The improvements we are introducing today take us a huge step forward in terms of the video publishing capabilities we now offer.

Video publishing has never been this easy, and the combination of our award winning, video library and content management system, along with a powerful, easy-to-use video site publishing system, is a joy to use.

And the best part… every single new feature is 100% free!

List of New Features

• Fully customizable background image
• Customizable navigation menu
• Change the order of any item in the Sidebar or Content Section, and remove items
• New ‘Video Description’ box
• Customizable Video Slider box – Populate with videos by playlist order, recently added, most popular videos, or keyword match (this matches against keywords in clip meta tags)
• Customizable Video List box – Populate with videos using playlist order, recently added, most popular videos or keyword match. A new ‘More’ button at the bottom extends the page to show more videos. Customize the text labels for the box and the ‘More’ button. Descriptions for each video are now shown in the list.
• Home page video player can now display ’1st in Playlist’ or ‘Featured Video’
• New ‘Featured Video’ feature allows any video to be designated as a Featured Video
• Turn autoplay on/off for the video player
• Show or hide items within Video Ratings (Facebook Share, Twitter share, star rating)
• Customizable text label for Video Ratings
• A new, improved ‘speech bubble’ graphic style for the Welcome text in the Sidebar
• Add up to 5 different Video List boxes or Video Slider boxes per page. Each box can have its own settings.
• Have an entirely different layout for the individual Video Pages and the Home Page
• Facebook Comments for the Video Pages! Each video gets its own Facebook comments.
• Users can post comments about each video back to Facebook
• The administrator can moderate Facebook Comments (requires a Facebook fan page to be set up for your channel)
• Support for multi-language and accented characters
• The new Web Mode control panel is now a main tab in the Editor

Existing Web Mode Features

• Permalink video pages for every video in your channel
• Facebook fans box in sidebar (can be set to your own Fan page)
• Monetize your site with Google Adsense (paid feature)
• Host Web Mode pages on your own domain name (paid feature)
• Remove WorldTV branding (paid feature)

We can’t wait to see what our creative group of users comes up with using this. There’s a wealth of options to play around with… and the possibilities are endless!

We look forward to hearing your comments. The all new WorldTV Web Mode is live and in your Editor today!

(Don’t have a WorldTV channel yet… what are you waiting for?)

Today we finished the update with the biggest new feature of all – our brand new WorldTV PRO Store, which is now live within the Editor. With the new store you can add over 30 new features to your channel.

The Editor also has a new look and feel – our exciting and very slick v1.0 theme. If you’d prefer to keep the old look and feel you can do so under Channel Settings -> Editor.

We hope you enjoy the all new WorldTV. It’s taken us over 4 years to get to this point and we’re looking forward to all your comments and feedback. The latest info and discussion about the updates is happening over on Facebook. Come by and join in!

UPDATE: Techcrunch just published this article about the release.

In this text we delve under the hood of WorldTV’s plans for this release, give you a sneak peak into the exciting new features coming your way, and answer the question on everyone’s lips… Just what the heck does ‘beta’ mean anyway?

So what’s in store for v1.0 – the “Toronto” release?

A La Carte Features

Perhaps the most striking new feature will be a revolutionary new way of offering a web application. We’ve always had an issue with how software often comes with loads of features you don’t actually use (think Microsoft Word). So why can’t you hide or disable the features you don’t want?

It’s this idea that has driven us to develop arguably the most flexible, innovative and customizable web application ever made. Starting with a basic set of features, an additional 30 features will be available ‘a la carte’. You’ll be able to selectively enable features as your needs require. Don’t want a feature? Get rid of it. Bronze, Silver and Gold packages are soooo last decade.

Free Model

Since the very beginning WorldTV has been provided as a free service. This made sense as we were still developing the product. This will not change after our v1.0 release. WorldTV will continue to provide a free basic version of the service, although with less features than we currently offer. Existing channels will get to keep all the features they currently have.

