Vote for Kyte!

Posted by: Vera Sparre    Under: Events | Media Coverage |

Greetings Kyte community!

Thanks to you all for helping Kyte get nominated for the best mobile application category of VentureBeat’s MobileBeat 2008 awards!  We’re very honored by this nomination and grateful for your continued use of the Kyte platform.

To win the award, we need you to vote for Kyte in the Application Companies category.

Please note that you will need to register in order to vote.

You are allowed to make up to five votes — once every 24 hours. 

So vote today and let’s show the world why Kyte rocks!

Thank you.

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Pac Div Signs to Universal and Broadcasts the Big Day on Kyte

Posted by: Cody Smith    Under: Customers |

Big congratulations are in order to our friends Like, Mibbs and BeYoung in Pac Div who have just signed a deal with Universal.

This deal represents the culmination of a ton of hard work for the group, and is a testament to what OkayPlayer calls Pac Div’s “ perfect medium of old-school flavor with new-school appeal; living proof that artists can successfully pay homage to the past without dwelling in it.”

Pac Div broadcast the big day on their Kyte channel, sharing this pivotal moment in their career with their fans.

Congrats guys!

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Kyte Platform 101

Posted by: Gannon Hall    Under: Product | Mobile | Customers | Company | Hi Everyone – Robert Scoble’s provocatively titled post in TechCrunch yesterday, Why Kyte.tv will kill Qik and Flixwagon in cell phone video space, has caused quite a stir. As of this morning there are 129 comments, and we’ve been getting tons of direct email and website inquiries. We’ve got some exciting product announcements coming this summer, but given all the activity on the topic I thought now would be a good opportunity to provide an update on the Kyte Platform and some of our plans for the future.

The Kyte Platform Overview
Kyte’s strength doesn’t lie in any one feature (although I do believe each of our core capabilities are “best of breed”) - rather, our greatest strength and our competitive differentiation lies in the sum of the parts that constitute our platform:

• Production – We make it very easy to produce live or on-demand video content both online and on-the-go.
• Distribution – Kyte is not a destination. Our distribution model is about enabling content creators to reach and grow as large an audience as possible. This includes embedding the Kyte Player in their destination, reaching users on social networks through our social network applications, reaching mobile users through our mobile web and mobile application offerings, and providing enterprise-class development APIs for deep integrations.
• User Engagement – This is the chat component that Scoble loves so much. We support text, video and audio chat both online and via our mobile applications. Chat is a big part of what keeps users engaged with a Kyte channel.
• Analytics – Currently we provide basic analytics on content distribution and show views. Soon we are releasing the first version of the Kyte Dashboard, which will provide comprehensive analytics reporting and visualization.
• Monetization – Currently we support sponsored ad serving, including pre-roll video and post-roll display ads. Partners can also support ecommerce initiatives by integrating affiliate links for anything from music sales to merchandise. Support for third-party ad server technology and reference integrations are coming this summer, as well as various integrated e-commerce modules.

Kyte Mobile Offerings
Based on some of the comments to the Scoble post I think there is some confusion around our current mobile offerings. It sounds like some are downloading our J2ME app and thinking it is our live streaming s60 app. Let me try to clarify:

• Kyte Mobile Producer (S60) - This is our live streaming and one-click upload app for S60 3rd Edition mobile phones (Nokia N95, etc). This is currently in private beta: http://www.kyte.com/beta. If you’re going to compare our mobile live streaming capabilities with other vendors, this is the app to check out.
• Kyte Mobile (J2ME) - This is our Java mobile edition app. While it currently supports some video production, due to the limitations of Java on most devices the video quality is far inferior to that of our S60 Kyte Mobile Producer app. Also, it does not support live video streaming. Where Kyte Mobile for J2ME excels is content consumption and interaction capabilities, such as browsing, searching and viewing Kyte shows, Kytefeed channel activity updates, and multimedia chat (including video).
• Kyte Mobile Web - Kyte Mobile Web delivers Kyte content to (almost) any web-enabled mobile device, including the ability to search and browse Channels, watch shows and chat with other viewers.
• Kyte Mobile via Email - Users without a Java-capable or Symbian phone can still produce shows on the go. Simply emailing video or pictures to a unique Kyte Channel email address instantly produces a show. This means basically any Internet capable camera phone can be used to produce on the Kyte platform.

I should also add that in addition to live mobile streaming via Kyte Mobile Producer, we currently support live webcam streaming. This is available now to the general public and Kyte partners.

Who is Kyte for?
While our main focus is B2B, anyone can use Kyte, from individual consumers to major media brands. Let me try to explain.

There are basically two types of Kyte users (and by “user” I mean any individual or business that uses all or part of the Kyte platform):

1. Content creators – This is anyone from an individual consumer who wants to create a free Kyte channel to share video with their friends and family, to a major recording artist with hundreds of thousands of daily show views who wants to monetize their brand and grow their audience. This type constitutes the bulk of our users. Examples include everyone from Scoble, to Arianna Huffington to 50 Cent to storm chaser Klipsi. For commercial content producers such as these, Kyte is an end-to-end technology platform for the production and distribution of branded digital content.
2. Platform integrators – These are online publishers, social networks or mobile carriers who want to integrate our technology using our APIs. Our website www.kyte.tv is an example of what can be done online using our APIs. Other examples include O2’s O’chutney social network and bestfootballtricks.com.

Many partners, such as Spin.com, and Philippines news outlet ABS-CBN fall into both camps, in that they are both content creators and technology integrations.

So, the Kyte Platform is for anyone who wants to produce and distribute digital content to an online and mobile audience.

Our business model is built around commercial applications of this platform – this is how we make money. For the media and entertainment industry our platform solves a host of business problems around branded content distribution and monetization. This is why we’ve seen tremendous growth in this area and is part of the reason why Steamboat (Disney) and others invested in us.

For mobile carriers we provide the opportunity for competitive advantage and increased ARPU through mobile social networking, user generated and premium content. It is no coincidence that our strategic investors include Telefonica, NTT DoCoMo, Swisscom and Teliasonera.

I hope this helps clarify what the Kyte Platform is all about. Stay tuned for some exciting product announcements this summer.

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Against Me! are back in the USA and en route to Bonnaroo

Posted by: Cody Smith    Under: Customers |

Against Me! have returned from their 3 month tour of Europe and Australia and are now en route to Bonnaroo. Coming off a successful worldwide tour that took them to arenas as big as London’s Wembley Stadium, Against Me! are now back in the US and headed to this weekend’s Bonnaroo festival, where they will join acts such as Kanye West and Pearl Jam. Following Bonnaroo they hit the Vans Warped Tour with a vengeance coming to a town near you.

Stay tuned to their Kyte channel for Bonnaroo updates like this classic Against Me! Kyte show:

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SPIN Magazine and a Pearl Jam Superfan Hit the Road with Kyte

Posted by: Cody Smith    Under: Customers |

We’ve all wanted to go on tour with our favorite band, but few get the chance.

Zack Newman is one of those lucky few. This Pearl Jam “super fan” will travel the country hitting 12 Pearl Jam shows in 19 Days documenting the whole thing for SPIN Magazine.

Zack’s journey will be powered by Kyte as he broadcasts a video diary directly to a Kyte channel on Spin.com, so now even if fans can’t hit the road they can still join in on the fun.

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