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http://VidCaster.com http://VidCaster.com has been building branded pages for companies for well over a year. We've been using them for http://hackersandfounde

http://VidCaster.com http://VidCaster.com has been building branded pages for companies for well over a year. We've been using them for http://hackersandfounders.tv http://hackersandfounders.tv for months, and we've been thrilled. VidCaster's also more than just a wrapper around the YouTube API. They let you import the videos that are already on YouTube and Vimeo, and move them over to VidCaster's streaming service. Crazy good service. Team has been working with online video for years. Also, VidCaster just demoed at 500 Startups last week and already has paying clients like Microsoft, ZenDesk AirBnb, Twilio, etc... What I don't get is why TechCrunch seems to give YC companies more coverage than 500 Startups companies. I suppose it's nice to have Arrington as the LP of one of your investors (SV Angel).

awfycooper 15y ago
Not cool man, really not cool. Hi-jacking is a lacking-services way of advertising.
olivercameron 15y ago
This trend of other companies trying to hijack other companies launches is really disappointing, especially when said company is in your incubator. Why not submit something for Vidcaster separately?
- ig1 15y ago
  It's perfectly reasonable to discuss competitors in a thread discussing the announcement of a new company/product, we should of course keep such discussion civil and respectful, but HN is a discusion site not a cheerleading one.
cal5k 15y ago
Why the hate-on for Vidyard? It was founded a bunch of smart young guys from Waterloo with a passion for building a good product... I, for one, think it's great that they got a writeup in TC.
prayag 15y ago
>What I don't get is why TechCrunch seems to give YC companies more coverage than 500 Startups companies. I suppose it's nice to have Arrington as the LP of one of your investors (SV Angel). That's just bull-shit. Just because they covered your competitor doesn't mean you get to talk shit about the coverage. In addition, I just don't get why are you getting so excited about this. You know who is eating your lunch, not VidYard, it's YouTube and the Sales executive who don't know any better than uploading video on YouTube. You have a common enemy called ignorance. Instead of getting riled up about competition may be you guys should work together.
- genieyclo 15y ago
  ? iamelgringo is a customer of VidCaster, not a competitor of Vidyard. I also don't understand your ignorance comment. Vidcaster and Vidyard are two competing companies. iamelgringo brings up a salient point I think, YC companies get a disproportionate amount of coverage on TC as compared to other startups.
  - olivercameron 15y ago
    Customer of VidCaster? I don't think so, check his previous comments: "I happen to know Kieran Farr quite well. http://www.vidcaster.com/ http://www.vidcaster.com/ was one of the first companies in our Co-op incubator. And, I have no doubt, that Kieran is going to be far richer than some reporter who still makes his living writing for a company that think that selling yesterday's news written on pieces of dead tree is a viable business model."
    - genieyclo 15y ago
      Pardon me, I inferred from the hackersandfounders.tv site that uses VidCaster was an independent venture and not by a co-op incubator or anything. The main point I have against this article are that 1) It's poor journalism in that little research into competitors was done. Leena Rao doesn't seem to be aware of the many competitors who have been in this space for years (like VidCaster) but only a few like Ooyala and Brightcove (which TechCrunch uses iirc). 2) Lack of disclosure as to the relationship between TechCrunch and YC startups is a problem. There's an inherent bias without full disclosure.
