Blog Tools Eye the Enterprise at Demo - ' Video Blogs Made Easy' (
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Hoping to make it easier to create video blogs, Serious Magic Inc. of Folsom, Calif., demonstrated a video-creation application for Windows that combines a teleprompter feature with TV-like templates. Called Vlog It, the software lets users view a script while creating a video from a Webcam or FireWire-attached camcorder and add graphics, backdrops, effects, and video and audio clips.
"The whole video-creation process is streamlined for people that are not technical," said Mark Randall, president and CEO of Serious Magic.
The company plans to offer a beta of the software in March with a full launch to follow in April. It will cost $99. Serious Magic also will host the video blogs through its Vlog.com site, or users can post the videos to existing blogs using FTP, Randall said.
Serious Magic is working with major blog-tool services to create simpler ways to post videos to blogs and is looking at ways to turn the teleprompter text into searchable transcripts of the videos, Randall said.
Focusing on fast blog publishing, Palo Alto, Calif.-based Five Across Inc. used Demo to launch its own blog-publishing service called Bubbler. Its main focus is on increasing the speed at which a blog can be created and posted.
Bubbler, a general blog service that would compete against Google Inc.s Blogger and Six Apart Ltd.s TypePad, launched a public beta Sunday. Along with providing blog-hosting services, Bubbler provides a software client for Windows or Mac OS X.
Read more here about Five Across entering the enterprise instant-messaging market.
The client software allows bloggers to drop and drag content such as text, images and links to create a post. It also offers a feature called "Reporter," where, in a manner similar to the interface of an instant-message chat, bloggers can post snippets of text and have them post almost immediately to their blogs.
The client download is free, but Bubbler charges for hosting, which starts at $4.99 a month. The beta does not offer some standard blog features, such as the capability for readers to post comments to a blog or for the content to be syndicated in RSS or Atom feeds, a Five Across official said.
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