Volomedia's Blog

Mark Sheridan Joins VoloMedia as Senior Director Business Development

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:21:42 -0800

Hi Everyone! Welcome back from the long weekend! We hope everyone enjoyed the extra day off as much as we did!

We are starting September off with some great news. We are very excited that Mark Sheridan has joined us as our Senior Director of Business Development. In this capacity, Mark will be focused on developing opportunities with content publishers and strategic distribution partnerships.

Mark brings over a decade of business development experience in the digital media, content management, search and collaboration industries. Mark is joining us from Olive Software, a leader in digital publishing solutions for media companies, where he was Vice President of Business Development. Previously, he was Director, Strategic Accounts, for Autonomy Software Group (a leader in enterprise search). Mark has also held executive business development positions at EMC Enterprise Software Group, Documentum and eRoom Technology. He is a graduate of Harvard University.

Mark is a proven dealmaker who is passionate about his work. His is energetic and knowledgeable about the downloadable media and emerging markets. More importantly, he is an all around good guy. We are so glad that Mark is now a part of our team. Please join me in welcoming him to the VoloMedia family.

-Jen

Happy 10th year anniversary, Akamai!

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:24:14 -0800

We just came back from the beautiful city of Boston where Akamai's first Global Customer Conference took place. As one of the sponsors of the event, we were very pleased on many fronts. The conference was extremely valuable to us as we engaged with the right people and attended some very insightful sessions and inspiring keynotes. It was exciting to discover potential synergies amongst other partners and sponsors, and share visions with industry leaders from Media & Entertainment, Commerce, and Global Enterprises.

This Conference coincided with an Akamai landmark - 10 year anniversary. To take a look back at the events that have shaped the Internet and Akamai's place in this revolution, please click here.

The VoloMedia Team congratulates Akamai on this business milestone, and we leave you with the spectacular view of the Boston harbor taken during the Akamai hosted cruise.

Cheers,

Jeff and Mirjana

Busy Summer at VoloMedia

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:09:03 -0800

Hi Everyone,

It's August and we know a lot of folks are taking time out, but we are busy, busy, busy! In fact, we will be at two different events taking place on opposite coasts this month. This week, our founder, Murgesh Navar, will be speaking on a panel at Digital Hollywood's Building Blocks conference at the San Jose Marriott. His session is on Wednesday, August 6th, at 9AM and is titled "The Broadband and Social Media Platform The Web: The All-Media, All-Consuming Phenomenon." Later this month, we will be at the Akamai Global Customer Conference in Boston from August 18th to 20th . If you're around, please come and check us out.

Also, a big thanks to NewTeeVee for having us at their Pier Screenings and to those who stopped by to enjoy popcorn, beer, and videos with us! We had a great time and are looking forward to NewTeeVee Live in November.

Jen and Reed

Take Flight #2

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:17:06 -0800

Jim Cox and Michael Fry, the two cartoonists behind the Over the Hedge comic strip and subsequent Dreamworks feature, are on a mission: bring print cartoons into the digital age. It was from this idea that RingTales was born.

In February of 2007, RingTales was awarded the exclusive license to the New Yorker magazine's library of cartoons. The guys transformed the iconic one-frame cartoons into 20-second animated video clips, while managing to maintain their original vibe.

The New Yorker Animated Cartoons were a hit, making the charts on iTunes and getting featured on newyorker.com.

More recently, RingTales really hit the jackpot with the release of an animated version of Scott Adams' comic strip, Dilbert [iT]. Fans of the office park denizen and his dog, Dogbert, flocked to the web for their daily helping of Dilbert humor and philosophy.

This enthusiasm recently secured RingTales a highly coveted title: the top podcast in iTunes.

And if that's not enough proof of RingTales' iTunes animation dominance, check out the results of a search for "cartoons."

The VoloMedia crew is delighted to have RingTales as part of our network. We're big fans and we look forward to seeing what they come out with next!

Reed

Welcome, Ellen!

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 06:00:00 -0800

Hi everyone! We'd like to introduce you to the newest member of the VoloMedia team: Ellen Farber. Ellen is our new Director of Ad Sales for the East Coast and she will be based in NYC. She comes to us with an impressive background in advertising sales in digital, print, and cross-media network sales. Most recently, she was the National Director of PlanetOut Inc., which attracts over 5 million unique monthly visitors. While at PlanetOut, Ellen brought in and grew the automotive, consumer packaged goods and retail categories into the second and third highest ad sales verticals for the company. In fact, she has created campaigns for some great brands, including Cadillac, Jeep, Saturn, Tylenol PM, Sears,and Chrysler.

