ooVoo Blog

The big news in the video conferencing market last week was Logitech's acquisition of LifeSize. It's exciting here at ooVoo since we have been on the leading of edge of helping to drive the importance of video conferencing and face to face communication. And it's obvious the marketplace is heating up with a lot of other companies becoming active and helping to build the category. The question becomes who can provide the best in class solution? Affordable, easily adaptable, easy to use, anywhere and anytime. A heavy investment in equipment and sophisticated rooms won't work for everyone. So, what does this mean for ooVoo? We are really excited to see that video communication is becoming more acceptable and available to more people. We're very excited about the feedback we're getting from business users on our ooVoo Business product. We continue to improve our video and audio offering capabilities – we recently added desktop sharing and have increased the number of countries so our users can easily make affordable calls to landlines and mobile phones from their laptop, PC or Mac! And we see even more new things to come in 2010.

Philippe
CEO, ooVoo

Our team worked very hard to improve our video chat audio in our newest release (2.2.2.19). We've tested it on countless calls ourselves and also asked for initial feedback from our users. ooVoo Insiders – our vocal and loyal users -- report less echo issues and an overall better ooVoo experience. We highly recommend downloading or upgrading to the new version.

We also take great pride at ooVoo as I see a lot more comments coming from users on Twitter talking about how ooVoo is BETTER than Skype. We are working hard to deliver “best in class” video communication and its great to see that our users are recognizing it.

We believe that all businesses can benefit from having an affordable and easy-to-use, robust videoconferencing solution and don't think there's anyone out there that can offer what ooVoo does for the price in our new business package. Check it out: www.oovoo.com/Business!

And finally, I saw one of our competitors "crowing" about the amount of video minutes they did last month. I had to laugh as ooVoo'ers used over 50 MILLION video minutes in the last month alone. A number that only continues to grow! That's a lot of people being together through the power of ooVoo.

Thanks for using ooVoo.

Marty

Since I started ooVoo I have probably had thousands of ooVoo video calls: one-to-one, 3-person, some six-way. I’ve ooVoo’d from cars, trains, cafes, hotels and had calls that connect people from Ohio, New York, Boston, Atlanta, Israel and Florida – all in one session! You would think I would be a little jaded – a little less apt to be wowed and amazed by a technology I work with every day. Frankly, I am still amazed daily by ooVoo, but on April 3, I shocked even myself. On a Virgin Air flight from San Francisco to Boston – coming back from the Web. 2.0 conference – I logged onto the wireless connection at 30,000 feet, started up ooVoo and had an amazing, multi-point video chat from the plane with our owner and our vice president of marketing. See for yourself and let me know if you find this amazing.

- Philippe
CEO, ooVoo

The dust has settled on a highly successful Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco.  I was surprised at how many people attended and the traffic at the ooVoo both was busy the whole time.  We even got some coverage from bub.blicio.us.com.  Watch it here: http://bub.blicio.us/video-oovoo-launches-open-api-and-developer-contest-at-web-20-expo/

At Web 2.0 we announced an update to our open API which allows people to show smaller video conversations on their web sites.  Many of our partners have requested this and in the past it was only available to partners who have paid to turn off advertising, but now we can show smaller ad sizes in the ooVoo embeddable chat client.

In addition, we launched a new set of REST APIs targeted at user account management.  Stay tuned for more APIs in the weeks to come.

Finally, we also told everyone about our first developer contest (with a $2500 prize!)  We’ve already had a couple of submissions, but I thought it would be good to take the chance to tell everyone about it again and to suggest some application ideas.  If you would like to compete, here are some suggestions to get your creative juices flowing:
    - Telemedicine application (charge by the minute consults)
    - Firefox Plugin which allows users to video chat right out of their FF browser
    - Facebook Video Chat Application (Maybe combined with a FireFox plugin)
    - Media sharing room: create a Flickr/ooVoo Mashup
    - Family reunion web site
    - Tutoring web site or application
    - ooVoo dating app
    - Fantasy sports web site with live video
    - Topical Chat room sites powered by ooVoo
    - Auction site
    - Talk show application/widget
    - ooVoo video powered technical support application
    - Focus group application for market research
    - Applications for the deaf community
    - Gambling or gaming web site, application, or mashup

Contact me at developer@ooVoo.com if you have any questions or suggestions and let the games begin !

-tj

_______________________
Tom Herman
ooVoo VP Web Strategy
44 E 30th St, 12th Floor
New York, NY 10016
Tom.Herman@ooVoo.com

We recently worked the SXSW in Austin Texas where we had a lot of fun talking with people about our new API for ooVoo.  Basically the API allows developers to embed ooVoo video functionality into their websites.  We are headed to the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco and we are excited to meet with more folks interested in using our video capabilities.    

