The 23 Blog

Customer's success stories

teddyfh — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:07:44 +0100

Our very own @steffentchr was one of the speakers at this conference a few weeks ago. A conference focusing on social media in e-commerce, hosted by Social Semantic. Steffen presented a good variety of our customer’s success stories on using video for e-commerce. This stretches from Poul Stig who use other social media to make the most of their videosite, to Unisport who have created their own social community. Other success stories include Kilroy, Aarstiderne, Home and Kongelige Teater. Simply because all of them are innovative video communicators and show us that reinventing with video pays off in the end.

Check out Steffen’s presentation here or watch the video. Enjoy.

Move your feet

teddyfh — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 20:16:10 +0100

As a relatively new member of the 23 family I quite often happen to come across inspiring videos. I’m talking about cases that challenge the communication for and even trigger interaction with the audience. A recent example is Novo Nordisk.

November 14th was this year’s FNs World Diabetes Day and in to generate awareness Novo Nordisk made a video that engaged employees around the world. Their project was simple: Have people film themselves and each other while dancing to “Move your Feet”. And then, with the combination of a smart phone and our Open Upload feature, they collaboratively created an awesome music video stitching together the world. Simple and engaging - online video on it’s best. Check it out:

Lifting 23 Video to new heights

steffentchr — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 12:58:24 +0100

Today, we are bringing 23 Video an across-the-board lift with The Lift Release. The release is dedicated to our customer, The Lift Conference, as they are launching their brand-new videosite with all these new features.

We are lifting up the user experience and your page rankings through sections; video quality is being boosted to Full HD; and 23 Video now comes with support for Apple Airplay, secret links to unpublished videos and easy HTML5 video embedding.

Check out all the new features and find out how the Lift Conference and Mercedes are already using them at: 23video.com/lift.

As always, all features come to all of our customers at no extra charge, and everything in The Lift Release is immediately available.

Team 23

23 Today: Getting ready for workshops

steffentchr — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 16:55:55 +0100

We’re getting ready to invite about 150 people to workshops about video communication in organizations over the next few day. It’s a great occasion to welcome people to our new offices for the first time — but also requires a bit of preparation.

23 Video goes deep into IKEA country to visit new partners Hello Clarice.

steffentchr — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 15:17:05 +0100

http://reinvent.23video.com/video/1074784/hello-clarice
The benefit of being a startup located in the Nordics is that we get to travel around Europe and occasionally drop-in to some of our good friends and partners along the way. This time I was traveling around IKEA country, Karlstad (Sweden) being my destination, to visit our relatively new partners and gracious hosts - Hello Clarice.

Hello Clarice is of a team of seven and specialize in web production and marketing. You can read more about Hello Clarice on their 23 Video partner page or at their website.

As a part of the 23 Partner program, partners have the option for us to come by for a site visit, where one of the 23 team, most likely me, will come out to spend the day introducing and demonstrating 23 Video and doing joint client presentations.

At Hello Clarice the format went something along the lines of:

→ An all hands-on-deck breakfast presentation of 23 Video, where I gave an introduction to 23, out product, our customer cases, along with the development road map, the 100% Human program and future features.

→ A good lunch.

→ Then after lunch Gunnar, Creative Director of Hello Clarice, and I meet with three potential clients - a local TV channel, the regional newspaper and a government agency. The presentation allowed the clients to get a better understanding of how a broad range of organizations are using video in new and innovative way.

If you would like to play host for a visit from 23 and get a good introduction to 23 Video, we would love to come by, so mail me here.

23 Developers Training Programme

steffentchr — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 12:21:19 +0100

One of the biggest challenges in running an ever evolving platform is keeping integrators up to speed with the possibilites they have at hand. Therefore we’ve recently started the 23 Developers Training Programme where our partners’ developers can recieve a thorough introduction into the realms of the platform.

At a recent developer training session we created an extensive slide deck displaying the current and near future state of the platform while also giving an introduction to the platform as an entirety. Feel free to have a look, and please hit us up if you’re interrested in a day of training with us!

TEDxCopenhagen - long live the long tail

steffentchr — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 03:43:05 +0100

The second TEDxCopenhagen took place in central Copenhagen on Tuesday. Great speakers, a great venue and 350 participants with high expectations where in place.

As keen supporters of the TEDx project, 23 Video were on site to help live stream the event and publish the talks on the TEDxCopenhagen videosite.

