using Amazon Web Services. AWS is a suite of web services that provides the fundamental building blocks to launch quickly and scale effortlessly. Here at Ooyala, we leverage AWS technologies including Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Simple Storage Service (S3), Simple Queue Service (SQS) and a handful of others.

I have been asked why Ooyala bothers to build on top of an infrastructure not its own. For our team, scalable and reliable infrastructure is merely an enabler, and our efforts are better spent executing on the core components of our vision.

If you are interested in hearing more, please tune in to the footage from my presentation... processing and hosting powered by EC2, S3 and SQS.

I'll take that corner...

2007-09-12T00:00:00

Combine a 30.5" x 52" x 78" 550 pound fridge and a narrow stairwell and you find yourself with a humbling proposition. Having six engineers outside trying to decide if it is mathematically possible to get a fridge that could fit three emperor penguins up the stairwell, is hysterical.

This all came about with the move last week from our old office to a new - and significantly larger - office. In the old office, it was becoming increasingly obvious that 1200 square feet of space was not enough to house our 14 engineers, two finance folks and one marketing person.

There were a lot of things to move - but movers be damned - we decided to move ourselves. No one on the team ever dreamt that when they signed up to work at Ooyala, that the term "many hats" would encompass the schlepping of desks, plumbing, carpentry, interior design and painting. But the team and its extended family dove in to help. Seeing everybody pitch in makes one appreciate the process of building and shaping something new. From my experience, moving meant boxing up my things and having them arrive magically at my desk the following day. This time we were all invested in the move. We chose the decor, we argued about the strategic placement of the Foosball table and drinks fridge and decided that a pink couch was not a fashion faux-pas.

For now, I leave you with a short video of the move.

Oh - and about that fridge. After we realized that we didn't have enough shoelaces to rig a proper pulley system, we asked a handful of professional movers who were in the complex to give us a hand. Sometimes brute force is the fastest means to an end. And yes - we now have enough fridge space to keep the team properly caffeinated.

Artist on Board

2007-08-24T00:00:00

Ooyala. Huh? When I was first introduced to the company a month ago, my reaction was possibly not unlike your own. A unique name – definitely. And once I learned what these guys were setting up shop to do... "unique" didn't even begin to scratch the surface. Ah, yes... an introduction. My name is Kyle, I'm a designer, and I'm the latest addition to the Ooyala team.

There have been some important changes lately – in the look-and-feel category. A week ago we rolled out a new logo. The evolution of the logo - and more importantly - the brand, is really an important step for us as a company.

Keep watching, as in the coming weeks we'll bring more changes to Backlot, our video management system, as well as to our website. I'm excited – and I hope you'll like what we're planning.

Before I sign off, let me finish by telling you my initial visit to Ooyala was great. They invited me to a team dinner at Mango Carribean in Palo Alto and we cruised down University Avenue. It was a lot of fun and it got me excited to get to know everyone. I'm thrilled to be a part of something so groundbreaking - and something that involves such a talented, fun group of people.

Ooyala Backlot Preview

2007-07-25T00:00:00

Today we are announcing the debut of Ooyala Backlot. It's the application I've been building since arriving at Ooyala in early June. As you might guess, I'm quite attached to it, so I hope you like it. Backlot is a smart, fast and intuitive way to manage, edit, tag, upload and share your videos online. I designed this application so our content owners could easily drag and drop files into the system. No instruction necessary! You can also bulk upload videos. My favorite feature is the capability to watch video while it is being processed. Check out the video above. Alexa, one of my coworkers, walks you through the application.

Welcome to Ooyala EDU

2007-07-15T00:00:00

Engaging in intelligent dialogue is very important. We sometimes get so focused on the task at hand - especially when trying to build a company - that we lose focus of the bigger picture. In order to prevent tunnel vision, we've started to invite our friends from academia to participate in the Ooyala speaker series.

Last week Professor Thrasos Pappas from Northwestern University presented his recent research in adaptive image segmentation and object tracking. We listened, questioned and debated a bit. It was an invigorating discussion.

The material was fascinating, and below you can find an excerpt of the talk. If you are interested in seeing the whole thing, please send us your resume; we are always looking for like-minded engineers looking to explore new and innovative topics.

What is it? How do you say it? Oo-what?

2007-06-17T00:00:00

"Ooyala" (ū·yä·lä')

An expression of wild exuberance.
A new tropical-flavored Jelly Belly.
Groove moves hipper than Hyphy.

Try again :-)

We infiltrated the diploma line at Stanford to ask the soon-to-be grads what the word might mean. Their responses blew us away and, at times, made us laugh so hard we could barely keep filming!

Of course, no one nailed down the exact meaning, but one thing did become very clear: "Ooyala" is one of those words, which once said, is never forgotten.

So, if you have a little rhythm - and a touch of style - you'll see that the word can take on a life of its own! Check out the video above to see for yourself.

Kool-aid never goes bad

2007-05-29T00:00:00

We're grateful about the early press we received from the Silicon Valley rags, but figured we would write to clarify a couple of points. Some of our friendly neighborhood bloggers recently mentioned that we were upset with our former employer - the Goog. That couldn't be further from the truth. We feel very fortunate to have been part of such a great force of change -- and now with Ooyala, we hope to create our own magic. We're still making Kool-aid, the only difference is that the flavor is now Ooyala.

Recruiting Trip: Southern California

2007-05-27T00:00:00

The Silicon Valley has been my home for nearly ten years. Between Stanford and Google, I have spent those years basking in ingenuity and intellectual curiosity. While expanding the ooyala team, I've naturally drawn from the abundant talent pool found locally. When resume after resume came in from sunny Southern California, however, it gave rise to a need to talk to - and interview - this obviously brilliant group whose attention we had attracted. Therefore, two of us from the ooyala team will be heading south the weekend of June 2nd to interview engineers who share our passion for technology and video. If you are interested in talking to us, please send your resumé to careers@ooyala.com, and we will see you on the 2nd. Looking forward to it!

Greetings from Ooyaland

2007-05-07T00:00:00

Five weeks ago, a group of us left Google.

Gone are the days of free gourmet food. On-site oil changes, we'll miss you.

We were treated well. We worked with many inspiring individuals. We learned a lot.

But it was time to cut the cord.

Ooyala is our own creation and it is quite a wild baby! As new parents, we've been busy... pulling all-nighters, chugging Guru, assembling furniture, and having meetings with PDPs (People with Deep Pockets). What else? Hiring, hiring, hiring. (engineers)

Things are moving FAST. In a little over a month, we lured over "Alex," set up camp in our office, and secured some funding, (phew!). Next week, we're launching our closed alpha.

Closed Alpha for what--say you?

Please forgive us, but we've got to keep it quiet for now. Our open beta is still a couple of months away and we'd love it if you'd stay in touch. Check back for updates in this space.

If you're interested in becoming part of the Ooyala experience, send us your resumé.