VideoMap(tm) Widget by YourTrumanShow Links Friends and Their Videos Across Facebook, MySpace, and Other Social Networks
Released on: September 25, 2007, 9:32 am
Press Release Author: Adriana Gascoigne
Industry: Internet & Online
Press Release Summary: Debuting at DEMOfall 07, the VideoMapT widget is a smart, embeddable application containing a graphical relationship map that visually represents relationships and video collections across social networking sites.
Press Release Body: DEMOFALL, SAN DIEGO -- Sept. 24, 2007 -- Your Truman Show, Inc., (www.yourtrumanshow.com) the video blogging company, today introduced the VideoMapT Widget, which allows online video producers and fans to share content across popular social networks wherever it resides on the Internet, from inside the embeddable widget.
VideoMapT can be placed and accessed by anyone on the Internet, in Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, YourTrumanShow or any other site. Its unique, key component is a graphical video relationship map, which, according to YourTrumanShow's Founder & Chairman Arturo Artom, "Lets you see who links to you and who you link to as well as the video content you have both collected and may wish to share. VideoMapT let's you go from topic to topic and from life to life."
"With this application, we are adding a new dimension to the way users connect with their friends and browse their friends' content. The graphical interface changes how users interact with social networks in the same way graphical operating systems user interfaces changed our interactions with PCs," Artom said.
VideoMapT lets users open the widget and see themselves in the center of the map, then they can opt from two views. In the first, they are the hub and can see their connections to friends across the Web. In a tray below them, they see their own collection of clips from anywhere on the Internet. When the user clicks on a friend, that friend's collection appears in the tray.
In the second view users are still in the center of the map. This time, however, they see the collections of their friends and the corresponding connections to those collections. When they select a clip that interests them, they then see its owner in the tray below.
In both cases, it's a quick and simple process to add content to a personal collection.
VideoMapT also allows users to search, share and collect videos by topic and by who has viewed a particular video. A sidebar appears which makes suggestions based on the relevant topics followed. This opens the door to one of the company's monetization strategy. For example, if someone follows soccer videos, the special offers for soccer equipment, or tickets to a game will be served up.
Over time, according to Artom, "VideoMapT gets smarter. As the widget gets virally redistributed, it amasses data about users preferences and their networks. This enables us to develop very targeted monetization models."
"The Internet is a great democratizer and YourTrumanShow has created a new dimension to social networking that brings people together around content, not the network," said Chris Shipley, DEMO executive producer. "VideoMapT changes the social ecosystem by making media the filter for discovering new networks of content and friends, creating global neighborhoods that eliminate the boundaries between disparate social networks."
About DEMO Produced by Network World Events and Executive Forums, the semi-annual DEMO conferences focus on emerging technologies and new products, which are hand-selected from across the spectrum of the technology marketplace. The DEMO conferences have earned their reputation for consistently identifying tomorrow\'s cutting-edge technologies, and have served as launch pad events for companies such as Palm, E*Trade, Handspring, and U.S. Robotics, helping them to secure venture funding, establish critical business relationships, and influence early adopters. Each DEMO conference features approximately 70 new companies, products and technologies. For more information, visit www.demo.com.
About Your Truman Show, Inc. With headquarters in San Francisco and a development team in Turin, Italy, Your Truman Show, Inc. is the video blogging company dedicated to helping everyday people tell remarkable stories via video diaries. The company provides a free platform (currently in beta) that enables anyone to create their own personal channel, share their stories and review other people\'s lives. Founded in 2006, by Arturo Artom and Luca Ferrero, the company is privately held.