The live stream almost doubled the number of “participants” at the event - adding a lot of buzz and dialogue on Twitter. People tuning in online missed out on the sushi lunch and great networking, but could still get inspired and enlightened by the talks - and participate through Twitter & Facebook.

See all the videos from the event

Immediately after the event all talks were put on the videosite - and have recieved almost 100.000 minutes of playback time in approx. 24 hours. This is exceeding the engagement time at the physical event itself - and the number keeps growing as the links and embeds are spreading.

Two takeaways:
1) Quick turn around from a live transmission = keeping the buzz alive!
2) Make it easy for people to share your content

[dk] 23 Video oktober update og "The Everywhere Releas

steffentchr — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 18:09:22 +0200

En lille update på hvordan det går hos 23.

180 VIDEOSITES, 12+ MÅNEDER
Det er nu lidt mere end 12 måneder siden at vi lancerede 23 Video i Danmark. Modtagelsen har været overvældende og vi kan nu løfte sløret for at mere end 180 videosites kører på 23 Video. Fra startups, medievirksomheder, nonprofits til globale koncerner. Fra videosektioner på organisationers hjemmesider, dedikerede videosites/webtv-sites, kampagnesites, intranet video tjenester, lukkede sites for udvalgte kundegrupper, videosites med betalingsadgang, produkt/tjeneste innovation ved hjælpe af videosites - vi er dagligt overraskede hvad folk bruger videosites til og hvordan de genopfinder hvordan de kommunikerer med video istedet for tekst. Videosites er vist fremtiden…
Vores markedsandel på videosites i Danmark er nu mere end 75% - på 12 måneder. Tak for at tro på os vores og vores vision for hvordan organisationer kan bruge video.

LANCERING
Efter at have rusket op og forandret det danske online video marked gælder det nu resten af verdenen (vi tror at de også vil se at videosites er fremtiden ;). Vi har de sidste par måneder fløjet jorden tyndt (mange uger med folk i 3-4 lande samtidigt, besynderlig fornemmelse) for at finde globale kunder til lanceringen, finde lokale partnere og briefe analytikere/journalister.
Det arbejde ser nu ud til at lykkes. Vi lancerer derfor 23 Video globalt den 28. oktober 2010 med launch arrangementer i San Francisco, London, Hamburg, Stockholm og København (invitation kommer snart til København arrangement). For eksisterende kunder betyder det at alle sites indbygget i prisen vil have global distribution, så at ens videosite og videoer er så tæt som muligt på slutbrugeren - hvadenten om man sidder i Buenos Aires, Los Angeles, Barcelona eller Taiwan.
Hvis du kender nogen globalt der kunne have fordel at være de første til at have adgang til 23 Video vil tips/introduktioner være meget værdsat. Du kan sende dem til angelica@23company.com.

23 Video, “THE EVERYWHERE RELEASE”
Selvom at gennembruddet i 23 Video er at have ens eget videosite vil man jo gerne være alle de steder hvor brugerne er. Det har vi taget til os i 23 Video, “The Everywhere Release”.

The Everywhere Release giver dig:

- Posting til Facebook. Post automatisk nye videoer til en eller flere facebook pages eller facebook profiler (med video player embedded på facebook).

- Posting til Twitter. Post links til dine videoer på Twitter automatisk.

- Distribution til Youtube. Nu kan du vælge hvilke videoer du gerne automatisk vil have syndikeret videre til Youtube og få dem automatisk distribueret videre.

- Distribution imellem 23 Video sites. Hvis du har flere videosites kan du distribuere videoer imellem dem. Det lyder banalt - men mulighederne er perspektiv-udvidende når man først tænker det igennem. I takt med at mange organisationer har flere videosites er det en vigtig funktion.

Ovenstående er selvfølgelig oveni de eksisterende distributionsmuligheder til email, boxee, google, google video, iTunes/Apple TV, podcasting, ipad og mobilsite. I løbet af de næste par uger kommer vi med et ekstra par globale distributionsmuligheder.

OPGRADERING ER SOM ALTID MED I PRISEN
Som altid skal du ikke betale noget ekstra for de nye funktionaliteter, ingen moduler at tilkøbe, det er en del af din abonnementspris på 23 Video. Alle nye distributions muligheder er tilgængelige i dag. Så log på dit site og kom igang med at distribuere dine videoer.