What does this mean for me?

If you already have channels on WorldTV, nothing will change. You will have all the features you currently have, and the option to get new features if you wish. Some of the new features are free, and are described in detail below…

New User Homepages (‘Web Mode’)

Stunning new user homepages will be introduced for all users with this release! This has been our most requested feature and every channel will have its own professionally designed set of web pages showing all the videos on your channel. This is in addition to the current ‘TV Mode’ page.

Every video in your playlist will have its own web page (similar to YouTube or Vimeo), meaning you can easily share individual videos on Facebook, Twitter or by email, and have your users come to a page that looks professional.

User homepages will include ratings, a list of the most popular videos in your channel, and more. For a modest fee you’ll be able to add your own Google Adsense advertising on your pages, Google Analytics, and even host them on your own domain name.

With WorldTV and the new Web Mode feature, you will be able to create an entire video website, monetize it, monitor it, and manage the content super easily through the WorldTV Editor.

Live Video

Our new Live Tab will make it a cinch to add live video feeds to your WorldTV channel from Ustream, Qik and additional live sources in the coming weeks. You can switch between multiple live sources on the fly, and switch back and forth between ‘live mode’ and ‘playlist mode’ whenever you want. For those who tested our beta version of this feature, you’ll be pleased to see the love we’ve given it with this release. A freshly redesigned interface and more robust operation means anyone can mix and match live video with playlist videos – just like a real TV channel!

New Look and Feel

To reflect our more ‘grown up’ approach, we’ll be introducing a more professional look and feel throughout the site. Our much loved current design has been with us since the very beginning, and while it will be genuinely sad to see it go, we think the new design will attract more professional users, which ultimately means more resources to plough into more features for everybody.

Twitter Improvements

We’re overhauling our Twitter tab to make it work much better. Combined with the new Web Mode pages, WorldTV will make a superb social video sharing platform that can be monetized easily through Google Adsense.

Search the Library

You asked for it – we’re giving it to you! A new instant search box within the video library will make searching through your videos a breeze. Super fast and accurate, you’ll be able to rapidly drill down to any video with instant results… Faster than Google. (seriously!)

Icon-only Navigation Bar (PRO feature)

By popular request, we’re finally offering the ability to have an icon based navigation panel on WorldTV channels. This will replace the existing navigation panel in TV Mode for those who prefer this style.

Widgets for webpages (PRO feature)

Do you have your own website? Our new Widgets tab will offer a brand new wizard for creating fully customizable horizontal and vertical video widgets showing your most popular videos, playlist videos or random videos. Perfect for promoting your channel on your own site, and elsewhere on the web.

Customize the EPG (PRO feature)

With this feature you’ll be able to choose which channels appear in the right hand side of your channel’s EPG in TV Mode. In this way you can create your very own TV network – either by using multiple channels, or by linking to other WorldTV channels your viewers might like. This is another feature widely requested by users.

These are just some of the new features coming your way. There’ll be other refinements and improvements throughout the service and possibly a few surprises too.

A v1.0 release is a milestone for any software application and it means that the developers feel the software is finally ready for serious use. While WorldTV will probably never be finished in our eyes… come next week, we think we’ll be at a point where we can finally say we’re providing our users a ‘high quality, comprehensive and genuinely useful’ product.

Our planned release date for v1.0 is May 1st. Unexpected issues may delay this slightly. Follow our Twitter account for the latest info.

Our new ‘Minimal’ player is stylish, contemporary and perfect for embedding your entire WorldTV channel, or individual clips from your library. The choice is up to you.

The new player comes with several customization options and is available right now in your Editor under the ‘Promote’ tab. We think it’s our best player yet!

The launch of a new, improved style of embeddable player has resonated with our users and we’re now seeing 3 years of viewing every single day. That’s more than MTV in the UK, More4+1 or even Sky Sports 3!

