Microsoft Office Reference Guide

Mar 26, 2004

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In past updates I have tangentially covered SharePoint services as a way for MS Office users to collaborate with set permissions in an online environment where they can manage and share documents, conduct conferences, and customize the workspace according to their corporate or organizational needs.

We went a bit further in an update on Using and Customizing a SharePoint Team Website as well. If you want more information on implementing SharePoint, on Safari.com you might try Jeff Webb's Essential SharePoint, which covers just about everything SharePoint short of video.

But while PowerPoint 2007 added SharePoint PowerPoint libraries to a team web site, and libraries can also hold other assets like photographs or other image or diagrams, the multimedia capacity of SharePoint has been limited up to this point.

This has changed dramatically with the entry into the SharePoint arena (at Microsoft's invitation) of VIDITalk — an online publishing solutions company specializing in integrating online video through an enterprise. VIDITalk has created solutions for enterprise, government, and consumer markets. White label versions are available for corporate web sites, Web Portals, VARs, Telcos and ISPs, enabling employees and customers to create and distribute user generated content.

When Leonard Atlas, Master Reseller of VIDITalk, gave me a private demonstration, I was taken by how easy using the SharePoint version of the product is. The recording tool is even easier than Windows MovieMaker, connecting to any Windows enabled video input source and capturing the video with a few clicks into an application that instantly place it into SharePoint web page (or part), along with a title and description. Meta tags for search can also be added to the page.

Video can be captured directly as Flash or Windows Media and then encoded for SharePoint (in that application) or any other format, even for mobile phones, and distributed instantly by email or other means.

From there the video is already on the site, where it can easily be added any part of the SharePoint site as a List, but most significantly, compiled in a Library.

Figure 1

From there, with the appropriate permissions, the video can be viewed directly in the web browser accessing the site, downloaded for other uses (with PowerPoint, for example) or sent by link or attachment via email. Again, who can receive and view such email or access the site is determined within the permission hierarchy of the portal itself.

Even more intriguing to me, as someone who uses PowerPoint and has frequently struggled with putting a presentation with linked video online and getting it to play, is that with the video uploaded in the VIDITalk application, it has an address on the SharePoint site from which it can be linked to online PowerPoint presentations, to be played through a linked web page, or with a bit more effort, to be played directly within a slide.

The SharePoint application is only the latest in VIDITalk's offerings, the others include Publisher, Communicator, Widget, Responder, and Mobile.

The vision behind these products is to take the ubiquity and utility of YouTube and control it in a corporate environment, so that a company, institution, religious organization or any other entity that required CONTROL can have it. It's no surprise that a major client is the U.S. military, since video is viewed and interacted with only on a permissions granted basis.

The SharePoint product is already being used at the University of Kentucky, where the university is planning to work with Microsoft, Enabling Technologies and VIDITalk to determine how Microsoft's OCS (Office Communications Server) product can be enhanced with video from VidiTalk and voice mail from OCS. The university will be developing pilot projects across its community of users.

It's VIDITalk's Publishing tool that creates your own branded YouTube or Google-video like environment — but there are no surprises ever in terms of unwanted links to porn sites or other unforeseen situations because the publisher controls every aspect of capture, storage, delivery and interaction.

The other major difference between the VIDITalk solution and online video sites is that the video is only part of the experience; also integrated are forms for tracking users and taking feedback, email links, and any other viral marketing or mass communication vehicle available on the web.

Note that both the player and library are totally branded, which can be done by the client, by VIDITalk, or a combination of both in concert with an ad agency or other graphics or video resource.

Figure 2

From a sales perspective the key is that video has been proven to get more tangible results in terms of viewers taking action — Jack from Jack in the Box telling you in an email video or online to bring a friend for free by clicking for a coupon will work with video much better than a banner ad or ordinary email.

Moreover entities can leverage existing video content — the millions Jack spends to produce a SuperBowl ad can also be used in a similar way by a smaller concern which has produced a powerful cable ad.

VIDITalk's simple production utility (Communicator) can be used primarily for the creation of branded email, with integrated address bock and real time tracking of message views, the Communicator can also create content for the online library or other purposes.

Figure 3

Maybe the coolest component of the suite is the Widget, which can use still images or captured or stored video to create a storyboard, with narration, in an online application that runs in your browser — so you could access it from anywhere with little more than a connected laptop and a web cam.

It allows users to quickly and easily create and publish video content to websites or send them as high quality video messages to computers and mobile devices.

Figure 4

Users can also select pre-recorded content from their network or the built-in video library. Each video message (VIDI) can be displayed in a custom playback screen, building brand recognition.

Figure 5

Touching on a conferencing solution the Responder module lets a client capture the responses of potential job applicants or focus group attendees live. Companies have sent cameras to participants, have them log in, set up the camera, conduct a live "face to face" interview about any topic directly, with the results branded and tabulated in the client database.

Figure 6

For applications like sales force automation or training, or for emergency and first responders to document conditions, VIDI Mobile enables instant communication with mobile devices. This is in addition to simply distributing a version of branded content to mobile users.

Figure 7

In my trips to Digital Hollywood, InfoComm and CES I have long wanted to see integration between the various video hosting and broadcasting application and Microsoft Office. I've also wanted to see the ease of use of recording directly into a browser based application and then integrating applications like email and data base tracking and analysis into the mix.

VIDI SharePoint can enable this vision, and as SharePoint evolves with Office Communication Server I suspect full real time conferencing will also be part of these solutions.

But you don't really need SharePoint and you don't even need Access or Excel to merge your branded video content with your address book and integrate it with a branded web portal and video library — with VIDITalk's primary solutions you can even turn Outlook's Inbox (or Outbox) into a branded email video messaging and response system, linked to distribution lists and other Outlook features.

InformIT Articles and Sample Chapters

Creating a SharePoint Team Website

Using and Customizing a SharePoint Team Website

Creating a Distribution List, and Other Outlook Tips

Books and eBooks

Jeff Webb's Essential SharePoint

SharePoint Users Guide, Infusion Development Corporation

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