Too Much Tape? Highligh...

The increasing ubiquity of compact, portable video recording devices has given rise to a burgeoning set of amateur videographers. Whether filming a friend’s aerial tricks in the half pipe, recording action-packed family road trips, or filming on-the-spot interviews, capturing hours of quality digital video has become a breeze thanks to Flip cams, GoPro and Countour sports cameras, digital camcorders, and more. The problem is that sifting through those hours of footage to find the gems is time-consuming and a pain in the ass. That’s why Noah Spitzer-Williams and team founded Highlight Hunter , a free app for Mac and PC that aims to cut the hours you spend scanning footage down to minutes. After spending five years in different capacities at Microsoft, Spitzer-Williams decided to cut out and start his own company. The entrepreneur also happens to be an outdoor enthusiast, and since he often had a camera in tow, became well-familiar with the vagaries of dealing with different kinds of digital files, compatibility issues, and editing hours of film down to a minute-long highlight reel. And he’s not alone. According to the National Council of Youth Sports , 44 million kids in the U.S. play organized sports and, having been one, I can attest that many of them want (or depending on how serious they become, may need) some kind of highlight reel — ESPN-caliber or not. Thus, Highlight Hunter was designed to solve the tedium of creating those reels with a fairly simple solution. As one records adventures, whatever they may be, a user bookmarks highlights by momentarily obscuring the camera lens after the highlight is over. Upon returning home, users open Highlight Hunter on a Mac or PC, load the highlight-rich videos, and, after a few minutes, the app has turned the footage into highlight clips. The nifty thing about Highlight Hunter is that it is compatible with most outdoor video cameras ( list here ) or media files, and users have the ability to choose the length of their highlights, though the average is about 30 seconds. The app then spits that highlight real out, and the resulting file is compatible with other video editing apps so it can be uploaded to iMovie or the editing software of your choice for more advanced post-production. And, hey, you can also share it directly from within the app to Facebook or YouTube. Spitzer-Williams tells us that the key is that Highlight Hunter can take hours of full HD 1080p video and pop out highlights in an average of three or four minutes’ time — cutting video editing time down by an average of over 80 percent. On the other hand, it’s not always easy to be on point and ready to obscure the camera lens to mark a highlight — you may be waving your hand at the camera every 10 seconds if you’re not sure what you’re looking for. Put another way, isn’t there a better method to comb videos? Y Combinator-backed HighlightCam uses facial recognition technology and advanced video editing software to create mini-movies, or mash-ups from all the videos you’ve been collecting. But HighlightCam is mostly tackling video captured on your smartphone, and the two companies aren’t really directly competing. There are others working advanced video editing algorithms that sort your videos to pick out highlights for you, but at this point, it remains an inexact science, Spitzer-Williams says. So, by focusing on a particular, unmet need, and providing a simple, consumer-friendly solution, the team thinks it has plenty of room for growth. It also helps that they have their own patent-pending video parsing technology working behind the scenes. The eventual goal, the Highlight Hunter founder says, is to create a piece of technology that not only doesn’t get in the way of your video production and editing processes, but can scan, edit, and upload in the cloud — so, as soon as you mark the place you want highlighted — it does the rest. You return home to find your video cut, uploaded, and waiting for edits, or already shared to YouTube — according to your settings, of course. The team isn’t there yet, but it looks like that’s the roadmap. As of now, Highlight Hunter is free to use, and unlimited, but the free version applies a small watermark to videos. Users can switch to a $29/year premium version, which removes the watermark, supports faster scanning speeds, priority support, among other things. Highlight Hunter is currently bootstrapped and is looking to stay that way, although Spitzer-Williams said that he would love to see their technology integrated into existing, related video apps, like, say, Final Cut. This would obviously provide an additional source of revenue and be a big boost for the Seattle-based startup. The founder says that the team is currently in talks with camera companies and software companies, hoping to push these partnerships and/or integrations forward. He couldn’t say more, but it’s likely Highlight Hunter could be popping up in familiar equipment or software near you in the not-so-distant future. For more, check out Highlight Hunter at home here .

