Veodia: Lifecasting with more cowbell
A preview of the latest entry into the 'vlog your life live' market.
It seems like the current Web 2.0 boomtown (figuratively speaking) is in broadcast tools that allow you to bring your self-programmability a few steps above the YouTube + 20-dollar webcam norm. We've seen Kyte.tv recently, which allows you to create your own live vlogging stream--a phenomenon that certainly got a boost from the popularity of Justin.tv. I recently heard about another emerging player in the business, Veodia, which appears to be catering to a slightly more highbrow breed of video blogger.
Veodia promises that it'll allow you to create professional-quality video in "one click," eliminating the process of capturing, encoding, uploading, streaming, and the like. As a result, you can broadcast it live or opt to serve it up on-demand. You can instantly create an RSS feed to syndicate to a podcast download service like iTunes. You're also allowed to retain control and ownership rights to the videos you create--and the company assures it won't downgrade the quality as many "consumer" video-sharing sites do.
Right now, it's in a limited beta and appears to be free of charge, though something like this (in the manner of Adobe Lightroom) will almost certainly become pricey once it's in its full version.
Additionally, Veodia is primarily banking on use by professional clients, as evidenced by its recently-announced involvement with the developer network for online conferencing service WebEx's WebEx Connect platform. But when I spoke briefly with company representatives, they stressed that Veodia is also relevant to "professional" bloggers and video podcasters. (Which means it's a little too high-end for your cat videos.)
The beta version of Veodia is still limited: you can only have 100 simultaneous viewers, for example, and there are bandwidth and storage caps. Broadcasters need to be running Internet Explorer on Windows XP, though apparently Mac and Vista compatibility is in the works. This MacBook user, as a result, is shut out. Any video bloggers out there want to take the beta for a spin? I'd be curious to know what the actual process is like.