SOMEWHAT FRANK

Mojiti: Add Comments, Captions & Subtitles To Online Videos

The web offers a place for global conversation as anyone can share opinions, thoughts and insight through blogs, online video or comments strings. Annotating the web has been a recent trend as sites like Fleck launched to allow users the ability to add notes to web sites. Wouldn't it be interesting to be able to annotate video on the web in the same way? Mojiti, a privately held US-based company operating out of China, makes it easy for users to add annotations to videos from a number of video sites on the web.

Mojiti works by allowing users to select a video and personalize it with annotations called Spots. There are currently seven different Spot types which include: Text Spots, Subtitle Spots, Speech Bubble Spots, Thought Bubble Spots, Circle Spots, Rectangle Spots, and Image Spots. Certian Spots allow users the ability to add text to the top of the video while others place images into the a video. Users can also create custom Spot Sets which display together in a video. Spots are associated with video time intervals and can be easily navigated through similar to navigating through music tracks in a music player. Once a new video is created Mojiti makes it easy to share by sending a link or embedding it into a web site. Check out embedded video below to see Mojiti in action.

To find out more information about Mojiti check out the Mojiti blog, Mojiti on MySpace or the Mojiti FAQ page.

Bottom-line: Mojiti is an innovative online video product that empowers users to include personalized commentary, opinions and insight in web videos thus further extending the conversations of the web.

TechCrunch In the City

TechCrunch 8, an event celebrating the web 2.0 movement, took its show on the road to New York City this past week (November 16, 2006) and I traveled to be in attendance. AOL supported the event by being one of the many sponsors. AOL also had space at the event to demonstrate AOL Video, SearchVideo and the recently updated dev.aol.com. A small group of AOLers snagged the daily corporate shuttle from Dulles to NY. It was my first trip on the corporate jet and was definitely a memorable one as we maneuvered in front of a nasty line of storms.

We were not the only guests flying in for the event. There were people in from all over the world. I met TECH cocktail co-founder and friend, Eric Olson at the event who flew in from Chicago (though weather delayed him for three hours). Jeff Pulver and Chris Brogan dropped in for awhile. I got a chance to meet Greg Galant the popular voice of the VentureVoice podcast. I even ran into old Tribune colleague Matt Terenzio who was nice enough to bring Mike Arrington a pretty sweet stogy. Digg CEO Jay Aldeson was also in the house but unfortunately, the crowd around him never died down enough to chat.

TechCrunch 8 was held at BED New York, a comfortable but swanky nightclub made famous by its mainstream placement in episodes of the popular sitcom, Sex in the City. BED is usually filled with a number of beds, hence its name, but many of the beds were removed to accommodate the large crowd and lend to comfy conversations about web 2.0. The guys from Fleck flew in from the Netherlands to launch at the event - of course, I signed their white suits. HitTail had decked the place out with balloons and other schwag and demonstrated their publisher metrics system. While Compete showcased its consumer facing metrics offerings and gave out interesting bobble head schwag including a Mike Arrington bobble head – a nice touch. Me.dium showed off an interesting browser sidebar product which I will talk about in more detail soon. Eurekster, a company I have written about previously, was previewing some new features and even had the Somewhat Frank logo in its slide deck. You can see Eurekster in action in the right rail. PartyStrands seemed to feel right at home at a party since its product offering is a SMS controlled collaborative social jukebox. They had had logos flying all over the venue. CozmoTV also explained its personalized TV product. There were a number of other companies as well which are mentioned in this TechCrunch article.

For more details on each of the companies that demonstrated  check out this TC8 wrap-up by Read/Write Web. Valleywag has posted photos and a wrap-up here. Check out public photos from TechCrunch 8.

Bottom-line: TechCrunch 8 united web companies from across the globe to a swanky NYC club to an entertaining evening of mingling and checking out the latest product offerings.

Tagged: techcrunch8, techcrunch 8

Fleck: Add Your Notes To The Web

Fleck has officially launched (November 16, 2006) to allow users to attach post-it like notes to any web site. Fleck is a privately funded company, founded by  Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Patrick de Laive and Arjen Schat. I first heard about Fleck back in March of 2006 as I reached out to Boris and found that they were in stealth mode. Taking a page out of Diddy's book, the Fleck team was at the TechCrunch 8 event at the posh NY nightclub BED dressed in white suits. If you signed one of their suits you were granted a free premium Fleck account.

Fleck introduces a toolbar that overlays the webpage. The toolbar enables users to annonate a web page with notes and expandable bullets. You can then share this page via email or by posting a link to your blog (Fleck is working on integrated with most blog platforms). Fleck also keeps track of annotation metrics and displays them on the site similar to how some social bookmarking sites display the most popular saved links. By saving a Fleck page that has been updated with notes a user can access them again later via a new Fleck URL.  Fleck has a history feature which allows users to revert back to different saved views.

Above  is a screen-shot of a page I annotated while Fleck was in beta. I enjoyed exploring the various features as Fleck has created a product with unique web interactivity.

UPDATE: TechCrunch has also reviewed Fleck.