We heard that developers want the ability to be able to size the ooVoo video windows.  Our development team isn’t wasting any time, we are on it!  We expect to deliver this capability as early as May.  In addition we have request for an API for our MAC developers.  Hang tight, we may even be able to demo this for you at Web 2.0!!

Keep the feedback coming.  Our goal at ooVoo is to dramatically enhance the user experience on our platform and on developer sites.  

We are also finding that the ooVoo web video call functionality we introduced along with our newest version is getting used a lot, big numbers!   We appreciate this very much.

We have also made some dramatic improvements on our site with our new category “How to ooVoo”.  Check it out and tell friends about it.  We have some videos to help new users get started even faster.  To name a few:  Video Calling, Web Video Call, Video Chat Rooms, Video Call Recording, and Video Messages.   

We are open to more suggestions on how we can improve ooVoo.  So don’t hesitate to send us your thoughts, either by video messages, post to our forums, whatever way you are most comfortable, we want to hear from you.

Thanks again and we really appreciate you using ooVoo.  

Marty.

ooVoo sponsored a NYC community, Maydalleh, for their celebration of Purim on Monday, March 9th. Several ooVoo NYC employees attended the celebration including our CEO, Philippe! The guests danced to Hebrew music at Cain Luxe – a nightclub at 544 W 27th street NYC.

ooVoo is committed to connecting people from all around the world with their families and friends, especially during holidays and special events.

We’re heading off to South by Southwest this weekend (March 14th) where our team -- Marty, Rodger and Cole -- will be announcing our new API and a developer contest (I won’t be there since I have a newborn son at home but look for me at Web 2.0 in SF!). ooVoo 2.0 is a great new release for us and as the designated  evangelist for our APIs I’m excited to introduce my other “newborn” to the developer community.  I think it so great that you can now build applications that include video chat using ooVoo's award-wining video quality. Some preliminary samples are here:
http://www.oovoo.com/Developers/Samples.aspx

We’ve also decided to sweeten the deal a bit and offer $2500 to the developer who comes up with the best web site to demonstrate the ooVoo Video Chat application in action.  Details of our contest and the submission form are here:
http://www.oovoo.com/developers/developerscontest.aspx

If you have any questions, please don't hestitate to contact me at developer@oovoo.com and if you’re attending SxSW, come by booth #231.

Tom
VP Product Marketing and API Evangelist

_______________________

Tom Herman
ooVoo VP Web Strategy
44 E 30th St, 12th Floor
New York, NY 10016
Tom.Herman@ooVoo.com

At ooVoo, we understand that providing life-like audio and video quality is key to achieving our mission to bring people together, face to face.  From the get go, ooVoo has supported state-of- the-art digital video and wideband audio technology that gives our users a communication experience which is far better than a plain old telephone call. To that end, in ooVoo version 1.7, we turned on high resolution video to give ooVoo users crystal clear picture quality. And now, our latest 2.0 release makes another significant experience enhancement with greatly improved audio quality.

Without boring you with too many technical details, here are some highlights:  

ooVoo conversations now sound more natural and ever closer to a face-to-face chat. With other VOIP solutions, users either get lousy audio or audio that may appear to be clean but somehow feels unnatural due to over-processing. Our engineers have worked hard to fine tune our audio system to give you the best and most consistent overall experience by balancing a variety of factors that could affect audio conversation quality, such as the type of microphone and sound card the user has, level of background noise presented, quality of user’s internet connection, and whether it is a one-to-one or multiparty call.

ooVoo users can now enjoy excellent quality conversations even over not so good Internet connections. Dropped words and garbled sound occur significantly less often with version 2.0, thanks to the sophisticated network error handling techniques we’ve included.

All this, and there’s no need to worry about how to properly set your audio devices. We understand not everyone is comfortable with navigating the sometimes complex windows settings menu so we have automated the process to give you an optimized ooVoo experience right out of box. And, if you are the DIY type (like many of our power users), simply turn off the automation feature and you can take things into your own hands.

In addition, we have invested in the best-in-class Echo Cancellation technology that has only been previously available on higher end professional video conferencing systems that cost tens of thousands of dollars.

If you have not upgraded to the latest 2.0 release yet, you can download it from http://www.oovoo.com/download.

Thanks for “listening”!

Chang Feng
VP, Technology & Innovation

I would like to share with you a recent experience of how politicians in Israel have been using ooVoo to assist in communication their messages. Due to the recent events in Gaza, Israel’s election period was suspended for 3 weeks. Following the Gaza operation, the politicians had a very short time to convey their messages to the public.