With 3x the capacity now for our embeddable servers, users should notice improved performance, greater speed and generally improved reliability.

We hope you enjoy these superb new supported sites and please feel free to suggest other sites we should support by dropping us a line at reception@worldtv.com

While the WorldTV platform has always been ‘resolution agnostic’, in practical terms it has not always been straightforward to add Hi-Def videos to WorldTV channels. That has all now changed.

Today we are announcing full support for YouTube HD videos… and it works a treat!

With the new features you can now rapidly build a  TV channel out of YouTube HD video clips and broadcast it on WorldTV.com, or, through our new embeddable player (pictured).

Here’s how it works…

• Within the WorldTV Channel Editor there is a new setting called ‘YouTube Video Quality’. You’ll find it under Channel Settings -> Player.
• As the Channel Owner, you set the quality for how you would like YouTube videos to be played – we suggest HD720 if your viewers are on fast connections
• When viewers watch your channel, we attempt to play the video quality you have selected. If that quality is not available from YouTube, we try the next lower quality version until we find one that is available. This process if totally seamless, fast and automatic. If you choose all HD video clips for your channel, this process won’t be necessary.
• Viewers also have the option to change the video quality if they wish – up or down.
• With this update we’ve already upgraded our default YouTube Quality setting on WorldTV to high resolution (YouTube 480). So you should see an immediate improvement in quality even if you don’t change anything at all.

There is no need to re-add YouTube HD videos to your channel or change the way you add YouTube videos in future. Every single YouTube video in your collection has already been upgraded to HD where possible, and we will automatically upgrade all your future YouTube videos as well. Simply continue pasting in URL’s to YouTube videos as before, and they will be shown in HD where possible. Not all YouTube videos are available in HD of course.

With over 85% of WorldTV channels featuring YouTube videos, this is a feature that will drastically improve the experience for nearly all WorldTV channel owners and their viewers.

New HD Embeddable Player

At the same time we are releasing a much improved WorldTV embeddable player that makes full use of the new HD features. It looks amazing (see above) and is highly configurable. The main features are…

• Much improved graphic design
• Fully customizable with intelligent colour theming system
• Customize the buttons – Share, Like, HD on/off, Embed
• Fully HD compatible – YouTube HD looks amazing!
• It’s available now within your Editor

Here are the full technical details for those interested…

High-Definition Capability

• The new HD features work throughout WorldTV including within the Editor (eg when previewing videos), on WorldTV channels, and in our embeddable players. We have upgraded all our embeddable players to be HD compatible, adding ‘HD ON’ and ‘HD OFF’ buttons to all players.
• HD ON means 720p resolution and HD OFF means 480 resolution
• Viewers can change resolution on-the-fly, and the video continues playing from the same point (the video does not restart). This is very cool.
• The default setting on WorldTV channels (i.e. not the embeddable players) for YouTube Video Quality is now ‘high’. This is equivalent to YouTube’s ’480′ resolution. Previously it was ‘medium’ (YouTube 360). The other options are ‘low’ (YouTube 240), ‘medium’ (YouTube 360), 720HD and 1080HD.
• It’s important to appreciate that the speed of your viewer’s internet connection is only one factor that determines whether they can reliably watch HD video. A fast, modern computer is also required, and we have found that current netbooks and MacBook’s for example are only just able to handle HD720 video. You may want to consider the kind of viewers you have and their likely types of computers, when determining whether to change your channel to HD. For this reason we do not recommend changing your channel to HD1080 at this time, except for specialist uses and applications.
• The button that allows viewers to change the video quality only appears when a YouTube video is playing, and then only on YouTube videos that have multiple resolutions available. YouTube typically offers anywhere from 1 to 4 resolutions for a video. Older YouTube videos are typically only available in 240 ‘low’ resolution although many are available in 360 ‘medium’ resolution. This doesn’t matter from your perspective as the system will default to a lower resolution if needed.
• The viewer’s HD setting is remembered from one video to the next, and from one viewing session to the next (assuming cookies are retained)

New Embeddable Player

• The new ‘Slick’ player is now the default embeddable player on WorldTV
• Existing embeddable players (eg that you have already installed on your website) have not been changed
• Do check out the ‘Advanced Options’ when creating an embeddable player
• Note that changes to the options for each style of player in your channel affect all installed embeddable players of that type. So if you change the colour scheme for the new Slick player for example, this will change across all embeddable Slick players that you’ve installed. It won’t change the colour scheme for any ‘Classic’ or ‘Modern’ players that you may have installed elsewhere.
• The ‘like’ button currently records any clicks into our own database. Statistics on clicks will be retained and made available to channel owners in future along with other useful ‘suggested videos to watch’ features. We recommend keeping it turned on if you’d like this data available to you in future.

We hope you enjoy the new HD features of WorldTV and our brand new embeddable player. Please ask any questions via comments below and be sure to drop us a line at reception@worldtv.com if you come up with any interesting implementations. We plan to feature a few of your implementations in a future blog post.

Enjoy!

The idea is to make it much easier for viewers to share WorldTV content and to give channel owners a new tool that will help with natural promotion of their content.

The old system for ‘Send Clip to Friend’ and ‘Send Channel to Friend’ has been in place since the very earliest days of WorldTV. It was a simple system for sharing content by email. Unfortunately it did not work very well if a user had a Gmail or Hotmail account for example, and required email programs like Outlook. The new Share Panel offers a much improved system.

The big additions are of course the options to share by Facebook and Twitter. We have worked hard to bring you these features, and implemented several other related features:

• URL’s for individual video clips on WorldTV now have ‘pretty’ URL’s. So instead of worldtv.com/alxtv?vid=21, we now use worldtv.com/alxtv/video/shatner-of-the-mount-by-fall-on-your-sword. This is better for Search Engine Optimization, which should be a boon to channel owners, and is more intuitive. The old style urls will continue to work for backwards compatibility.
• Links shared by Twitter will automatically be shortened through Bit.ly. A big benefit of this is that savvy users can view live statistics on who is watching their shared content. Simply add a plus symbol (+) onto the end of any bit.ly link to view the live stats
• When an individual video clip is shared, a new ‘landing page’ is created for that clip. Here’s an example. This is a big step towards our goal of offering customizable channel homepages. The design of the page is far from finished and will improve dramatically as we implement the winning designs from our ‘design a user homepage for WorldTV’ competition
• Content shared on Facebook will now have the correct image, title and description
• Content shared on Facebook can be viewed ‘in-line’

Another benefit of the improvements is that the player controls are now more streamlined and we think look much better than before.

Do let us know if you experience any issues.

Starting today there is a new ‘Suggested Videos’ tab within the WorldTV Editor that examines your library and makes suggestions for new video clips you might like.

The new feature takes advantage of YouTube’s related videos function and examines your Library for YouTube clips. If it finds 2 or more YouTube clips in your Library, it fetches related videos from YouTube, and displays them in the new Suggested Videos tab. If you don’t have any YouTube video clips in your Library, the tab will not appear.

Up to 50 clips are suggested and it takes a few seconds to generate them. For now we are doing the work ‘on demand’ rather than in the background. We plan to speed this up in future.

You can drag single or multiple selected clips to your Library, just like the YouTube Top 25 videos tab. A new feature for both tabs means that a green tick will display over the thumbnail for any clips you have added to your Library. This is to provide useful visual feedback of which clips you’ve added and which you haven’t.

There is a small refresh button at the bottom of the new tab which will fetch a new set of suggested video clips.

In other news we have updated the ‘Create Channel Wizard’. The main improvements are an improved automatic logo generation feature and bringing the video player (on the demo screen) up to date with our latest player.

Please let us know what you think of the new features in the comments, and don’t forget you can always vote on new features you’d like to see on our feedback pages.