It's been a manic three days at work.. as people in four countries have toiled day and night to get a new embeddable WorldTV player out the door - just in time for a high profile post on Techcrunch.com.

What started innocently enough with me filming a startup pitching session in London last week on my mobile phone, organized by Techcrunch UK, led to the video being used front and centre for the event wrapup article.

Mike from TCUK innocently asked me on Monday if the video could be embedded, and this spurred us to bring our development plans for this forward, and compressed probably what would have been two weeks of work into three days.

With the deadline fast approaching we had to throw caution a little to the wind and let a minimally tested widget loose in the wild on arguably the highest profile technology news website in the world. Not to be advised and definitely not encouraged. Having a widget embedded on the Techcrunch.com homepage is no joke. It meant that every one of the 100's of thousands of people who visit the page each day was downloading our widget from our beta server. This put it under incredible strain and was similar to 100,000 people all calling your phone number at the same time. Reassuringly, the server buckled, it spat, it swore... but it didn't break!

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Posted by Alx Klive at 10:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Had a nice write up in the Irish Independent today. Nearly dropped the newspaper when I opened it in the shop. The article can be read online here.

Posted by Alx Klive at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I originally wrote the following as a response to a comment on a popular technology site. Long story but it never actually saw the light of day. One of our team really liked it and thought I should share it elsewhere...

The clear trend is towards video sites opening themselves up to other portals, aggregators and distribution outlets doing innovative things with online video. The walled garden approach is a highway to isolation and you only have to look at the massively expanding range of API's and strategic partnerships between sites to see this.

This announcement (regarding WorldTV and Qik) is about just such a partnership between one video site and another - allowing content to be freely shared between two video sites and offered in an alternative player environment that gives due credit, branding and linking to the other site.

YouTube, which you could argue has the most to lose, has itself begun offering a new chromeless (skinnable) player to empower sites like WorldTV to create new and innovative offerings. This is unquestionably the way forward and will help drive further growth for them in new markets.

If a playlisting and tools site like WorldTV which has an international focus and audience can bring awareness to new audiences, of video hosting sites (and those sites get significant branding and linking), this is clearly of benefit to both parties.

I think you will see a lot more of these types of partnerships being announced in the coming months.

Posted by Alx Klive at 07:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I really can't complain. Running a startup with such a great crew of people, and with real signs of positivity and traction is a dream come true.

I stood on the rickety balcony tonight overlooking our Eastern European appartment block with my friend and lead developer Eugene, and we wondered aloud on how far we'd come in three years of working together. A year ago even I wouldn't have thought it possible we'd be here now, working our socks off, living, breathing and eating/drinking together, all staying in the same building along with his family, relatives and in-laws - four studio appartments strong and counting. Forgive the romantic excursion but it's been a real rollercoaster of a day...

We got to work this morning, we were 5 steps into our building and Eugene exclaims "Oh shit" (only it sounded more like "Orh Zhit"). The power was out, which explained the two hardy looking men we'd passed on the way in, who were removing huge metal breakers, the size and shape of axe-heads - by hand - from a rusty metal box on the outside of the building. Each of those goliaths must have been designed in some early 20th century soviet metalworks for carrying the entire power of a city - only right now they weren't working one bit.

The power came back on within an hour, no doubt to the efforts of those wizened men, but then our ISP called us to let us know that the Internet would be going off in half an hour. They called us to let us know the broadband was going off. Even here, in a decaying faded former USSR city on the outreaches of a broken empire, the broadband provider calls you to let you know the Internet is going down... before it happens.

For the rest of the day we were on and off the phone with them as they provided frequent updates of what was going on and when we could use the Internet, for how long - 20 mins here, 40 mins there. Our Internet flickered on and off all day, but with predictability. It was frustrating that it had to happen at all, especially with everything else that was going on all day, but given that it did, it could not have been a more pleasant experience.

We had a real lift during the afternoon with the news that the Guardian newspaper had run a major article on us and that it was complimentary. Some hurried calls back home to get people to pick up copies were followed by the realization that we had a critical *bug* with the main subject of the article - our live mobile phone video integration. As we like to say round here... something from the 'bad news department'.

Working with Michael and Bhaskar from Qik we got to the bottom of it within 4 hours and solved it - but boy was it a rollercoaster ride of a day!

Posted by Alx Klive at 11:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Have just arrived at our 'Eastern' office and contemplating the last 24 hours.

The journey from London to Kharkov is not particularly far, but a little wearing. A 3am wakeup to get to Heathrow for the first flight out for Vienna, and then on to Kharkov with Austrian Airlines - who are the only western airline to fly to the Ukraine's second largest city. Arriving at Kharkov is like a step back in time, broken planes by the runway and a terminal that is straight out of World War 2.

I've done the journey a few times and it's always a 'roll-of-the-dice' - the connection at Vienna is tight (so luggage not making it is a real possibility), customs/passport control in Kharkov can be interesting to say the least. We had a brief scare when the customs found the Mac Mini that we were bringing in, but the language barrier worked in our favour this time and the guy couldn't be bothered it seemed to try and tax us (or bribe us). We were in.

We took two cars to the appartment for reasons I've not quite established. Cars here don't generally have seat belts in the back and the roads themselves are treacherous. Massive potholes everywhere and drivers swerve to avoid them with no hope of any warning. We saw one accident on the short drive and I've seen many others.

Our first order of business was to stock up on food and.... er... vodka! Four grown men heading round the supermarket each with their own trolley was a sight to behold. We got so much 'food' in the end that only two people could fit in Dmitry's rather diminutive car. Toby and Eugene walked home, I pulled rank.

We spent the evening settling in to our rented appartment, visiting our neighbours downstairs and generally catching up with our host and old friend Eugene.

This morning we woke up to... no hot water! I had a sneaky feeling this might be an issue. When in Rome...

Took the bus and subway into central Kharkov this morning. The bus cost 15p (30 cents) and the subway 7p. We worked out that the bus is 7 times more expensive in London and the tube is 60 times more expensive!

A short walk from the metro and we were at our new rented office. It's from here that we'll spend the next two weeks planning the next few months worth of development for WorldTV.

As mentioned in my previous post you can follow all these shenanigans on Twitter - my tweets are here, Toby's here and official WorldTV tweets here. I'm also doing live mobile phone videos using Qik and there's an archive of all the videos so far.

Am probably not going to do tons of blog posts since the above options are way easier. Funny how Twitter really is lowering the incentive to blog. Much less friction.

Incidentally, I still can't make up my mind about Qik's Twitter notification feature. At the moment I've got it on but it would be nice to set a custom default message instead of the 'I'm streaming live right now come chat'. I always forget to control it from the phone (which is possible).

Posted by Alx Klive at 09:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's 4.55am and my colleague Toby and I are off on our way to the Eastern front for two weeks of hard labour development time.

I'll be blogging the trip through a combination of Twitter updates, live mobile phone videos and occasional blog posts. Hopefully the next one will be when I am slightly more awake.

UPDATE: To see archived videos from the trip, go here.

Posted by Alx Klive at 04:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some interview love from the Guardian Digital Content Blog

Posted by Alx Klive at 06:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ok, so it's a little late, but my new year's resolution is to... upload things a bit quicker!

Thanks to Ducie for all the cool pics, and to everyone who helped make the night such a wonderful success!

WorldTV Launch party photos

Posted by Alx Klive at 11:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the spirit of poking fun at the season, here's a collection of funny Christmas videos that the team at WorldTV put together.

There's clips from Saturday Night Live including the classic 'Dick in a box' skit with Justin Timberlake, and the brilliantly acted Delicious Dish (aka Schweddy Balls) with Alec Baldwin, Rachel Dratch and Ana Gasteyer.

From this side of the pond is Mitchell and Webb's Heroin Christmas, and Eric Idle (of Monty Python) with his anti-Christmas song 'Fuck Christmas'. There's also an amusing anti-drink driving commercial from Romania and a lesson in what not to get your wife for Christmas.

Oh yeah, and not least of which, there's my partner in crime Ashley doing a brilliant old school TV announcer!

WorldTV Xmas Video Compilation

Posted by Alx Klive at 06:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tonight we are throwing a bash to celebrate the launch of WorldTV in our hometown of London. Following our launch in San Francisco two weeks ago, we've had time to pull together a bunch of friends, DJ's and others to contribute to the frolic and festivities, and it promises to be a fun night.

The location is in West London at a well known venue, and if you want to come along, just drop an e-mail to party (at) worldtv (dot) com, mention this blog, and give us the names who would like to attend. We will respond with the details.

Posted by Alx Klive at 12:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And despite what I said earlier, Scoble has posted the interview we did at his house in San Francisco. And yes it was after a very long night!

Interview with Robert Scoble

Posted by Alx Klive at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Am always a tad wary of linking to self-serving press coverage, and there's been quite a lot of it lately, but this one's pretty comprehensive and accurate, so what the hay...