Ellen has also held executive sales positions with Disney Adventure Magazine, Prevention Magazine and USA Weekend Magazine where she was awarded "New York Sales Person of the Year" two times and was nominated for the "Gannett Sales Person of the Year."

We are so excited that she is now part of the team. We know that her go-get-them attitude and customer oriented focus will help us grow our ad network and help our publishers monetize their downloadable digital audio and video assets. Welcome, Ellen!

Jen

The New TV Ecosystem - Murgesh's post on Video Insider

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:10:08 -0800

Happy July 1st, everyone! We are very excited here at VoloMedia as our very own founder, Murgesh Navar, had a thought piece published in MediaPost's Video Insider. In this post, Murgesh talks about the New TV Ecosystem that is being created by "screen migrating" consumers who wants to be able to have content deliver to them on every screen from TV to computers to portable devices and the need for publishers to meet this demand by making their content downloadable.

The entire post can be found here: http://blogs.mediapost.com/video_insider/?p=187. Please feel free to check it out and leave any comments you may have. Enjoy!

Jenny

Take Flight #1

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:35:08 -0800

With the VoloMedia network of publishers and advertisers growing larger and more interesting every day, we've decided to put this blog to good use and provide regular updates covering what's going on within the VoloMedia community as well as the downloadable media industry.

This week: The lighter side of politics.

There's no escaping the presidential election. Everywhere we turn, there's some pundit dissecting the latest gaffe, scandal, or opinion poll. Even political junkies must be getting tired of the constant over-serious chatter. How about some comic relief?

PUBLIC RADIO INTERNATIONAL
PRI's [in iTunes] Bite the Ballot [iT] podcast is a series of election-related excerpts from their late daily program, Fair Game [iT]. Listen to Rhodes Scholar-cum-comedienne Faith Salie dole out bite-sized commentary on the absurdity of the system and the media coverage it receives.

SLATE
The Democratic primary is finally over. Whether you're thrilled, disappointed, or indifferent to the outcome, it's nice that the madness has home to and end. If you care to relive to insanity, Slate Magazine's [iT] Slate V Videocast [iT] has you covered. In a piece entitled, "The Democratic Race in Eight Minutes," they take you through the long and complicated history of the democratic primary in--you guessed it--eight minutes. And they do it all in the style of LOST. Also check out Slate's Political Gabfest podcast [iT].

The media community lost a giant last week with the passing of Tim Russert. Tim's goal every Sunday morning with Meet the Press was not to distant from what is often the goal of political satirists: to make sense of the confusing and occasionally absurd political process. This Sunday, colleagues of Tim Russert--from the left, right, and center--gathered for a tribute episode of Meet the Press which is now available for free download [iT]. MSNBC has also put together a page of videos to honor their friend.

Reed

See VoloMedia at TechBiz and Connections

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:28:22 -0800

VoloMedia will be sharing our expertise with conference audiences this week and next.

Jeff Karnes, VP of Products and Marketing, will participate in a panel on "how to make money in broadband media". The discussion takes place this Wednesday, June 18th, at TechBizConnection.

Brian Steel, CEO, will speak at the Connections Digital Living Conference and Showcase. The session is entitled, "New Media and Digital Advertising: A Marriage of Necessity" and is on Wednesday, June 25th.

If you plan to be at either of the events and would like to set up a meeting, send an email to info@volomedia.com.

Reed

News & Info Vertical Press Release & New Website!

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 13:44:51 -0800

We just issued a press release today that talks about our strength in the News and Information vertical and how we are helping these major media companies to monetize their digital video and audio downloads . In addition, to the companies mentioned in the release, we also work with Fox News and Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive. You can check out these customers, as well as others, on our newly launched website at www.volomedia.com/customers.

Speaking of our new website, we've put in quite a bit of work to make it as user friendly as possible so that you can easily find the information you are looking for on VoloMedia. We have added a few new pages, including a Customer page where you can find examples of the leading companies we work with and an Ad Gallery where you can see the latest and greatest campaigns we have going for our customers. Please feel free to browse around. Enjoy!

Jen & Mirjana

See us in NYC at Advertising 2.0

Mon, 19 May 2008 21:49:37 -0800

We will be exhibiting at the upcoming Digital Hollywood Advertising 2.0 event in New York City June 4th and 5th. If you're planning on attending, please stop by and check out our latest products and services. And if you'd like to schedule a meeting with me or Kevin Gianatiempo, our VP of Advertising Sales, please send a note to info@volomedia.com. We look forward to seeing you!

Jeff

Social Media Report

Tue, 06 May 2008 14:29:39 -0800

We just came across a report from Universal McCann diving into social media and its progression. It's a great global view of all the social media platforms and their respective penetration. Podcasts and RSS are highlighted as experiencing tremendous growth; in particular, podcast growth is seen as massive between Waves 2 and 3 (from 21% to 49% world-wide).

Podcasting News offers a good summary.

Jeff

Adobe Media Player

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:24:49 -0800

Just wanted to let everyone know about our support for the recently announced Adobe Media Player. We have been part of their developer and beta program since inception and are very excited about it's direction and vision. In meeting with Deeje and Scott at NAB and getting an in-depth demonstration, we came away impressed with the design and function of AMP.

Jeff

ADM releases new advertising standards and audience measurement guidelines

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 10:35:58 -0800

Standards for advertising in downloadable media will be proposed by the Association for Downloadable Media (ADM) today. With the release of these two proposals, “Downloadable Media Advertising Standards” and “Downloadable Media Audience Measurement Guidelines” one of the important goals behind the founding of the ADM will have been achieved. The ADM standards are intended to help evolve a common language to enable advertisers buying downloadable and portable media.

The downloading and mobile audiences are growing quickly. Arbitron-Edison Media research released this week shows rising Podcast consumption, now reaching 18% of the US population. Consumer habits are changing quickly, and the larger media landscape is being transformed rapidly. This rate of change is only bound to accelerate, as consumers avail themselves of freedoms afforded by the newer technologies. For example, if you own an iPhone (or one of the newer iPods), you are able to load videos onto the iPhone via iTunes, or directly download videos from the Internet and save it on the iPhone for later viewing, or stream videos to the iPhone screen while connected online. These consumption behaviors complement watching video in iTunes, on a larger screen notebook computer. Consumers will use all of these modalities to get the content they want. These consumers are a highly engaged audience, not casual web surfers who happen to trip upon a random link. They are committed to the media they receive, having vested considerable energy, time, bandwidth and storage. For media publishers these are unprecedented times, a great opportunity to carve out a unique niche in the emerging media landscape.

As the downloadable medium grows, so does the challenge for publishers and advertisers. How do you reach these audiences? What ad formats best suit this medium? How do you measure usage and engagement? As traditional TV and radio models become increasingly defunct, it becomes imperative there is a rapid maturing of standards reflecting the emerging mediums. The ADM can help.

Murgesh Navar

Hear2.0 Interview and Online Video Advertising Presentation

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:06:49 -0800

We have an interview and a presentation to share with you!

Recently, Brian, our CEO, was interviewed by Mark Ramsey of Hear2.0. During the course of the interview, Brian and Mark discuss how the radio industry can benefit from monetizing their content in the form of podcasts and how VoloMedia can help content publishers with this. Brian also talks about VoloMedia’s ad insertion and metrics reporting solutions as well as the company’s revenue model. Here is the link to the interview: http://www.hear2.com/2008/04/make-money-from.html

Next, Jeff, our VP of Marketing and Products, presented at a webinar on Online Video Advertising: The Time is Right along with folks from Limelight and Tier 1 Research. The presentation focused on trends in the streaming industry that affect online video advertising and the technology and infrastructure that are enabling all of this to happen. In it, Jeff talks about the narrowing of the traditional distribution window for content, the proliferation of iPod/device ownership that is driving consumer demand for digital media that is portable and VoloMedia’s solutions. Here’s the link to the webinar: http://www.streamingmedia.com/webevents/details.asp?EventID=284

Please register and take a look at either or both. And if you have any questions about building the business of downloadable media, do not hesitate to contact us at info@volomedia.com.

Jenny

Meet us at the NAB!

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:24:09 -0800

VoloMedia will be in Las Vegas for this years NAB show, April 14-17. We have a suite at the Venetian for you to meet the team, learn about our products (including a few sneak peeks of our latest innovations) and see how customers are deploying our advertising, metrics and reporting solutions. If you're interested in setting up a meeting, please send a note to info@volomedia.com. We look forward to seeing you!

Jeff