Gaussian 15y ago
>What I don't get is why TechCrunch seems to give YC companies more coverage than 500 Startups companies. How can you possibly not get that? YC is a bigger deal, so it gets more coverage. There's little nuance to the matter. If 500 Startups rattles off the hits and builds a pedigree similar to YC, it will receive commensurate coverage. I'm not saying other startups don't deserve coverage. I'm saying that the Valley and the tech crowd (TC's audience, by and large) are demonstrably interested in what comes out of YC -- so why wouldn't TC cover it well?
kfarr 15y ago
Hi all, I'm Kieran, one of the founders of VidCaster here. iamelgringo is a passionate fan of our service but does not speak for our company. VidYard's product looks simple and solid. I am happy to see continued validation of the business video market and congrats to the team for addressing what we agree is a common and growing pain -- the difficulty for businesses to leverage video to drive sales and increase the efficiency of their operations. Welcome Vidyard and congrats on the launch of a solid product. Let's grab drinks soon, we're still here in Mountain View for another few weeks before 500 HQ kicks us out :)
- michaelrlitt 15y ago
  Sounds awesome. Thanks to both you and Ray for the positive comments, etc. E-mail re: beers is en route to your inbox.
raypaw 15y ago
Hey gang. Ray from VidCaster here. iamelgringo, as always thanks for the love. I've had a few conversations with Michael (Vidyard CEO) over Twitter and he is a great guy and their product looks great as well. On the TC story, I left a comment that we are looking forward to a friendly rivalry but the reality is that VidCaster offers a different value prop — we give our users the ability to create turnkey SEO-optimized video websites. In fact, I'm sure there is room for both VidCaster and Vidyard — as we look to the future of VidCaster we think it could very well be a player-agnostic solution for users of services like Vidyard (and Brightcove or Ooyala for that matter). As for the rivalry between 500 and YC, I liken it to the rivalry between Indiana University (my alma mater, as well as my two co-founders) and Purdue. When I meet someone from Purdue, I raz them about it but just for fun. I share your frustrations regarding coverage from TC -- I think one of the problems is that TC writers don't have "beats" (at least to my knowledge) so there is no one who has a comprehensive understanding of the OVP space and how each new entrant is differentiated. Contrast that with Ryan Lawler at Giga-Om who places new product announcements like Vimeo Pro in context of the larger OVP space. But as Ice-T taught us, don't have the player — hate the game.
benologist 15y ago
"What I don't get is why TechCrunch seems to give YC companies more coverage than 500 Startups companies." Bucketloads of free traffic from HN.
iamelgringo 15y ago
Please delete the above comment, or failing that.. Downvote my comment to get it to the bottom of the page. Sorry about the above, if it came off as dickish, or as trying to steal the thunder from VidYard. That's my bad. I'm still seething from this crap article in the NYT yesterday, and feeling full of piss and vinegar about the whole thing: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2907570 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2907570 I'm my pissy attitude bled over into my comment about TechCrunch and YC. Poor form. I apologize. This is VidYard's chance to shine. I have no right to post links to another startup. Apologies...