23 er bygget vores kunders innovationer - som altid er vi meget lydhøre overfor ideer til hvad vi kan gøre bedre eller gode historier om hvordan du bruger video i din organisation.

Hvis du ikke har prøvet 23 Video endnu kan du på 2 minutter komme igang med at prøve på http://www.23video.com.

Thomas Madsen-Mygdal
Medstifter

Kilroy helps students visualize their travel dreams

steffentchr — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 10:55:26 +0200

Kilroy has recently joined the bandwagon of companies using online video to connect with their customers. With their newly launched video microsite, Kilroy aims to be the inspiration source for youth to travel and explore the world.

“A couple of years back, our main focus was to display products and prices on our website, but after some research, we found out that people were more interested in getting inspiration, so we wanted to make sure we provided them with that” explains Jakob Bækkelund Nielsen, Website Manager at Kilroy.

Kilroy started gradually adding new content to their website, including extensive destination and activity guides from all over the world. They wanted to share their travel expertise with their customers, and pictures and videos was the perfect way to turn their written guides into a lively source of inspiration.

To manage the production of videos, Kilroy has figured out a really clever solution. They offer internships to a few students from the Film School, whose job is then to travel the world for a couple of months to shoot and edit videos from different places. Since it’s students filming and producing content for other students, this is a great way for Kilroy to ensure their videos are appealing for their target market. And for the students, well yes, it’s definitely an awesome internship.

With a combination of forums, blogs - and now videos, Kilroy is also working on building and supporting a community that help each other to have better travel experiences by sharing their stories. And in the near future, Kilroy may even start inviting their customers to post their own videos.

It’s still early for Kilroy to know exactly how they will continue to innovate with their videos, and that’s why it was important for them to choose a platform that was flexible enough to meet their needs now and in the future. “We chose 23 Video because of its features and customer service. Their platform has the flexibility we needed to make our own adjustments and make the site look and work exactly how we want it to be”.

Adding video to their site will help Kilroy to strengthen their presence online and continue reaching more customers, but the goal goes beyond that. “We are trying to create and support people’s dreams, we want to show them how cool it is to travel the world, and that we can be a great source of inspiration for their trip” says Jakob Bækkelund Nielsen.

KILROY is a company specialized in offering products and services tailor made for youth and students. They aim at assisting youth and students in exploring life through travel and education.

COWI shares their stories using video

steffentchr — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 09:55:33 +0200

A couple of months ago COWI decided to redesign their website as part of their marketing strategy. The idea was to update the design to match COWI’s identity today, and also reorganize their content.

One of the goals of the redesign was to make COWI’s site more engaging by including interactive media, and therefore, the use of online video became an obvious choice.

Tina Lybæk, Multimedia Designer at COWI, explains “The advantage of using video is that it allows us to tell our story in a different way. It’s a great way to communicate with our stakeholders because we can say more with videos”

A key demand from COWI was the ability to make their videos an integral part of their website. Tina Lybæk says, “We are a large international company, and it is important for us to stay true to our brand and look professional at all times, that’s why we needed to find a better solution than the YouTube channel we were using before”.

COWI chose 23 Video because it helped them doing exactly that, Tina continues “23 Video allowed us to implement our brand 100%, and look professional by seamlessly integrating our videos with the company’s website. And it was a also a very cost effective solution”

COWI is using online video mainly to document their projects, to share their thoughts about the climate and environment, to strengthen their global brand, and it is an important part of their communications. As CEO, Lars Peter Søbye, points out (on video of course), “COWI is a communicating company. We communicate to build strong and lasting relationships with our stakeholders, to support our business strategy, and to add value to our clients and projects. So we don’t only believe in communication, COWI is nothing without it”.

——-

COWI is a leading North European consulting group, who provides services within the fields of engineering, environmental science and economics with due consideration for the environment and society. COWI has offices in 35 countries and has been involved in more than 50,000 projects in 175 countries.

23 Video with .NET API and SharePoint

steffentchr — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:44:43 +0200

We’re releasing two new pieces of software today — a .NET library for the developers using the API behind 23 Video, and a Microsoft SharePoint web part that lets you control access to a 23 Video site directly through SharePoint.

23 API library for .NET

The 23 API is designed to be used with pretty much any programming language out there, and up until now we’ve only included a few sample scripts in our documentation. Today, however, we’re releasing a library for Microsoft’s .NET framework, which should make it enticingly easy to mash up .NET and 23 Video. For example, you can use this library to have the wonderful Umbraco or any other .NET content management system work seamlessly with our video platform.

