Muse Channels Queen to Create "We Are The Champions" Part 2

Muse's new song "Survival" was just released -- and has been selected as the official song of the 2012 London Olympics.

Verdict?  Muse scores big, as they channel Queen to create "We Are the Champions" Part 2!

Very British and very bombastic -- just like the original Freddy Mercury number -- and equally operatic.  And, just like the original, certainly not subtle nor shy.  Key lyrics are "Race.  Life is a race.  And I'm gonna win!"

Arrogant?  You bet.  Over-the-top?  Absolutely.

But, every single Olympic athlete -- heck, every single high school athlete on the bus ride to the big game -- will crank this song to "11" both before the big race or game (and after, assuming they do, in fact, win).  (I remember doing that with "We Are the Champions" back in the day" in high school.)

I had my own little race this morning.  I cranked "Survival" 7X back-to-back-to-back on my morning run.

And I felt like a champion ...

Bravo Muse.  Bravo for bringing bombast back to rock and roll ....

The Power of Great Customer Support

Great customer support -- such a simple concept -- yet so few get it right.

Apple is one of those that do -- at least at the retail level.  Today's TechCrunch features a great analysis that shows how Apple commits to hiring in-store specialists at certain constant proportions as compared with its retail traffic.  And, the halo effects of doing so are noteworthy as well, as these specialists have millions of direct customer "touches" each and every day to spread the Apple gospel even further.

Customer support is one of those critical things that we take very seriously at Sorenson Media.  Each and every Sorenson Media customer has direct access to our crack Support team via phone, email, live chat, and forums.  And, trust me, our Support team is comprised of specialists who know our products inside and out -- with a deep understanding of our technology.

A focus on Support is one reason that our company's products have the legacy of trust that we have had for years.

We don't always get it right.  But, we certainly try ...

My Summer Beach House -- We Are GIVERS

We're having an amazing summer in San Diego so far -- blazing sun, beautiful weather.  Two years ago, not so much -- we were summer-less.  180 degree difference.

I've taken advantage of it with "Beach House" -- and we are "Givers."  Two great bands -- "Beach House" and "GIVERS" -- and two great soundtracks for the summer.  

First up -- the band Beach House and its mesmerizing new album "Bloom."  This is great music to chill out by at your, well, beach house (if you are lucky enough to have one or have a friend who has one) (as they say, you never know how many friends you have until you own a beach house -- I saw this stitched into a pillow at a friend's beach house in Del Mar and wasn't sure if they pulled it out for my benefit).  Stand-out tracks from "Bloom" include "Myth," "New Year," and "Lazuli."  As I pointed out in a previous post, you will find yourself pressing repeat ... over ... and over ... and over again.

For something completely different -- and true upbeat beach summer-time music -- check out the brilliant young band GIVERS and their equally brilliant album "In Light."  There is not a mediocre song in the bunch.  Stand-out tracks include, well all of them -- but if I need to choose only 3, check out "Up Up Up" (the album's first single), "Ceiling of Plankton" (second single), and "Atlantic."  I discovered this band at this year's Jazz Fest in New Orleans -- trust me, they are the real deal.

The perfect soundtracks for your upcoming 4th of July holiday.

Is this a digital media post?  Depending on your definition.  Both albums can be streamed on Rhapsody and other streaming services.  And, in any event, my blog's tagline prominently includes my passion for music.  So there it is ....

Cloud Video Transcoding -- Ultimately Rendering Legacy Hardware Dinosaurs Extinct

At the recent GigaOm Structure event, Amazon's CTO Werner Vogels laid out his predictions about where cloud services are going in the next few years.  And, one of his top predictions -- which we absolutely believe here at Sorenson Media -- is that enterprise-focused cloud services will be (and already are) highly disruptive to legacy hardware providers.  Gigaom re-casts this conclusion by writing "old hardware companies will have to fight extinction."

In the words of Vogels, "I do think that unless companies really take a new cloud mindset -- not just a cloud in your offering but really be a partner to your customers instead of a vendor -- and help them drive cost down," enterprise CIOs will look elsewhere.

"Amen" to that as Vogels' conclusion applies to the increasingly important central role played by video transcoding in the accelerating online video ecosystem.  To date, high volume enterprise video transcoding has been dominated by hardware providers who have largely ignored the cloud.  We here at Sorenson Media completely reject this legacy hardware mindset -- and have focused on offering the first real enterprise-grade cloud video transcoding/workflow solutions.  We offer a full portfolio of cloud-based solutions.  And, we absolutely are committed to the "partner"-focused mindset that Vogels emphasizes.

