Kyte Platform 101

Posted by: Gannon Hall    Under: Product | Mobile Devices | Partners | 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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Kyte comScore stats

Posted by: Gannon Hall    Under: Company | Media Coverage |

Most people familiar with Kyte understand that we’re not a destination, but an enabling technology. We have no interest in driving traffic to kyte.tv. Instead, our platform is designed to encourage deep user engagement of our partner’s content through the Kyte Player, both on our partner’s destination sites and everywhere else the player spreads virally. So, it was very refreshing to see the TechCrunch post today about Justin.TV’s Birthday Stats. The post included comScore stats, which, unlike Alexa ratings, actually take into account our Player embeds, which for us is a key measurement of the value we bring to our partners. Check out the graphic below (we’re in yellow):

So what’s behind the steep increase in Kyte uniques and why does it show no sign of slowing down? There are two things this validates for us: 1) our strategy around branded content distribution is working; and 2) although we now offer live streaming, we still believe the key to deep user engagement and viral content distribution is offering short, compelling “behind the scenes” reality-based content, or “super UGC” as some in the media have started calling it. These stats are proof of this and the trend shows no sign of slowing down. Live streaming is neat and we have a lot of fun playing with it, but a twenty minute live stream video clip just doesn’t have the long term value, both in terms of viral potential and monetization, as a killer 2 minute recorded video created by someone the public really cares about.

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Kyte SXSW Channel, Nokia N95 Winner!

Posted by: Gannon Hall    Under: Company |

Thanks to everyone who sent their mobile pictures and video to the live SXSW plasma displays – great stuff. Feel free to continue posting content to the channel. Just email your mobile pictures or video to , or click the Produce tab below. You can also install the SXSW Facebook App, and share SXSW moments with your Facebook friends.

Nokia N95 Kyte Phone Winner!

During the conference we set-up a little impromptu business card drawing for a Nokia N95 camera phone pimped out with the Kyte Mobile Application and Kyte Mobile Producer (currently in private beta). Well, yesterday we got our act together and picked a winner… Edward Lopes! Click here to watch the highly sophisticated selection process.

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New funding / strategic partnerships

Posted by: Gannon Hall    Under: Partners | Company | Media Coverage |

This morning we announced new funding from Telefónica, Nokia Growth Partners and DoCoMo Capital, among others. You can download the press release here if you’re so inclined. For us, the most exciting thing about this announcement is the massive distribution potential of partnering with world leaders in communications and mobility. Daniel explains it best in this conversation with Robert Scoble below:

Here’s another Kyte show I produced from my Nokia N95 while Scoble produced an instant Kyte webcam show, which he posted to his blog.

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