You’ll find the code and the instruction on how to use it in this code repository on github.

23 Video for SharePoint

… is the first example of how the .NET library can be used for good. This web part makes it easy to run an intranet video site powered by 23 Video. You’ll simply add a web part to your SharePoint intranet and grant access to any user who is allowed to play the videos. That’s it. One-click and secure.

Under the hood this uses our API to handle the access restrictions. This is a really powerful feature for setting up internal video sites in your company — but it can also be used for handling payment videos sites and other closed content.

To get started, have a look at the installation instructions for the SharePoint web part.

Join our birthday party!

steffentchr — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 12:11:40 +0200

THURSDAY, AUGUST 19TH, 3PM · ESROMGADE 15, RAMPEN

On Thursday we are celebrating our 5th birthday and we would love to party with you!

Its been 5 years since we launched 23 Photo Sharing in front of a small crowd in Copenhagen, and a lot has happened for 23 after that.

As if this wasn’t enough, we have also welcomed 5 new people to Team 23 this month, and we’ve moved in to brand-new offices.

We hope you can join us for a drink!

Please RSVP so we know you’ll be there.

23 lunch

steffentchr — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 15:20:24 +0200

more photos from steffen

oEmbed in 23 Video and 23 Photo Sharing

steffentchr — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 20:22:00 +0200

Quite a while ago we added support for oEmbed in both 23 Video and 23 Photo Sharing. This makes it easy to turn a URL from either service into a piece of HTML which is can be embedded into a web site or a blog. For example, this makes it easy to embed video into a WordPress blog post by simply pasting a link to a video into your editor.

I won’t dig too deeply into the technical stuff since there isn’t much to say: oEmbed allows a URL or a link to be turned into a full piece of HTML in a structured fashion. On 23 Photo Sharing the oEmbed endpoint is http://www.23hq.com/23/oembed and on 23 Video it is http://your.domain.com/oembed.

Now, from WordPress 2.9 and onwards you can use oEmbed in your blog posts. For example, you can put in http://www.23hq.com/steffen/photo/5672108 into your editor and have it be displayed not as a link, but as a photo scaled to fit your design. For administrators of WordPress sites this trick is also a way to control which content can safely be embedded into posts — even if you don’t allow , or , tags in posts.

To set this up, you’ll need to add a little piece of code to your WordPress installation; for example in the bottom of .wp-includes/media.php. For 23 Photo Sharing this line is:

wp_oembed_add_provider(‘http://www.23hq.com/*’, ‘http://www.23hq.com/23/oembed’ );

For 23 Video the code line varies with the domain you’ve chosen for your video site, but something like this would do the trick:

wp_oembed_add_provider(‘http://tv.dmi.dk/*’, ‘http://tv.dmi.dk/oembed’ );

After this a video from the site you’ve set up is embedded simply by inserting a link into your blog post.

Act Visually — an online inspiration catalogue

steffentchr — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:03:29 +0200

On June 3, at Videoday, we launched the redesign of www.23video.com and we have been really happy about how it turned out. However, that is not the only website we launched.

Since we introduced 23 Video a year ago, we have helped launch more than 130 sites and that number keeps growing. We believe that over 90% off all video sites launched in Denmark in that period are running 23 Video, and we want to show them off to the world.

Having a showcase with 130 sites on our own website would be a bit excessive, so we gathered ‘round the good old whiteboard and tried to figure out how we could approach this in the best way.

We came to the conclusion that we are not the only video platform provider out there, and what matters immediately is not whether organizations use a free or paid service to reinvent their communications strategy visually. What matters is that in most situations, those on the verge of getting started with video have no idea where to get started and how to approach the task.

This is where Act Visually comes into play.

We wanted to have a place where we could show the world how we help organizations act visually, but also make it a community-driven collection of cases that share a common trait of being visually oriented.

The site already has a number of cases that we have put in to get it off the ground—both some of those running on our platform, but more importantly, also a range of sites that we think are inspiring.

If you are interested in how you can get started, you should go to www.actvisually.com and have a look. If you already have a case you want to show to the world, you can easily add it by creating an account and filling out the submission form. It should show up on the site right away.

