TouchCast Goes Multi-Camera With New Features

The interactive video start-up co-founded by former TechCrunch editor Erick Schonfeld is getting closer to premium broadcast customers by introducing a multi-camera capability. TouchCast is a tablet video editing application that lets producers add interactive elements like photos, text, articles and web pages inside playing videos. Revealing new features, TouchCast product manager Charley Miller tells Beet.TV it now supports […]

Wall Street Journal & BBC News Using TouchCast Interactive Video

TouchCast, the interactive video platform co-founded by former TechCrunch editor Erick Schonfeld, has been gaining traction in use by the BBC. Now it is announcing The Wall Street Journal will also use the innovative new service. TouchCast lets video producers embed interactive web elements including images, maps, web pages and other videos inside digital video, […]

TouchCast Useful To More Than Just Publishers: Schonfeld

TouchCast, the interactive video platform co-founded by former TechCrunch editor Erick Schonfeld, wants advertisers to start using its new video format as an engaging new ad format. The startup counts broadcasters and newspapers amongst early adopters on the editorial side. “Their people on the advertising side want access to TouchCast as well because they see […]

TouchCast Aims To Boost Video Numbers And Quality

Today online there is not enough quality video to satisfy advertisers’ demands. TouchCast, a startup co-founded by former TechCrunch editor Erick Schonfeld, is aiming to change that. “The editing bay is very much a bottleneck for large-scale video production,” he tells Beet.TV. “You can’t make enough video, even if you tripled your staff. “If I […]

TouchCast’s Schonfeld: Users Don’t Want Lean-Back Video

VIEQUES, PR — Once, the web was just a textual medium. Now, video volume is multiplying to occupy faster and fatter pipes. But, still, lean-forward video consumption like that pioneered by music videos from Arcade Fire are a rarity. ‘What hasn’t really happened yet is a revolution in creation – everything we see is still […]

TouchCast Courts News Publishers With Desktop Video Suite

It’s four months since former TechCrunch editor Erick Schonfeld debuted TouchCast, an iPad app for injecting interactive and web assets in to linear video destined for publication on sites and devices. This week, Schonfeld tells Beet.TV the startup has clocked over 100,000 app downloads and is making in-roads in to the education market. Next, however, […]

Edo Segal on the Launch of TouchCast and the Emergence of the “Video Web”

The launch of TouchCast is part of the inevitable  evolution of the Web into a  video-centric and interactive medium,  says co-founder Edo Segal, a technology entrepreneur and former AOL exec who is a co-founder of TouchCast. Users of the free App can create videos with various interactive elements inserted into the video.  Viewers can interact  […]

TouchCast Intro’s “TV Studio in a Box” for the iPad

TouchCast, a New York-based start-up,  has  launched an App for the iPad that allows content creators to use the tablet to record, edit and produce multimedia video.   A “TV studio in the box,” is how co-founder Erick Schonfeld describes the company’s offering.   Beyond editing, the the App allows users to import live feeds into the […]

InMobi’s Sarofian: Custom Creative For Mobile Next Frontier

Based on consumer behavior on mobile devices, the next advertising playground will likely lie in custom mobile ads, says Stephanie Sarofian, Executive Director, Brand and Agency at mobile platform InMobi  in this interview with Erick Schonfeld, Co-Founder of TouchCast, at the recent Beet.TV executive retreat in Vieques, Puerto Rico. The former Digitas exec and founder of the New Fronts […]

Time Warner’s Bleacher Report Goes ‘Mobile-First’ For Sports Video

Desktop devices took an early lead when team-based sports news publisher Bleacher Report launched its video initiative two and a half years ago. Now the handheld has drawn level on points. “Mobile has caught up,” video VP Bill McCandless tells Beet.TV, adding that mobile traffic sometimes trumps desktop for Bleacher. “Because it’s weekend-driven, we see mobile […]

Beet.TV’s Plesser: New Era Dawning For Journalism

New York-based video journalism outfit Beet.TV, this article’s publisher, has been creating events and videos that tell the story of the digital business for the last eight years. Now executive producer Andy Plesser says the industry is about to take off, as attitudes toward branded content converge. “It’s a video-first B2B publishing platform that’s driven […]

Digitas’ Shlachter: Good Branded Video Is Hard To Do

With an apparent shortage of premium video inventory against which to advertise, some marketers are taking to producing their own content to get their messages across. But what’s the right recipe for branded video success? “No matter what … it’s got to be clear, consistent,” says Digitas’ north America media activation head Adam Shlachter. “It’s […]

‘Branded Video Has Five Seconds To Impress’: GroupM’s Rob Norman

The emerging space of editorial video content produced by brand marketers is so new that there are few benchmarks for a successful campaign, says GroupM chief digital officer Rob Norman. But he has identified at least one golden rule already. “Make sure the first five or six seconds are really, really good – so that […]

AOL’s Harnevo: Branded Video Will Boom As Pre-Rolls Wane

Pre-roll adverts are the largest slice of AOL’s video advertising revenue – but the outfit nevertheless thinks the format will be challenged. “Pre-rolls are the majority of what we do, the (TV) assets are already there,” AOL’s video president Ran Harnevo tells Beet.TV. “Acceptance of pre-rolls is going decrease. Brands will have to become publishers.” That is […]

SMG To Reveal Effectiveness Of Twitter TV Retargeting

Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG) recently struck an exclusive partnership with Twitter, creating a “social TV lab” to explore the impact TV and social, in tandem, have on advertising. Now the pair are about to unveil first findings. SMG’s global video lead Lisa Giacosa tells Beet.TV metrics “look favorable” and are due to be published in February […]

Starcom’s Kienast: Connected Home Will Rocket Mobile Advertising

Just a couple of years ago, mobile advertising barely figured on agencies’ radars. Now it’s front-and-center – and set fora bright future as the Internet Of Things blurs the line between utility and marketing, says one exec. “Mobile never had a seat at the table, I wasn’t even included in upfront conversations,” Starcom Worldwide’s SVP and […]

MediaVest’s Trivedi: Google ‘Relationship’ Will Bring More Video Ads

Having a real relationship with Google is key to making advertisers satisfied enough to buy more space in video, says an exec from Publicis’ MediaVest. MediaVest and Google last fall announced a deal in which the media agency will commit to buying a set amount of ad space across Google properties including YouTube. For Trivedi, […]

Innovid’s Chalozin: Interactivity Multiplies Video Ad Engagement Rates

The pre-roll online video ad business is still growing. Indeed, premium video CPMs rank way higher than for display. But some think it could grow a lot larger if those ads were more than just linear streams. Video ad tech outfit Innovid helps advertisers create video ads with “calls to action”. “You can open a microsite […]

Look Who’s on Vieques for the Annual #BeetRetreat, presented by Videology with AOL On

The third annual Beet.TV Executive Retreat is January 24-25 at the W Retreat & Spa on the Caribbean island of Vieques.   Over the course of  next two days of  panels and presentations, this group of industry leaders will explore the emerging medium of digital video.  Topics will  include  ad effectiveness and measurement;  the emerging platforms and […]