awfycooper 15y ago

Not cool man, really not cool. Hi-jacking is a lacking-services way of advertising.

olivercameron 15y ago

This trend of other companies trying to hijack other companies launches is really disappointing, especially when said company is in your incubator. Why not submit something for Vidcaster separately?

ig1 15y ago
It's perfectly reasonable to discuss competitors in a thread discussing the announcement of a new company/product, we should of course keep such discussion civil and respectful, but HN is a discusion site not a cheerleading one.

cal5k 15y ago

Why the hate-on for Vidyard? It was founded a bunch of smart young guys from Waterloo with a passion for building a good product... I, for one, think it's great that they got a writeup in TC.

prayag 15y ago

>What I don't get is why TechCrunch seems to give YC companies more coverage than 500 Startups companies. I suppose it's nice to have Arrington as the LP of one of your investors (SV Angel). That's just bull-shit. Just because they covered your competitor doesn't mean you get to talk shit about the coverage. In addition, I just don't get why are you getting so excited about this. You know who is eating your lunch, not VidYard, it's YouTube and the Sales executive who don't know any better than uploading video on YouTube. You have a common enemy called ignorance. Instead of getting riled up about competition may be you guys should work together.

genieyclo 15y ago
? iamelgringo is a customer of VidCaster, not a competitor of Vidyard. I also don't understand your ignorance comment. Vidcaster and Vidyard are two competing companies. iamelgringo brings up a salient point I think, YC companies get a disproportionate amount of coverage on TC as compared to other startups.
- olivercameron 15y ago
  Customer of VidCaster? I don't think so, check his previous comments: "I happen to know Kieran Farr quite well. http://www.vidcaster.com/ http://www.vidcaster.com/ was one of the first companies in our Co-op incubator. And, I have no doubt, that Kieran is going to be far richer than some reporter who still makes his living writing for a company that think that selling yesterday's news written on pieces of dead tree is a viable business model."
  - genieyclo 15y ago
    Pardon me, I inferred from the hackersandfounders.tv site that uses VidCaster was an independent venture and not by a co-op incubator or anything. The main point I have against this article are that 1) It's poor journalism in that little research into competitors was done. Leena Rao doesn't seem to be aware of the many competitors who have been in this space for years (like VidCaster) but only a few like Ooyala and Brightcove (which TechCrunch uses iirc). 2) Lack of disclosure as to the relationship between TechCrunch and YC startups is a problem. There's an inherent bias without full disclosure.

Gaussian 15y ago

>What I don't get is why TechCrunch seems to give YC companies more coverage than 500 Startups companies. How can you possibly not get that? YC is a bigger deal, so it gets more coverage. There's little nuance to the matter. If 500 Startups rattles off the hits and builds a pedigree similar to YC, it will receive commensurate coverage. I'm not saying other startups don't deserve coverage. I'm saying that the Valley and the tech crowd (TC's audience, by and large) are demonstrably interested in what comes out of YC -- so why wouldn't TC cover it well?

kfarr 15y ago

Hi all, I'm Kieran, one of the founders of VidCaster here. iamelgringo is a passionate fan of our service but does not speak for our company. VidYard's product looks simple and solid. I am happy to see continued validation of the business video market and congrats to the team for addressing what we agree is a common and growing pain -- the difficulty for businesses to leverage video to drive sales and increase the efficiency of their operations. Welcome Vidyard and congrats on the launch of a solid product. Let's grab drinks soon, we're still here in Mountain View for another few weeks before 500 HQ kicks us out :)

michaelrlitt 15y ago
Sounds awesome. Thanks to both you and Ray for the positive comments, etc. E-mail re: beers is en route to your inbox.

raypaw 15y ago

Hey gang. Ray from VidCaster here. iamelgringo, as always thanks for the love. I've had a few conversations with Michael (Vidyard CEO) over Twitter and he is a great guy and their product looks great as well. On the TC story, I left a comment that we are looking forward to a friendly rivalry but the reality is that VidCaster offers a different value prop — we give our users the ability to create turnkey SEO-optimized video websites. In fact, I'm sure there is room for both VidCaster and Vidyard — as we look to the future of VidCaster we think it could very well be a player-agnostic solution for users of services like Vidyard (and Brightcove or Ooyala for that matter). As for the rivalry between 500 and YC, I liken it to the rivalry between Indiana University (my alma mater, as well as my two co-founders) and Purdue. When I meet someone from Purdue, I raz them about it but just for fun. I share your frustrations regarding coverage from TC -- I think one of the problems is that TC writers don't have "beats" (at least to my knowledge) so there is no one who has a comprehensive understanding of the OVP space and how each new entrant is differentiated. Contrast that with Ryan Lawler at Giga-Om who places new product announcements like Vimeo Pro in context of the larger OVP space. But as Ice-T taught us, don't have the player — hate the game.

benologist 15y ago

"What I don't get is why TechCrunch seems to give YC companies more coverage than 500 Startups companies." Bucketloads of free traffic from HN.

iamelgringo 15y ago

Please delete the above comment, or failing that.. Downvote my comment to get it to the bottom of the page. Sorry about the above, if it came off as dickish, or as trying to steal the thunder from VidYard. That's my bad. I'm still seething from this crap article in the NYT yesterday, and feeling full of piss and vinegar about the whole thing: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2907570 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2907570 I'm my pissy attitude bled over into my comment about TechCrunch and YC. Poor form. I apologize. This is VidYard's chance to shine. I have no right to post links to another startup. Apologies...