Sound and Vision part 2

21/08/2007

What’s the most impressive application of sound or video that you’ve seen on the web this year, and why did it impress?

Search expert
Jeffrey Lee
Lycos UK

Here and now, MLB.com’s video offering still wins hands-down in terms of presentation and its monetization of video content on the web. That said, Rawflow’s “Selfcast” is the most exciting new application, for my money. Unlike Joost, which simply uses peer-to-peer technology to distribute established content at lower cost, Selfcast is using peer-to-peer to enable real online video broadcasting by content businesses or by individuals – for free.  The result will be hundreds of thousands of live, streamed channels - a real living, breathing moving image of the world.

Jeffrey Lee is the managing director of Lycos UK, one of the leading web destinations for search, content channels, homepage building and communities

Business developer
Steve Burnard
Adobe

My vote goes to actionhero.verizon.com. The reason is very simple. It is engaging for the user and is quite creative. It takes the user out of the web world into the world of cinema. The technology involved is very advanced, plus there are guides all along the way which helps with navigation. And above all, it is fun.

Steve is a business development manager for Adobe, and is responsible for creating and driving the technical sales and positioning of Adobe’s products for web, video and e-Learning in the UK & Eire

Web standards expert
Christian Heilmann
Yahoo

I’d vote for Super - Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer at www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html. It’s not pretty, but it converts everything to anything. Much like IrfanView for video.

Christian works for Yahoo as a web developer, and he’s a self-proclaimed "web standards nut"

Accessibility expert
Julie Howell
Fortune Cookie

I’m one of the lucky participants in the BBC Archive trial, which provides over-the-web access to the BBC’s archive of radio and TV programmes. This will be one of those few innovations that will inspire people who have yet to start using the web to sign up in their thousands. I’d long been dubious about web TV. But now that I’ve seen its potential I know that I will start to use my PC to view streamed content a lot more.

Julie Howell is director of accessibility at Fortune Cookie, a UK-based web design agency

Legal expert
Raj Mahapatra
vLegal

I’ve been particularly impressed by how the YouTube model has been picked up by the educational establishment. Teachertube (www.teachertube.com) is starting to make ripples which I’m sure will become waves in time. The main reason for this is type of user and therefore the content on the site.

Focusing on education, the site allows teachers to share content in a way that YouTube cannot; namely behind educational firewalls. The power of this model in the educational system is huge. First something that “cool” for kids but secondly something that allows teachers to share resources so they don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time. Great stuff!

Raj Mahapatra is MD of vLegal, a company with an aim to redefine the legal services industry

Software expert
Wayne Smith
Microsoft

I think I may well show my age here, but for me it would have to be a simple audio application, Wolfgang’s Vault. Dozens upon dozens of concert gems for you to listen to at your leisure, accessed through a simple interface - with the original artists getting appropriate royalties. Everyone wins, isn’t that what the internet should be all about?

Wayne is group product manager for Microsoft Corporation