One of the most important voting sectors in Israel has become the Israeli Russians who today comprise about 15 – 20% of the voting rights. Many politicians are retaining special advisers to this sector and deploy numerous efforts to reach them, especially during election time. ooVoo has been partnering with leading Israeli Russian Internet portals in Israel during the elections, including Zahav.Ru, the leading portal. Zahav.Ru asked its users to use ooVoo video messages to send in questions to the politicians. Then, ooVoo was used by Zahav.Ru reporters to conduct interviews with the leaders (VIEW HERE).

The activity was very successful and as a result Tzipi Livni, head of Kadima and Israel current Foreign minister, as well as Avigdor Libeirman, head of "Israel Beiteinu" and the leading Russian Israeli politician who succeeded to gain 15 mandates and to become the 3rd largest party in Israel, each have had a 20-minute interview on ooVoo.. These interviews were posted on Zahav.Ru (http://otvet.zahav.ru/elections2009/) as well as in Google Video (Livni video, Libeirman video) where thousands of people have viewed them. We continue to work with Zahav.Ru and other portals and media outlets on ways to use ooVoo to bring people together, face-to-face, to discuss, debate, communicate and connect.

Danny Yelin
GM, Israel
ooVoo

A BIG day at ooVoo today as we just launched our new Version 2.0 which is a big leap forward for our product and the video chat/video conferencing category in general. The release continues our focus on high quality video and includes significant audio improvements.  But what we’re all REALLY excited about at ooVoo is our “Call Me” link which lets ooVoo users make video calls with anyone they know, even if their friends/family/colleagues/social media friends haven’t downloaded ooVoo.  All you have to do is send someone a link, they click on it, and in moments they can join your call in a web browser. How great is that?  And it is the same outstanding ooVoo quality.  ooVooer’s have a permanent “Call Me” link (like a phone number). Give it out, put it in your email signature (we’ll help you create a button for this), post it on your blog or personal web page and all anyone has to do is click on the link to ooVoo you. 

What else is new? Users can now build their own Video Chat Rooms (very easily) and can embed these into their own social network pages or blog.  Users want flexibility and the ability to be creative and we are doing our best to deliver what our users want.  Lastly, we have published an API for developers to build their own applications with ooVoo.  And as we learn more about what the development community wants in high quality video chats we will continue to rollout more API’s. 

So, back to the title of my post and the forward-momentum of the video chat category. When esteemed technology writer for The New York Times, David Pogue, writes an article such as the one he wrote last week "Video Chats Overcome Clunkiness" it gives attention and validity to this “new” way of communicating. In the article Mr. Pogue gives a pretty thorough review of Skype’s new version 4.0 and it’s features and also mentions ooVoo!  We don’t believe Mr. Pogue had a chance to take a thorough look at ooVoo but we’d certainly welcome this opportunity!!  And we are located in New York City, how easy is that!! We hear from a lot of users that they find the overall quality of ooVoo superior. Find out for yourself. We’d love to hear from you. Visit us at www.oovoo.com.

Marty Walker
Chief Marketing Officer

To the President of the United States of America, Mr. Barack Obama,

When I saw the photo of you on the telephone on the front page of the USA Today just a few days ago, it struck me that in this day of technology so much more could be accomplished if you and your cabinet members were talking to world leaders (or working to build community with Mr. Plouffe and the members of the O.F.A) on video chat, rather than via phone or email. It is indeed time for a change. And, as you and members of your campaign staff and cabinet are aware, technology and new ways to communicate are changing the landscape of politics. Now you can look directly into the eyes of world leaders and get the full story of what they are saying, beyond the words.
 
In addition, Mr. President, and maybe more importantly, when you are traveling you will be able to see your kids and your wife, Michelle, from anyplace in the world.  Video chat: it's easy to use and the way the world is moving.
 
All the best to you and your family. 

ooVoo is being used by kids in Israel in order to enable them to pass these difficult times in an easier way. More specifically, three bloggers (one from Tel Aviv and two from Ashkelon) have built a blog named www.joinMyLife.co.il in which kids post video messages and text about their feelings of what's going on, as well as getting support from kids that are not living close to the fighting. This blog got many visits and for 24 hours was posted on the Ynet front page (the #1 web site in Israel). We have donated 100 web cameras to this organization to help connect even more kids face-to-face to share their feelings and opinions.

This time of year really gets us excited here because we LOVE connecting friends and family over ooVoo especially when they aren’t able to be together in person. And since we’ve all probably seen the news reports of how people are avoiding expensive travel during the holiday season this year and opting for more economical ways to connect, there’s no better time to ooVoo!

