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Facebook buys Vidpresso's (YC W14) team and tech to make video interactive

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Re: Facebook buys Vidpresso's (YC W14) team and tech to make video interactive

#31

Post by jjeaff »

pavlov wrote: post #15
aphextron wrote: post #8

Probably the only way they can hire decent talent anymore.

I’ve joined Facebook today as part of the Vidpresso team. The opportunity to build something that can reach a large group of users is attractive: basically everything I’ve worked on for the past 15 years has been very niche. As long as the SV giants have that global scale and keep demonstrating that they value engineers, I don’t think they’ll have trouble hiring.

Does it matter that the end goal will be to funnel all the innovation, countless developer hours, and blood sweat and tears into selling ads?

Re: Facebook buys Vidpresso's (YC W14) team and tech to make video interactive

#33

Post by pavlov »

jjeaff wrote: post #31
pavlov wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve joined Facebook today as part of the Vidpresso team. The opportunity to build something that can reach a large group of users is attractive: basically everything I’ve worked on for the past 15 years has been very niche. As long as the SV giants have that global scale and keep demonstrating that they value engineers, I don’t think they’ll have trouble hiring.

Does it matter that the end goal will be to funnel all the innovation, countless developer hours, and blood sweat and tears into selling ads?

For live video, nobody really knows how to make selling ads even work. It’s actually an interesting challenge to try to come up with formats where ad monetization makes sense for the content producer — I’m convinced they’d have to be compelling formats for audiences first.

Re: Facebook buys Vidpresso's (YC W14) team and tech to make video interactive

#34

Post by nedwin »

repsilat wrote: post #28
austenallred wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a poorly-worded way to say "the product will be built into facebook itself"

Hmm, I think it's a legal thing to get the right money to the right people (by affecting taxes or liquidation preferences or...) If Facebook buys the company's IP but not the company itself, and the company pays out that cash in dividends and winds down operations, people could get paid quite different amounts than if Facebook had purchased all of their outstanding stock outright.

Buying the company can sometimes be buying certain liabilities they don't want to deal with.

Re: Facebook buys Vidpresso's (YC W14) team and tech to make video interactive

#35

Post by imron »

pavlov wrote: post #33
jjeaff wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it matter that the end goal will be to funnel all the innovation, countless developer hours, and blood sweat and tears into selling ads?

For live video, nobody really knows how to make selling ads even work. It’s actually an interesting challenge to try to come up with formats where ad monetization makes sense for the content producer — I’m convinced they’d have to be compelling formats for audiences first.

> It’s actually an interesting challenge to try to come up with formats where ad monetization makes sense for the content producer

So that would be a 'no' to jjeaf's question then.

Re: Facebook buys Vidpresso's (YC W14) team and tech to make video interactive

#36

Post by arthurofbabylon »

pavlov wrote: post #33
jjeaff wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it matter that the end goal will be to funnel all the innovation, countless developer hours, and blood sweat and tears into selling ads?

For live video, nobody really knows how to make selling ads even work. It’s actually an interesting challenge to try to come up with formats where ad monetization makes sense for the content producer — I’m convinced they’d have to be compelling formats for audiences first.

...

[cricket] ...

[pavlov questions the meaning of his/her work] ...

[cricket]

Re: Facebook buys Vidpresso's (YC W14) team and tech to make video interactive

#37

Post by filmgirlcw »

orliesaurus wrote: post #23

Was this something like OBS is for Twitch/YouTube streamers? Where you can set different scenes and overlays that are pretty interactive when connected properly to whichever platform's API!?

Yeah, though a bit more complex than that. It basically allowed companies to create professional broadcast-like workflows with a Tricaster and complex setups using Facebook Live and other protocols.

When I worked at Mashable and Facebook was paying us to make a certain amount of Facebook Live content a month (a practice Facebook started in mid-w2016 and stopped in mid-2017, which was painful for the media companies that had hired out teams to produce that content), we used Vidpresso to make the broadcasts look more professional, with updated lower-thirds, easy multi-camera switches, pre-recorded playback via Tricaster, etc. I don’t remember if we used Vidpresso at Gawker/Gizmodo Media Group or not, but the software was definitely powerful for live broadcasts.

IIRC, Vidpresso was one of the first solutions to get certified to use the various Facebook Live APIs and it really changed what types of video we were able to produce.

I’ve known Randall a long time and am thrilled for him and his team that they could make this exit. This is the sort of thing Facebook should be offering its larger media customers.

Re: Facebook buys Vidpresso's (YC W14) team and tech to make video interactive

#38

Post by orliesaurus »

filmgirlcw wrote: post #37
orliesaurus wrote: post #23

Was this something like OBS is for Twitch/YouTube streamers? Where you can set different scenes and overlays that are pretty interactive when connected properly to whichever platform's API!?

Yeah, though a bit more complex than that. It basically allowed companies to create professional broadcast-like workflows with a Tricaster and complex setups using Facebook Live and other protocols. When I worked at Mashable and Facebook was paying us to make a certain amount of Facebook Live content a month (a practice Facebook started in mid-w2016 and stopped in mid-2017, which was painful for the media companies t…

That sounds amazing - truly a tool to make life easier to many. Love it

Re: Facebook buys Vidpresso's (YC W14) team and tech to make video interactive

#39

Post by pavlov »

arthurofbabylon wrote: post #36
pavlov wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For live video, nobody really knows how to make selling ads even work. It’s actually an interesting challenge to try to come up with formats where ad monetization makes sense for the content producer — I’m convinced they’d have to be compelling formats for audiences first.

... [cricket] ... [pavlov questions the meaning of his/her work] ... [cricket]

You don’t know anything about me. I’ve spent years working on various products that were paid by users, not advertisers. Guess what? Selling software licenses is very hard. You can’t blame me for not trying though.

Video is traditionally ad supported — after all, nobody ever paid for broadcast TV. But preroll/midroll ads that interrupt content don’t work well in live online video. Interactivity offers potential new avenues to sell people stuff that they might actually want. I don’t know if it will work, but it’s worth exploring.

Re: Facebook buys Vidpresso's (YC W14) team and tech to make video interactive

#40

Post by josephjrobison »

pavlov wrote: post #33
jjeaff wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it matter that the end goal will be to funnel all the innovation, countless developer hours, and blood sweat and tears into selling ads?

For live video, nobody really knows how to make selling ads even work. It’s actually an interesting challenge to try to come up with formats where ad monetization makes sense for the content producer — I’m convinced they’d have to be compelling formats for audiences first.

Here how it would work: the advertiser, let’s say Taco Bell, sponsors a banner ad that covers the bottom 10% of the live video.

Boom solved.

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