Kaltura’s Blog

The first ever Open Video Conference, co-organized by Open Video Alliance founders Kaltura, PCF, Yale’s ISP, and iCommons, was a great success with over 800 people attending the conference. Thousands more joined us via live video streaming.

Participants included people from different layers of the video industry - technologists, artists, video-makers, as well as industry players interested in the promotion of open source video and its growing market value. I was happy to see the energy and excitement that these diverse people had for online video.

The conference included keynote addresses by Yochai Benkler, Jonathan Zittrain, and Lizz Winstead, the co-founder of Air America Radio and co-creator of the Daily Show.

Conference speakers looked at different aspects of opening video:

How can we support open source and open standards to increase innovation, and freedom from lock-in

How can we ensure broad fair-use rights to facilitate re-use and remix of content, without hurting artists ability to make a living

How to make video more participatory and open in terms of tools that we create

Notable sessions on the technology side included the Mozilla session highlighting the need for Transparency, Shared control, and participation in relation to online video. Mozilla also showcased the native video and Ogg Theora in FF 3.5. Kaltura and the Wikimedia foundation presented the vision for video on Wikipedia, building on Mozilla’s work to add the native video and Ogg Theora in Firefox 3.5. Yochai Benkler provided examples of democratizing media, and the vision for online video that looks like the web and not the television.

Presentations by Internet Video Entrepreneurs: Various panels featured the work of video entrepreneurs including: Mike Hudack, CEO of blip.tv; Avner Ronen, CEO of Boxee; Jennifer Taylor, Flash Product Manager at Adobe; Kaltura’s own Shay David; engineers from Sun Microsystems; and Nikhil Chandhok, Senior Product Manager of YouTube.

Online Video Activism and Politics: Keynote by Amy Goodman, host and Executive Producer of the news program Democracy Now to discuss independent and citizen journalism; panel on the future of public media; panel on transmedia activism, creating a cross-media platform for social issue campaigns; and many other issues.

Fair Use Discussion with Anthony Falzone, the Executive Director of the Fair Use Project at Stanford Law School and Corynne McSherry of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Now that the conference is behind us we’d like to say thanks to the organizing team for their excellent work in producing this event and hope that it provided the spark for a conversation that will continue well beyond the conference.

Videos from the conference are now available at: http://openvideoconference.org/videos/

Kaltura managed to get enough nominations (thanks to you!) and we are now a finalist for the SourceForge Community Choice Awards in the Best Project for Multimedia category.

To win this, we need your votes, so please:

* Click on the banner below
* Enter your email address
* Click “Send My Vote Now!”
* Confirm your vote when you get an email from SourceForge.net – simply click on the link in the email

Thanks!

Thanks @juliettepowell

Technology Review:

http://beta.technologyreview.com/web/22900/page1/

Larry Kless’s Weblog:

http://klessblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/kaltura-and-open-video-alliance-host.html

ReelSEO:

http://www.reelseo.com/open-source-video/10929/

Streaming Media:

http://streamingmedia.com/article.asp?id=11252&page=1&c=31

CNET - The Digitial Home:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10269308-17.html

Wired - underwire:

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/06/open-video-conference-pushes-for-free-ubiquitous-video/

if you’re reading this blog on a regular basis, you’re probably already registered for the world’s first Open Video Conference , but just in case you’re not, here is what you need to know:

Open Video is a broad-based movement of video creators, technologists, academics, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, activists, remixers, and many others. When most folks think of “open,” they think of open source and open codecs. They’re right—but there’s much more to Open Video. Open Video is the growing movement for transparency, interoperability, and further decentralization in online video. These qualities provide more fertile ground for independent producers, bottom-up innovation, and greater protection for free speech online.

YouTube and other online video applications are rightly celebrated for empowering end-users; however, online video lacks some of the essential qualities that make text and images on the web such powerful tools for free speech and technical innovation. Email, blogs, and other staples of the open web rely on ubiquitous and interoperable technologies that have low barriers to entry; they are massively decentralized and resistant to censorship or regulation. Video, meanwhile, relies on centralized distribution and proprietary technologies which can threaten cultural discourse and innovation.

Open Video is about the legal and social norms surrounding online video. It’s the ability to attach the license of your choice to videos you publish. It’s about media consolidation, aggregation, and decentralization. It’s about fair use. In short, it’s about a lot of things, and that’s why this conference is going to be so exciting!

Conference Highlights

• Brings together stakeholders in the online video space (video makers, coders, lawyers, academics, entrepreneurs, etc.) for cross-pollination and development of the Open Video movement.
• Raises the public profile of video creators and artists, especially those whose work relies on or contributes to Open Video.
• Raises public interest and awareness around the Principles of an Open Video Ecosystem, a community effort to define best practices in online video.

Conference Details

• two day event; June 19-20 at NYU Law School with live webcast
• main agenda to feature high-profile speakers and presenters in legal and cultural dimensions of online video.
• secondary programming to include workshops on DIY video creation, publication, etc. (like USC’s 24/7 DIY Conference).
• secondary programming to include open source developer workshops, tech demos, and technical community building.
• compilation of video art reel (remix, collage, etc) and related documentaries for continuous screening (like Stay Free’s Illegal Art exhibit).

The Organizers

The conference is a co produced by Kaltura,  the Participatory Culture Foundation, Yale Information Society Project, , iCommons, and the Open Video Alliance.

You can also read some larger thoughts on the topic from JD Lasica of SocialBrite fame,

and, of course, watch the video:

If, for whatever reason you’re not yet registered, it’s not too late, register now!!! and join 600-700 of the mover and shakers of open video.

1.    Click the badge below
2.    Select the category:  Best Project for Multimedia
3.    Enter your email address
4.    Click Nominate
5.    Confirm your nomination when you get an email from SourceForge.net by simply clicking on the link in the email

Thank you!!

http://opensource-list.com/the-news/47-kaltura-open-source-video-platform

We are so honored that our upcoming Community Edition has been included in this comprehensive list of EXCELLENT open source technologies!

We are super excited to share that this week Kaltura was announced the winner of the “most promising internet startup” award by Microsoft and TheMarker, Israel’s leading economic newspaper, at the publication’s annual COM.Vention event in Tel-Aviv.

This recognition comes on the heels of a slew of other awards and recognition that Kaltura has received since its public launch in late 2007 - including the TechCrunch40 people’s choice award, the Mashable Open Web Award, a Le Web top-30 start-up, and an AlwaysOn top 100 and top global 250 company.  Kaltura was also named one of “Five Online Video Startups to Watch in 2009″ by TV Week’s Daisy Whitney, and “8 most promising Web 3.0 companies” by Esquire Magazine.

Here are a few pictures from the event:

And here is a short clip that shows some of the other great companies that we were up against in the final 10: