by Kristen Nicole on May 29, 2009
Mogulus is changing its name, but not its dedication to live-streaming video services The re-branding of the Mogulus site emphasizes a renewed focus on its core competency–live video streaming. And the company’s new name says it all. Mogulus has been renamed Livestream. Simple enough to remember, easy to pronounce, and readily explains just about everything the company has to offer. Looks like an improvement to me.
After launching its video services about two years ago, Mogulus has established itself as a useful video tool for self-broadcasters and live-streamers. The first thing I noticed about the now renamed service was its ease of use and collection of helpful features, simplifying the process of creating a cohesive video program to run live on the web.
Designed for anyone to use, the finished product of a Livestream video is a professional-looking program. From multi-user support to integrated, cross-network video search, Livestream has a great combination of features witihn an easy-to-use interface. Livestream has since layered in more helpful features, along with integration with several third party social media sites, making it easier to truly broadcast yourself across the social web.
For both casual and professional users, Livestream has two options for users–a free, ad-supported option and a premium option. Livestream is reporting that its premium service has gained over 1,000 live video producers, proving its concept and business model as a live video streaming service.
As a live streaming service, Livestream still competes with other estabished companies such as Justin.tv and Ustream. And the live-streaming industry overall hasn’t seen the type of growth many expected, given the success of other video-sharing sites like YouTube, and our inherent need to become lifestyle voyeurs and “reality tv” stars. But as services like Livestream continue to innovate their products in terms of simplifying the overall process of creating live-streaming video, and we see more technological leaps on the implementation side for mobile devices, potential users will have a lower barrier to consider and will become more likely to sign up for Livestream and similar services.
by Kristen Nicole on May 28, 2009
Fotolia has launched a new product called PhotoXpress, which is a free image bank for creatives to access for personal or professional use. Upon launch PhotoXpress has more than 350,000 images as well as vector illustrations, spanning 22 categories.
So how does this work if its all free? The activity on this site is somewhat limited for members, as they are only able to license up to 10 RF images for free on a daily basis. The images themselves come through several partnerships from image libraries.
PhotoXpress isn’t the only free image catalog out there, but it is being launched by a company that’s well-versed in building image databases and is rumored to have recently raised a major round of funding. Fotolia, the company behind PhotoXpress, charges for the images in its catalog, utilizing a credit system in order to support a marketplace for artists to receive royalties.
Is Fotolia launching a competing service with PhotoXpress, and could it have anything to do with the rumored round of funding?
The company says that PhotoXpress is in fact a vertical for Fotolia, and will merely expand the feature offerings of the Fotolia umbrella. In this way, Fotolia has an inside track and established network for providing a free database of images and vector illustrations, while growing its own offerings in order to reach more clients and users. Whether or not the launch of PhotoXpress had anything to do with Fotolia’s rumored funding is unconfirmed, but I imagine that funding for Fotolia would serve its purpose in launching a free image catalog.
The plans for PhotoXpress are to expand its database and continue to bulk out its offerings as a legal image library for both personal and professional use.
I know, you could do this yourself in Photoshop, but wouldn’t it be so much better ( and more perfectly sized) if a graphic design team did it for you?