Article in TV Week

Posted by Alx Klive at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our last couple of days in the States were hectic but fruitful. We zipped down to LA to meet our PR people and then out to a place called Half Moon Bay to do an interview at Robert Scoble's house. Driving the coast road back to San Fran in the fog was quite the experience.

Back in London now and just two weeks to our official launch party! If you fancy an invite, drop us an e-mail to reception@worldtv.com. It will be in West London, there'll be DJ's, drinks and most of all... fun times...

Posted by Alx Klive at 01:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's the promo video that was played at the NewTeeVee Live conference in San Francisco to announce the launch of WorldTV.

WorldTV Promo Video

Posted by Alx Klive at 01:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Am very pleased to announce that WorldTV is now open as a public beta. Ashley and I launched it from our hotel room in San Francisco at 1 minute past midnight local time.

There's still a few things that we would like to have polished more, but as is always the case these things are never really finished.

We have a jam packed day tomorrow at the NewTeeVee live conference. We're both pretty exhausted so it's time to get some zzzz's.

6am start...

Posted by Alx Klive at 08:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My (long suffering) partner and I arrived in New York last night for a series of interviews prior to the launch of WorldTV on Wednesday. Hooragh!

Since my blog posts have been a little thin on the ground lately I figured I'd make up for it with some coverage of our 'big US trip'. It certainly got off to an interesting start...

Liz Hurley and Hugh Grant were both on our flight to New York and we were curiously thrown together with them on 3 separate occasions during the 'get to the plane' process. The next day I'm reading about their journey in the newspaper. I'm convinced Liz Hurley smiled at me on the gangway but Ashley says it was in my dreams. He's probably right. I think he's just jealous because the only person smiling at him was... Preston from Big Brother!

Today we had an interview at Reuters which was pretty cool, and some filming to do for a promo video we're making. The video will be shown at NewTeeVee live on Wednesday and may be used for other bits and pieces. It was all put together in 'no time at all' after the folks at GigaOM suggested the idea a week ago. The video is pretty raw but kind of fun - we got to smash up an old TV and I smuggled a camera into Wimbledon (although unfortunately that didn't make it into the final cut). As I speak, Steve, our fearless (and exhausted) editor is uploading the final version onto our FTP site, complete with the latest footage we shot just hours earlier in Times Square, which we DSL'd back to London.

The rest of the day has been rather forgettable, if only for all the things that have been going pear-shaped. Two of our main servers both died today, including our development server and a production server. The reason for the SNAFU isn't clear, which is always a worry, although everything is back up and running again. We also had a major issue with one of our source sites changing their server configuration, leading to a complete rebuild of how we gather thumbnail images from that site. Our developers had a really tough time of it today.

We've got an early start tomorrow with various interviews in and around Manhattan. A massive tip to anyone with a startup.... spend the $$$ on a great PR firm - it's the best money you'll ever spend - seriously. Our PR firm, MPRM, are outstanding, and have done a phenomenal job getting us in front of the right people. Word.

That's it for now... I should really go test a few things before hitting the sack.

Posted by Alx Klive at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, it's official! WorldTV will launch its next generation online video service two weeks from today at the NewTeeVee Live conference in San Francisco. A European launch will follow a couple of weeks later with a party in London.

We're naturally all very excited here at WorldTV Towers as it's been an incredibly long time coming.

While researching our 'history' pages, I was doing some digging around and found some very early ideas for our website which are pretty interesting, if a little dated. Here's the very first website design for WorldTV from 1998, and here's the homepage which ran on the site for a large number of years.

To all those who've signed up for the beta I thank you. You will be getting an invite to try it out very soon... before the masses...!

Posted by Alx Klive at 02:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is an event we're looking forward to... Techcrunch are re-launching their UK website and it's all tied in with SeedCamp, the European Y Combinator outfit. Michael Arrington is flying over and it should be a good one!

It's at a secret location in my native West London so I shouldn't have far to travel... for once!

Posted by Alx Klive at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In most businesses it is fairly simple to establish an approximate valuation for a particular company.

There are known rules of thumb such as multiple x annual sales (typically 3-5 as the multiple) or multiple x annual profit (typically 12-15 as the multiple).

For web 2.0 businesses with little in the way of either profit or sales, but a loyal and fast growing audience, another method is needed. Using either of the approaches above, such a site would appear worthless.