Location-Based Shopping...

Geo-coupon system and shopping app Shopkick is adding a well-known retail and branding exec to its board today—Andy Mooney, the former Chairman of Disney Consumer Products and CMO of Nike. He joins Greylock’s Reid Hoffman and Kleiner’s Matt Murphy on the company’s board of directors. For background, Shopkick provides an in-store, location-based mobile shopping platform, Instead of checking in, as you would with a geo app like Foursquare, Shopkick automatically recognizes when someone with the free Android or iPhone app on their phone walks into a store. Once a Shopkick Signal is detected, the app delivers reward points called “kicks” to the user for walking into a retail store, trying on clothes, scanning a barcode and other actions. National retail partners in the loyalty program include Target, Best Buy, Macy’s, Crate & Barrel, Old Navy, American Eagle, Sports Authority, Toys R Us, Simon Malls and others, and 40 brands (P&G, Unilever, Kraft, Colgate, Clorox, Disney, HP, Intel). Mooney was most recently Chairman of Disney Consumer Products overseeing Disney’s worldwide licensing, publishing and retail businesses. While at Disney, Mooney helped triple the company’s retail from $12 billion to $36 billion, created a larger retail presence for Disney, and developed two of Disney’s largest franchises: Disney Princess and Fairies. Prior to his 12-year tenure at Disney, Mooney was a long-time employee at Nike, where he was the CMO for the retail brand in the U.S. In that position, he collaborated with agencies to develop the iconic advertising campaigns ‘Just Do It,’ ‘Bo Knows’ with Bo Jackson, and others. Considering, Shopkick’s partners are all major brands and retail stores, Mooney’s advice and guidance could be invaluable to the startup. The company has already been seeing explosive growth with more than 3 million current active users, 5 million walk-ins, 12 million product scans, 1 billion in-app offer views, as well as more than $110 million in-store revenue for partner retailers and brands in 2011.

With 4 Million Videos V...

Vodio , the social video viewing app for iPad which competes with ShowYou, Shelby.tv, and others, is out with a major update this morning, which brings a number of new features, including a history section, “Watch Later” functionality, a dedicated channel for viewing mobile app videos and even App Store integration that allows you to purchase the apps from the videos you watch. The company also issued a progress report on its adoption since the iPad app’s January launch . Over 200,000 users have downloaded Vodio to date, and have viewed over 100,000 hours of video across 4 million videos. For a refresher, Vodio has a slightly different take on the social video viewing experience than some of the competition. Where others offer a selection of video content based solely on what your friends on social networks are watching, Vodio instead uses that to bring “a dash” of personalization to its video recommendations. What that means is that in Vodio, you’ll get insight into what the crowd thinks is popular, too, not just your group of friends. Case in point: the company says that the most shared video was the infamous KONY 2012 , but that one has the same number of views as two others:  The iPad 3 Concept  and  Invisible Mercedes . The most watched channels currently include Buzz, Sports, Tech and Entertainment. Those also happen to be all the app’s default channels, which makes me wonder if enough of the users are exploring the channel customization options. In the new version rolling out today (ver. 1.5), Vodio is offering App Store integration, meaning that while watching videos within the various app channels, viewers can also choose to download the apps related to the videos they’re watching directly from the App Store. This feature goes hand-in-hand with a new channel addition which showcases videos of mobile apps, including app demo videos, app reviews, app trailers, gameplay and more. The channel is named “iPad Apps,” but it contains iPhone app videos in here, too, it should be noted.  It’s also highly addictive, so fair warning. (I just downloaded a bunch of stuff, ack!) Other new features include a “Watch Later” bookmarking option, an “Activity” view that maintains a history of your watched videos, an integrated feedback system for submitting bugs, comments and feature requests, and a “co-browsing” feature that lets you get more information about other videos while you’re watching a video play. That latter option is great for those with short attention spans (like myself). Using the sidebar that pops out on the right, you can tap the “i” icon to get info about other recommended videos, tap the “+” to queue them for later, or tap the “play” button to switch over to the new video immediately, all while the current video still plays. Apparently, I’m not the only one who likes to cut my video-viewing short. Vodio tells us that only 18% of users watch video to the end. The updated app is available here in iTunes.