Did you notice?

steffentchr — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 22:06:29 +0200

You probably didn’t notice this, but in the mad rush to get VideoDay up and running last Thursday we also managed to relaunch the 23 Video product site and our company web site with a new design and a some nice new information.
First, the 23video.com has been upgraded with much more information about the platform’s features, about our many wonderful partners and some of the best examples on how organizations are using 23 Video (if you’re not on the list, go to our new inspiration site, Act Visually, and tell us what you’re up to…).

We’ve also revamped the support section of the site. It now includes video guides to the most important administrative tasks on 23 Video along with succinct instructions on how to prepare, upload, track and organize your content.

For the developers, designers and creatively inclined people out there, we’ve set up 23 Developer. Here you’ll learn how to style, mash up and extend 23 Video sites. We’ve added introductions, detailed guides, examples, sample code and detailed API documentation on the site — and a forum where you can ask the community for guidance when our documentation falls short.

WebM, VP8 and 23 Video

steffentchr — Thu, 20 May 2010 12:27:34 +0200

The future of video on the internet changed yesterday when Google launched The WebM Project and open sourced the VP8 codec. Effectively this puts us on a trajectory where broad support for browser-native video (usually called HTML5 video, which is a terrible term) will be a reality in about 6-9 months. That is huge.

For the geeks in the audience, Robert Nyman has a nice recap of the current state of things and Jason Garrett-Glaser goes into exhaustive detail with the codec.

Can I upload WebM and VP8 to 23 Video?

Yes, we have already added support for WebM and VP8. So you can upload the new format to your 23 Video site and it’ll work perfectly.

Will you switch all your content to WebM?

No, but we’re committed to bringing video to the web, and we’re committed to HTML5 video (see, terrible term). Today, this is achieved with H.264 and Flash combined with HTML5 where Flash isn’t available (for example, on the iPhone and iPad).

As the web and the world of web video evolves, 23 Video will too — so today we’re committing to extend support for WebM and browser-native playback.

(This project internally, by the way, is called Eingebaut and we’ll be doing a Request For Comments-type session in June for developers to ensure its technical foundation. Also, I’ll probably be showing off the prototype at VideoDay, which is shaping up nicely.)

Two simple take-aways

First, 23 Video now supports WebM and VP8: You can upload .webm files and have them played and distributed with 23 Video. Second, we’re committing to support video playback in both H.264 and VP8 very soon through the mysterious Eingebaut project.

Videoday - Bringing the online video community together

steffentchr — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 09:38:32 +0200

Businesses and organizations are embracing online video like never before, but untill now there hasn’t been a place for people to come together and share ideas and learn from each other. So in 23 we’ve decided its time to gather all the people in Denmark, who are working with or have an interest in online video to a day filled with inspiring cases and conversations.

Videoday is the first event of its kind in Denmark, and we’re really looking forward to have people come and share their experinces within such different user cases as Campaigns, Events, Product Service, E-commerce, Communites, Media, Video Section, Brand Channels and Intranet. On top of that the day will include workshops for video production, production concepts, UI design, site design, how to develop program format and guidelines to what kind of videoa that actually works online.

Videoday will take place on june the 3rd 2010 and is made in collaboration with FDIM, Kommunikationsforum and FDIH.

But how am I going to embed HTML5 video?

steffentchr — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 18:14:08 +0200

We’re just back from a nice week in Berlin where we visited the re:publica conference and met with nice people. We shot a bit a video (with berliner backgrounds) showcasing some of the geeky stuff we’re working on for 23 Video. Here I am talking about some of the challenges of purely browser-based video playback (and of course, how we’ll solve that in an awesome and timely fashion):

Dull and unflashy video

steffentchr — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 13:59:11 +0200

Mark said it on Friday: We absolutely adore HTML5, and the prospect of delivering great-quality, speedy video directly in your browser without using Flash has us thinking unpure thoughts here at 23. (There are plenty of reasons why we’re not quite there yet. I won’t dive into the details, but if you want me to drag you in to that vortex, just ask…)

We’ve actually used HTML for a while in the mobile version of 23 Video, but today we’re beginning to test wider adoption of the possibilities. To do this testing, we’ve enabled HTML5 video on a few sites including Reboot and Madbio. In practice this means that you will be able to play video in most modern browsers and mobile devices even if there’s no Flash installed — this includes Safari, Google Chrome and the iPad.

We’ll be beta testing these new features for a few weeks before rolling it out to all customers — but if you want iPad and HTML5 video support now, drop us a mail or ping us on Twitter.