We want you to have the best quality experience when you connect with your family on ooVoo for virtual cocktail parties, holiday dinners or to send out video message holiday cards (save a stamp and a tree this year!). You don’t want to have to think about adjusting your lighting or camera in these moments, so we thought it was a good time to remind you of some basic tips to set yourself up in advance:

Camera quality affects image quality
We recommend a camera that offers 640 x 480 pixels and 30 frames-per-second so you can use ooVoo’s high resolution mode (Windows users only right now but, sneak-peak: ooVoo will be adding high-resolution video to ooVoo for Mac early next year.) Creative Lab’s VF0400 is a good choice.

Broadband connection – wired, not wireless
ooVoo works on wireless networks and on AirCards, I’ve experienced ooVoo calls with people on a train, a plane and from the front seat of a moving car (they were in the passenger seat!) and whilst it was cool to see trees etc whizzing past in the background, for best quality audio and video we recommend a wired broadband connection. Also remember that if your downloading files from an online store such as iTunes or playing online video games during a video chat this will affect the quality. 

Audio – a headset reduces echo and background noise
ooVoo uses echo cancellation technology that helps to improve the sound quality of a call. Microphones and speakers that are close together generate echo and audio distortion, to avoid this we recommend using a headset or speakerphone such as Phoenix Audio’s Duet (we use these a lot in the ooVoo offices.)

Lighting – indirect light improves quality
Use indirect light to illuminate your face and close blinds, particularily those the appear on camera, that let in too much sunlight as ths washes out colors. You might also consider turning on the backlight feature setting in your camera. In an ooVoo video chat – click on the drop-down menu next to the camera icon in the bottom left-hand corner of your ooVoo conversation window to find the camera settings menu.

Optimize the computer - close applications you’re not using
Your computer is capable of running many applications at the same time but as you know when you are trying to do too many things at once, quite often it helps to focus on one task at a time. Closing applications you are not using on your computer will give you a better quality experience.

We hope you have a GREAT holiday season and that ooVoo helps you to feel closer to those that matter in your life!

Cheers,

Philip

Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election was arguably the most important the world has witnessed in decades and people from around the globe were eager for up-to-the-minute information.  According to reports more than half of the 110,000 million television households in the U.S. were glued to coverage of the election from 8pm until midnight. Twitter, the fastest growing micro-blogging service with more than three million subscribers, reported its busiest day with information updates doubling in number compared to regular traffic and CNN.com reported five times its normal website traffic.

Channel 2 News, Israel’s leading broadcast television network, stayed connected to the U.S. elections until the early morning hours by broadcasting live ooVoo video conversations with more than 20 correspondents stationed throughout Israel and the U.S.  A wide range of differing perspectives of the election results were offered by contributors that included Dana Rapoport, a writer for Channel 2 News stationed in New York, Eileen Smith the editor of Texas Monthly in her publication’s home state of Texas, Edmundo Rocha an activist, freelance writer and founder and editor of The Sanctuary and Shireen Mitchell is founder and Executive Director of Digital Sisters in Washington D.C., amongst many others. Highlights of the broadcast can be viewed here. To read more about the correspondents, many of whom participated in the MyooVooDay Political event earlier this year, please visit www.MyooVooDay.com/political.

The internet, social media and technology played a vital role in changing the landscape of how political campaigns are communicated and information is shared. On Tuesday millions of individuals tuned into broadcast television and radio news hungry for breaking news of the U.S. president elect, and many more logged onto to websites, discussion forums and social networks to around the world to sharing their opinions with text chat, images and videos around the world. According to BusinessWeek's article 4.9 million Facebook users indicated that they had voted.

How did ooVoo users share their politcal views leading up to, on and after this historic election? Share your stories or conversation recordings with us and we may include some of them in an election update.

Philip Robertson

We recently completed another successful “My ooVoo Day” event this one focusing on discussions about the political landscape in the U.S. ahead of the election of a new president later this year. The conversations were fun and meaningful, providing the political hosts and bloggers a platform to express their opinions about the forthcoming elections but also an opportunity to see and hear from other individuals.

Several of the participating bloggers continued to use ooVoo to file reports live from the Democratic and Republican National Conventions earlier this month. The conventions were amongst the biggest events in the U.S. political calendar with thousands of people attending to hear speeches from the presidential candidates, vice presidents and their parties. 

Eileen Smith, a host during My ooVooDay Political and editor of Texas Monthly,  a well respected magazine and website serving Texas, attended both conventions in Denver and Minneapolis and conducted a daily ooVoo video interview with her editorial team back in Texas. Throughout the road to the Whitehouse campaign Eileen and her team will offer their insight and opinion in a daily “ooVoocast” – as Eileen has begun calling her reports which can be viewed at http://www.TexasMonthly.com, click on the Election 2008 update on the left side.