Kyte Powers Online Video for Homeaway.com’s Super Bowl Campaign

There's been a lot of Monday morning chatter about the online and social components of yesterday's various Super Bowl broadcast ads. We're of course very pleased that Homeway.com's "National Lampoon's Vacation" inspired campaign is coming out as a crowd and industry favorite.

The 360 degree campaign was developed and produced by Homeaway and their agency of record, Publicis in the West. Homeaway and Publicis chose Kyte to power the interactive social video components of the campaign's Hotel Hell Vacation-branded microsite, including the following:

Exclusive Video Content

The microsite features exclusive high quality webisodes, including the mock movie trailer commercial, full Hotel Hell Vacation film, and select scenes from the original "National Lampoon's Vacation." 

Users can comment, rate and share the webisodes to Facebook and Twitter using Kyte's integrated social and interactive capabilities.

User-Generated Content Contest

Using Kyte's moderated UGC capabilities, Homeaway.com allows consumers to share their stories of hotel horrors in the form of a text, photo or video entry for the chance to win one of four $10,000 family vacations at a HomeAway vacation rental.  

Participants may enter any of four themed categories, including "Outrageous Hotel Bills," "Cramped Hotel Quarters," "Wish I Had a Kitchen," and "Other Hotel Woes".  The public will be invited to vote between March 2-9 for the best stories, and winners will be announced in mid-March.

NRDC Launches Interactive Web Campaign for Clean Energy Legislation Using Kyte Platform

The National Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) Action Fund is launching an aggressive online interactive video campaign using the Kyte Platform, urging citizens to contact the Senate about a proposed clean energy bill.

The campaign, called This is Our Moment, debuted January 28 on the heels of President Obama’s State of the Union speech January 27.

Featuring such celebrities as Leonardo DiCaprio, Forest Whitaker, Edward Norton, Cornell West, Felicity Huffman and others, the video is a call-to-arms, asking citizens to contact their senators and pass comprehensive energy and climate legislation.

Thanks to Kyte technology, viewers can easily share the video with friends by clicking “Share This” button or the “Get & Share” button on the Player and add a link to social web destinations like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, or embed it on websites and blogs. A tab in the Player containing the NRDC Twitter feed enables users to keep up on the latest tweets from the organization.

The branded player enables users to click the “Act Now” button above the video player to fashion an email sent to their state’s senators. Viewers can also get directly involved by producing and uploading their own video by clicking the Upload tab in the Kyte Player, then check out the user-generated videos in the Show Browser by clicking the Videos tab in the Player.

“The ability for citizens to create and add videos to blogs and the social web in a few simple steps is supported by the Kyte Platform,” says Alex Lasky, founder of ADDiCTiVE Networks – the digital production company and creative marketing firm behind the campaign. "Kyte was selected because it offers the only video solution with fully integrated user generated content and social sharing capabilities."

Announcing Kyte Console 2.0 - a Major Upgrade of our Video Management System

We’re excited to announce the launch today of the Kyte Console 2.0, a significant upgrade of our comprehensive, enterprise-grade content management and analytics solution for the Kyte Platform.

Informed by close collaboration and insight from key customers, Kyte Console 2.0, formerly known as the Kyte Dashboard, offers improved flexibility and workflow for managing, publishing and measuring your online and mobile video content. 

Here's what Brian Lakamp, EVP Digital Media of Premiere Radio Networks had to say: "A successful video strategy is critical to effectively engaging our audiences, and Kyte Console 2.0 provides us with the tools we need to streamline and manage our video publishing process. We look forward to taking advantage of new features like smart playlists and enhanced channel management, which will make it even easier to manage and deploy video across our platforms."

The Kyte Console 2.0 enables you to:

• Manage and organize all of your media assets, including on-demand, live, mobile video and user-generated content.
• Easily share your media assets and define hierarchical access levels across multiple accounts.
• Organize your media assets into playlists and publish to online, mobile and social web destinations.
• Define custom workflows for moderating user-generated media and comments.
• Measure the impact of your content through in-depth reporting and visualizations.

The Console is composed of four major tabs: Content, Publishing, Moderation and Analytics.

Content

Create live and on-demand shows, manage all your content, and create and manage playlists.

More details

Publishing

Create and configure channels and players, enable producer access, and configure engagement features.

More details

Moderation

Moderate content, control user-generated content, and moderate comments.

More details

Analytics

Track engagement levels, view distribution reach, survey production activity, measure advertising results, and review user metrics.

More details

To find out more about the Kyte Console 2.0, click here.

Kyte Powering MTV’s ‘Hope For Haiti Now’ iPhone & iPod Touch App

Kyte is honored to power the MTV Networks' "Hope for Haiti Now" iPhone and iPod Touch Application, enabling viewers to watch the event in real-time and donate money to the Hope For Haiti Now Fund directly from their device.

The application is available to download for free in the iTunes Store.

The Hope For Haiti Now benefit is a 2-hour global telethon airing commercial free Friday, January 22.

The telethon is hosted by George Clooney in Los Angeles, Wyclef Jean in New York and CNN's Anderson Cooper in Haiti.

All donations will directly benefit Oxfam America, Partners in Health, Red Cross, UNICEF and Wyclef's Yele Haiti Foundation.

Kyte is proud to have played a small part in helping the victims of the this tragic event.

Fox News Reporters Using Kyte Mobile Producer for iPhone to Cover Tragic Events In Haiti

The recent 7.0-magnitude earthquake in Haiti, resulting in an estimated death toll of 100,000 to 200,000 people, has shocked the world.

News organizations around the globe scrambled to cover the overwhelming devastation, sending thousands of reporters and photographers to the Caribbean country. Because of the widespread destruction and dangerous conditions, many news organizations have had difficulty sending camera crews into troubled areas.

In an effort to provide viewers authentic first-person accounts of current events, Fox News has outfitted more than 100 of its reporters with the Kyte Mobile Producer for iPhone application. 

The reporters' accounts, containing both video and still images uploaded to the Fox News website via the Kyte Mobile Producer for iPhone application, give viewers around the world unprecedented access to the tragic events in Haiti in real-time as they unfold. The application enables Fox News reporters to easily and quickly produce low-cost authentic content and upload it the Fox News website with just a few simple steps.

We're deeply saddened by the devastation in Haiti, so we feel especially honored that Kyte technology is helping to provide a level of access to this disaster that previously had not been possible. We sincerely hope the Kyte technology can play a small part in motivating people to lend a helping hand for the unfortunate victims of the earthquake.

A few examples of Fox News reporter accounts:

Kathleen Foster: Field Producer
Adam Housley: Correspondent
Rick Leventhal: Correspondent
Jonathan Serrie: Correspondent
Tom Jachman: Photographer