The good news is that 'eyeballs' are back. Big companies are finally realizing that they can't come up with all the new ideas, and that younger, smaller and more nimble web companies can deliver them a large audience or community on a plate, thanks to a great idea - well implemented, and the larger company can do what they do best which is figuring out how to monetize it. This explains why there have been so many acquisitions of websites and web development teams in the last couple of years.

So how do you value a website?

Continue reading "How to value a website using unique visitors" »

Posted by Alx Klive at 01:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

WorldTV Beta is a pre-release version of the WorldTV Internet TV system. It allows people to try out the service before it launches publicly.

A beta is a trial of a software system in its latter stages of development, as hard working programmers look to put the finishing touches on their creations. People involved in a beta are usually friends & family, followed by progressively more and more members of the public.

Beta participants are usually expected to provide some helpful feedback in return for getting to play with something new before other people. This is a tradition that goes back many years in programming and is greatly appreciated by the programmers and creators. There can also be great satisfaction if you suggest a new feature and you get to see it materialize before your eyes.

Depending on the stage of the beta, you might expect the occasional bug or feature that doesn't quite work properly. You might also expect the product to come 'without lipstick or frills', as programmers are not usually known for their graphic design skills, although there are exceptions. Graphic designers are usually the last people to work on a software product.

A beta can last from a couple of weeks to many months - depending on how complex the software is and how perfectionist the programmers are. It is an unfortunate fact that many software products ship without sufficient care and attention, and these are where the beta period has been rushed, usually by upper management.

We are a pretty small team at WorldTV and believe in doing things right. We take our time to make things easy-to-use and we like to think.. with a healthy dose of common sense.

You can join our beta program here

Posted by Alx Klive at 02:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

WorldTV's RCTV Venezuela broadcasts reached 100,000 viewers in their first 7 days, with viewers from as far afield as Mongolia, Azerbaijan and Syria. The majority of the viewers however were from Venezuela, showing the huge demand that still exists in the country.

Our full press release

Posted by Alx Klive at 02:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Phil Butler over at Profy.com has given WorldTV a couple of big thumbs up and we're thrilled to bits.

He says...

"The video on WorldTV comes though crystal clear right in the browser and the simple editor makes every function a snap. Every video I searched for resulted in a very relevant and functional scrolling pull down with relevant results that were easy to preview and add."

He also says...

"The service is perhaps one of the most interesting early phase startups we have tested and users will be treated to video viewing that is altogether different from what they have experienced so far on Web 2.0."

Watching WorldTV is a blast (profy.com)

Posted by Alx Klive at 06:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Following our move to rebroadcast news bulletins from Venezuelan channel RCTV, which lost almost all of its broadcasting power when it had its terrestrial broadcast frequency taken away a week ago (with protests in the streets - pictured), people watching the broadcasts on WorldTV have grown rapidly.

In the first full day of broadcasts yesterday, there were 6431 unique viewers and almost all of the views were from Venezuela, as the table below shows...

What is happening in Venezuela, a rapidly developing (and cool) country, is something the whole world should be aware of. There are arguments for and against the recent actions of Hugo Chavez, the country's president, and in the past I've been generally supportive of his policies, but the messages coming out of Venezuela are very mixed at the moment and it's growing increasingly hard to know what is real and what isn't.

On the one hand there is no doubt that Chavez has done much to help the poor of Venezuela, but on the other, is the growing concern about whether he is increasingly heading towards a worrying dictatorship.

This alone makes it important that people try to educate themselves about the situation, speak to any Venezuelans they know, and read (with an open mind) all reports they can on the subject.

In the meantime we will continue to offer re-broadcasts of RCTV's six daily newscasts updated once a day. Freedom of speech at least deserves a helping hand.

Posted by Alx Klive at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The RCTV broadcasts have been watched by more than 5000 people today

Posted by Alx Klive at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday here at WorldTV we began re-broadcasting news bulletins from Venezuela's RCTV which was closed down last Sunday by the Venezuelan government in a dramatic affront to free speech.

The broadcasts are taking off with over 1000 people visiting them in the first few hours, and 946 of those visitors coming from Venezuela.

While these numbers may pale in comparison to RCTV's usual audience, it shows that you can't keep a good broadcaster down in an age of global communications and alternative communications channels.

We plan to keep the broadcasts going so long as RCTV continues to make them. Long may they last...

Posted by Alx Klive at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

WorldTV is re-broadcasting daily shows of RCTV's El Observador news bulletins in full screen at worldtv.com/rctv. The assistance follows the recent shutting down of RCTV by the Venezuelan government.