Case in point -- Shutterfly -- the largest memory-sharing service in the U.S.  For over two years now, Sorenson Media has been the full end-to-end video solutions partner for Shutterfly, managing their video service which is seamlessly integrated into the overall Shutterfly customer experience.  Our managed service harnesses the power of the cloud -- has proven to scale -- and delivers optimized video for massive numbers of Shutterfly customers.

We at Sorenson Media believe in continuing to innovate with software-based services, especially cloud-based solutions.  We absolutely believe legacy hardware providers ultimately will be marginalized.  In the words of Vogels, those who ignore the cloud do so at their own peril -- "If dinosaurs aren't changing, well we know what happened to dinosaurs."

Must Attend FREE Encoding/Transcoding Webinar Today

Today, at 2 pm Eastern Time (11 am Pacific), experts from four leading encoding/transcoding companies (including Sorenson Media's very own Randon Morford), will host a FREE webinar titled "Best Practices for Advanced Encoding and Transcoding Techniques."  The webinar is hosted by online video industry pundit Dan Rayburn from Streaming Media (as well as Frost & Sullivan).

The webinar will cover the following topics, among others:

• advances in AVC algorithms
• advanced GOP features in H.264
• live and file-based transcoding workflows and requirements
• different frame types, what they are and what they mean
• how to optimize encoding presets
• optimizing video for the iPad and Apple TV
• what are the hot new formats, who's using them, and what settings do we recommend?
• how to prepare content for Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH)

Register for this free webinar by clicking on this link. 

Video Sharing Is "Hard," Says Instagram -- Sorenson Already Has Solved This Problem

Virtually every day there seems to be yet another new start-up vying to become the "Instagram for video" -- i.e., giving consumers an easy way to store and share mobile-captured vids with families and friends.  The latest entrant is Burst (which just raised $3.5 million to "solve" this problem).  

But, in the words of Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom, video is "hard."  My company, Sorenson Media, know this -- have internalized this -- and have solved these "hard" problems for over a decade.  As just one example, we have powered all video sharing on memory-sharing giant Shutterfly for over two years now.  We already have built and proven out a full consumer-focused mobile, and private (secure) "store and share" eco-system.  This means that start-ups entering this video "store and share" game come to it literally scores of years behind in terms of development experience to solve those "hard" issues.  And, that means that virtually all of these start-ups simply will be overwhelmed and fail.

Video is a very different animal than photo sharing for many reasons -- including both (1) the sheer size of data, and (2) the complexity of doing it "right" (i.e., retaining HD video quality and optimizing video delivery to any device in our multi-screen world).  Speed of sharing (uploading the video, transcoding the video, delivering the video) and doing that all "right"(i.e., not dumbing down the HD video quality) are extremely difficult challenges to solve.  Fast file uploading is essential, as is world-class transcoding.

We have both -- as well as all the other ingredients necessary to make consumer video storing and sharing a drop-dead easy and compelling experience (we were the first video technology behind Apple QuickTime, Macromedia/Adobe Flash, and YouTube after all).  That's why Shutterfly trusts us.  That's why major consumer electronics companies are interested in our consumer-focused private mobile video "store and share" solutions.

And, make no mistake, consumer video sharing will become a massive business -- so long as it is easy and so long as the video looks really, really good ....

Ooyala's New $35 Million Round Underscores Accelerating International Demand for Video Enabling Solutions

Ooyala is one of the leading online video platforms (OVPs).  We here at Sorenson Media know them well.  We respect them.  And, we congratulate them in raising an additional $35 million in funding, which brings Ooyala's total financing to date to an incredible $80 million.

That massive sum rivals the total financing "take" of $100 million by OVP grand-daddy Brightcove (which successfully went public earlier this year and still trades at about a 7X multiple of its trailing 2011 revenues).

Ooyala's latest development -- together with Brightcove's recent IPO -- underscores the critical foundational and increasingly strategic role played by video enabling technology, given the massive growth of online video and an increasingly complex multi-screen video delivery world.  After all, Australian telco giant Telstra led the latest financing for Ooyala (and now enjoys a seat on its board).

As I recently wrote, we too at Sorenson Media have operate our own OVP known as "Sorenson 360." And, it is unlike any other, precisely because it has uniquely expanded capabilities -- primarily its seamless integration with our award-winning video transcoding solutions (Sorenson Squeeze, Squeeze Server -- both in the Cloud and on premise -- as well as hybrid implementations).  Our Sorenson Media "quality" story also is an important differentiator.

To fully understand our differentiated story, click here to read this earlier post "All OVPs Are Not Created Equal").