Sports Illustrated App ...

I’m no athlete, but I’ve found that a passing knowledge of sports comes in handy when conversations take a turn for the awkward. The question then is where do sports fans (and wannabes like me) go to get the skinny? With publications and websites all vying for our limited attention spans, they’re turning to increasingly impressive ways to grab our attention, and Sports Illustrated is no exception. After building a presence in the Android Market and on the iOS with their Swimsuit Editions, the folks behind the long-running magazine have announced that the Sports Illustrated app has finally made the leap to the iPhone. It seems they’re in the mood to celebrate the occasion too (or at least capitalize on sports-hungry iPhone fans), as the magazine’s latest issue is rocking a smartphone-friendly makeover. Now that in and of itself isn’t a huge surprise for SI — they’ve used Microsoft Tags in the past to liven up their Swimsuit Edition, allowing smartphone users to view exclusive video content if they used a separate barcode scanning app. Once a user fires up the new (or for Android users, updated) SI app, they’ll find that code scanning functionality has been folded into the app itself, allowing SI to own the experience completely — no more having to search through the App Store for a compatible barcode reader before getting access to the good stuff. Also new to the app is an augmented-reality viewer, which SI uses to impressive effect with the cover of their latest print issue. No bikini-clad women here — they’re giving all the augmented reality love to the stars of the NCAA. Firing up the AR viewer and pointing it at the cover of their NCAA Basketball Tournament Preview pops up images that link to preview videos and player interviews. It’s a very cool way for Sports Illustrated to deliver additional content to their subscribers, and I suspect SI will to continue to run with these sorts of print-digital convergence events for a while, if only out of necessity. Magazine sales (especially standalone or newsstand sales) have slumped pretty dramatically over the past few years, and players like SI have to balance the expenses of pushing out a print product along with building out their online coverage. Augmented print issues like this are nice, but it seems as though they’re really trying to highlight the strength of their digital platform — after all, that’s where the real money is.

Quattro Co-Founder Laun...

Lars Albright, co-founder of Quattro Wireless, announced his new company SessionM  nearly a year ago. Now he’s ready to talk about what it actually does. Quattro, of course, was acquired by Apple , which used the mobile ad network as the foundation for its iAd program. Albright, who led business development for iAd and is now SessionM’s CEO, describes the startup as an attempt to tackle one of the biggest problems he saw in the mobile industry — engagement and retention. He says that mobile consumers now have “so many choices, so many different options to choose from,” that can be hard for any one app to hold their attention. SessionM’s solution? Game mechanics and rewards. Specifically, SessionM customers can create different achievements, which are then unlocked by users as they visit an app and perform specific activities. Those achievements confer status within an app’s community, but they’re also worth mPoints, which can be redeemed for gift cards, discounts and other rewards. Initial publisher partners include Viacom Media Digital Networks, The Weather Channel, Demand Media, Fox Sports, and Glam Media. SessionM works as an HTML5 layer on top of an app, so publishers don’t need to change their designs. Albright says the goal was to make it “lightweight” and customizable for publishers. The publishers decide what kind of activity they want to reward, and they can even integrate it with other mobile platforms like gaming social network OpenFeint. Albright says he also wants to create a compelling environment for advertisers, offering them units like video ads and branded mini-games. Honda, Tyson Foods, and Volvo have all signed on as advertisers. That sounds good for publishers and advertisers, but mobile consumers might be less thrilled to find that an extra layer of interaction and ads has been introduced to their favorite apps. Albright says that the initial response has been positive, with high engagement rates. If you don’t like it, you can opt-out, and there are even automatic opt-out capabilities for users who don’t engage with the SessionM features after a certain number of times. SessionM is backed by Highland Capital Partners (which also invested in Quattro) and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (where it’s part of the iFund).