Posted by Alx Klive at 03:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A nice bump in registrations for WorldTV Beta the past couple of days and all thanks to a roundup of companies operating in what Techcrunch calls the 'Personalized Internet Video' space.

Thanks Techcrunch!

Posted by Alx Klive at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Chris Tew over at WebTVWire has given WorldTV the thumbs up saying "WorldTV is extremely easy to use" and "editing of the channel is extremely user friendly too".

We're thrilled to hear this because user friendliness is something we place great emphasis on and spend a lot of time thinking about.

Thanks for the comments!

Posted by Alx Klive at 04:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

WorldTV will shortly be launching an exciting 2nd generation web video service that will enable you to Create Your Own TV Channel™.

An incredibly easy-to-use flash-based interface will grant you access to a World of video clips from the likes of YouTube, Google Video and many other popular video sites.

With WorldTV you'll be able to search for and watch millions of video clips from around the World, and add them easily to your own full screen, web video channel. You'll even get your own TV Channel logo and a cool WorldTV URL (eg worldtv.com/alxtv) where you can invite others to come see what you've compiled.

How you use it is up to you. You could create a themed channel on a specific subject, or a collection of different material that you simply like. With WorldTV, you get to be the media baron!

If this intrigues you, you should should shimmy on over and fill the form for WorldTV Beta. We will be sending out access instructions very soon.

Some background on WorldTV
10 years in the planning, WorldTV has a decade of ideas for a new kind of entertainment. We believe people's tastes are valuable and that other people will be interested in what other people like. We also believe in a model that rewards everyone, from creators to hosts to editors to viewers. We previously organized the community created Millennium Photo Project.

WorldTV - A New Era in Television™

Posted by Alx Klive at 08:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

Flash video gets a bad rap.

Proponents of Quicktime, Windows Media and Java based video often point out the superior quality of those systems, and many in the industry still genuinely believe that Flash video has intrinsically poor picture quality.

This simply isn't true.

The reason this myth is perpetuated is due mainly to YouTube, the site that is the poster child for Flash video and unfortunately contains some very poor picture quality videos.

This isn't actually YouTube's fault, you can upload extremely high quality video to YouTube if you know what you are doing, but the vast majority of users don't do this.

It's simply the case that most videos uploaded to YouTube have been poorly converted from other formats, and YouTube's processing and file size limitations can get in the way too.

So what is the highest quality you can get with flash video?

In theory, there is no limit, Adobe can introduce new higher quality compression codecs whenever they like, and with infinite bitrate available in theory, you can have infinite quality. In practice however you are limited by two constraining factors - Internet bandwidth and computer processor power.

Continue reading "Understanding high quality Flash Video" »

Posted by Alx Klive at 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

"There was a young programmer named Eugene,
his companion in crime was called Igor,
aided and abetted by Roman,
they did a great job don't you see man"

Thank you to these people & others, those who've invested and those we love, this exciting project of ours is about to launch.

Pre-registration for the first beta is now officially open

Posted by Alx Klive at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of the problems as a webmaster turned web publisher comes when you start needing other people to access and work on your site.

If you have traditionally kept all your files on your own machine, happily FTP'ing them up to your own web server, you have a problem to overcome. It's partly technical but can be psychological too.

How do you move to a group web development process?

It's ok if you are all in the same location, you can setup a network and take it in turns to work on the files. The reality of many web publishers these days however is being constantly 'on the move', and working with developers in different countries.

Continue reading "Managing group web development with Subversion and Eclipse" »

Posted by Alx Klive at 01:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just finished watching an interesting debate between Robert Scoble of Scobeleizer and Michael Arrington from TechCrunch.

The debate centered on the issues of 'quality content' and content marketing, but perhaps more so... text versus video.

While perhaps not the easiest audience (it was an Internet TV conference), Mike Arrington said what many people in the room know if they are honest with themselves - that producing video content is much more labour intensive than text.

From his perspective, the effort to edit video is simply not worth the investment for him personally, or worth the expense of hiring people to help him "at this stage..."

"I can write an article in 30 mins, and that provides a much higher return on investment than the (effort) involved in editing video", he said. He has a point.

Robert Scoble had a different perspective, but then as he said "I have a 6 figure deal from Seagate to do it". Michael Arrington quipped "How many times do you need to say the word Seagate today?"

It is certainly true that video is a lot more effort to produce and edit, assuming you give a crap about the production values. Working in TV we used to spend a day or two shooting 1 to 2 hours of footage and then a week doing post production. All this for a 4 minute story.

Running a blog is a different proposition but the challenges remain. I still haven't