World Bank taps Filemobile for its Voices4Climate competition

Permalink | 11963 views | no comments

World Bank Launches Connect4Climate Contest to Raise Awareness of Climate Change

October 12th, 2011 - Toronto - Filemobile is pleased to announce: The World Bank, in collaboration with more than 60 global partners, has just launched Connect4Climate : a campaign, a competition, and a community dedicated to raising awareness about climate change issues in Africa and around the world. Connect4Climate is engaging African youth, along with partners and individuals interested in the climate dialogue through Facebook, Twitter, other social media channels, and on www.connect4climate.org .

The Connect4Climate Photo/Video Competition will challenge youth, ages 13-35, to share their personal climate change stories and ideas for action within six photo/video categories: agriculture, energy, forests, gender, health, and water.

Winning entries will be exhibited at the UN Conference on Climate Change in Durban this December and at Rio+20 in June, 2012. Partners include UN agencies, NGOs, universities, and media.

• Website: www.connect4climate.org (coming soon)
• Facebook: http://apps.facebook.com/connectforclimate
• Twitter: Connect4Climate

Filemobile is providing both a contest application at http://apps.facebook.com/connectforclimate.

Permalink | 797 views | no comments

IBC2011 Conference Showcases the Future of TV and Entertainment

Sep 15, 2011 - Amsterdam, NL - The IBC2011 conference has been an interesting experience with a mix of conference events, business development meetings, networking and site visits.

The delegation of Ontario technology companies started meetings Monday with presentations from various groups providing overviews of the European and Dutch media landscape. As you would expect, the market is quite fragmented with many country and regional players - but the scope is amazing - there are over 10,000 television channels serving the European market. The trend towards IPTV is a hot topic. In Europe, one standard being driven by the French and Germans is HBB which facilitates broadcast/IP integration for television.

In particular, the emergence of 'Social TV' has been discussed with more and more real life examples of how this can work. Two examples of programs in Europe are:

• Intuition - a Dutch show which will include a second screen app for viewers to compete and participate with the show - Produced and built by Freemantle Media and Ex Machina Games.
• Million Pound Drop Live - As the show is broadcast live, viewers are encouraged to play along online at the same time with statistics on their performance appearing on screen during the broadcast and being read out by McCall.

The approach to how to build solutions in Social TV varies between North America and Europe. The North American model has been driven by the VC backed Silicon Valley and NYC focus on building B2C solutions that grow direct traffic and community. This largely follows the drive to gain a 'hockey stick' growth model for exit. In contrast, the European model has been more driven by B2B business models with create platforms for 'white label' solutions and products for broadcasters.

This trend is the same that we've seen at Filemobile - broadcasters, enterprise and brands are looking for more effective ways to grow and engage with their audiences. This includes ways to interact with entertainment, sports and news. With Social TV, there are two basic human motivations that are satisfied: "I want to know and participate with what others (in particular, my friends) are watching" and "I want others (in particular, my friends) to know what I'm watching".

One challenge is the ability to mix a range of elements to create a successful user experience as measured by monetization of content/ads, audience growth and time spent on site/engagement. 'Transmedia' is a term often used to describe the way in which various media elements can be used to create a truly unique experience. Elements of a 'Social TV' experience include:

• Real world - relationship to real world people, places and things
• Social TV - ability to interact with other viewers
• Participation - ability to contribute, change and re-create content
• Story - centered around a compelling story line
• Gamification - incentivized activities to drive and reward actions

Citizen journalism is another area where the ability for people to participate is changing the way news is gathered, created and broadcast. Filemobile recently debuted its new and improved citizen journalism product which helps move things forward in this area.

Some pics from IBC2011 trade show floor are below. Impressed by the size, breadth and depth of the types of production equipment in the industry.

Permalink | 16673 views | no comments

Filemobile integrates FORscene into social media platform

June 9th, 2011, Toronto  – Filemobile continues to lead the way by integrating the world’s most advanced web-editing and content creation software, FORscene, into its social media platform and customizing it for universities, colleges and K-12.  The integrated media platform is called the Academic Media Community.

The Academic Media Community was launched by Filemobile and FORscene licensed distributor, Formidable Technologies Inc., at the SUNY Conference on Instruction & Technology 2011 held at State University of New York Oneonta campus on May 25, 2011.  Their presentation on “Social Media Learning Environments – Technology for Today’s Students” was received with standing room only.

“Universities and Colleges spearheaded the building of the Academic Media Community,” said Marc Milgrom, President of Filemobile.  “In addition to the private social media environment for teaching, learning and sharing, schools wanted to be able to collaborate, create content, edit video, moderate and own their media assets, all in the same system.  FORscene gave us the additional functionality universities were looking for.”

The Academic Media Community is the only platform of its kind that provides personal dashboards for students and teachers to drive a rich media environment for web-based video and audio collaboration, content creation, project development, peer review, enquiry and more. Registered students and teachers access their dashboard through a single-sign on. 

UK-based, Stephen Streater, CEO of Forbidden Technologies plc, the developer of FORscene said, “This revolutionary next level of integration of FORscene into Filemobile’s social media environment through the use of API’s, equips universities and schools with individualized content creators and edit suites for students and faculty. This is a first world-wide.”

-30-

For more information, please visit www.forbidden.co.ukor contact:

Forbidden Technologies plc- +44 (0)20 8879 7245

Filemobile Inc. – Marc.milgrom@filemobile.com– 416-642-6522

Bishopsgate Communications
Duncan McCormick/Deepali Schneider/Natalie Quinn
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7562 3350

Notes to Editors

Forbidden Technologies plc
Forbidden Technologies plc (AIM: FBT, www.forbidden.co.uk) floated in February 2000. The Company develops and markets a powerful internet video platform, FORscene, which is used by broadcasters, in professional web video, in education and by consumers. FORscene is one of the world’s most advanced browser-based applications, operating in The Cloud.

Filemobile Inc.

Filemobile Inc. (www.filemobile.com) powers applications that engage users and deliver results. Filemobile powers the “media” in social media, with web experiences that engage audiences and drive sharing on public social networks. Filemobile applications are designed to capture, organize, manage and publish user-generated content and engage users on multiple devices and screens. Clients include media companies, brands, education and enterprise.

Permalink | 18353 views | no comments