Friday, November 2

Mediasite.com - Linking you to a World of Expertise

MEDIASITE?
Mediasite is a tool (by Sonic Foundry) for recording and storing rich-media classroom and conference presentations ...more


MEDIASITE.COM?

Mediasite.com (beta) is a rich media search engine that automatically indexes publicly-available webcasts recorded with Mediasite. It provides you with a directory of presentations created by hundreds of experts around the globe. It is about connecting smart people with people who want to get smarter (and of course promoting Mediasite technology! Why not?).

JUICE?
Actually, I am not too impressed with the technology behind Mediasite (please forgive me for my limited expertise!), including the compression and streaming technology, interface design, and simplicity. Perhaps, they could learn a few tricks about interface design from Articulate. Hmm, I suppose I will increasingly appreciate this technology as I experience and learn more about it :)

However, I really like the Mediasite.com repository, which automatically indexes publicly-available (Free!) webcasts recorded with Mediasite. In other words, if you are looking for free presentations developed using Mediasite, this is the best place to find (or search for it!). Currently, there are more than 12,200 publicly-available presentations (or 9,138 hours of audio) to engage with and learn from. These numbers will surely grow! Mark my words! However, if you don't have broadband, you are probably going to struggle to enjoy the wealth of knowledge, expertise and wisdom that is hidden in this treasure (and experience buffering galore!).

For the fun of it, here are a few potential gems I managed to discover after one search ('Learning') :

In general, I really like Mediasite.com's rich media search engine (technology!), which even allows you the search within the presentation, identifying those slides that include your search inquiry. It will also display thumbnail screenshots of these slides, and you can simply click on them, and then you will be directed to that section of the presentation. Excellent! It saves us time to locate the juice, when necessary!

Finally, I am predicting that in the near future (Say 2008!), we will be able to experience a user-friendly rich media search engine that automatically indexes publicly-available webcasts, and does not discriminate between the rich media solutions or technologies (includes Mediasite, Articulate, and Breeze presentations, etc.). Does such a search engine already exist?

Every problem contains an opportunity :)

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