iDesktop.tv V2 Beta Also Gets reviewed on Mashable!

Mashable has given iDesktop.tv V2 currently in Beta testing a glowing review.

Stan Schroeder writes:

” the customization options go pretty far which you can see on the examples page; basically, there’s almost nothing you can’t do, and the look and feel of your player depends on your design skills and imagination.”

“if you want to create a customizable, branded video player for your blog or a website, iDesktop.TV is a good solution; it’s got a lot of flexibility and plenty of options.”

You can read the full review here

iDesktop.tv V2 Beta Gets reviewed on TechCrunch!

TechCrunch UK has given the new V2 Beta release the thumbs up

Mike Butcher writes:

“Those iDesktop.tv guys up in the wilds of Wellingborough, Northamptonshire (ok, so it’s not that wild) have come up with a new version of their wrap-around video player and it’s actually pretty slick.

The bootstrapped startup composed of three young graduates has completely changed the design of the site, and added more functionality such as extensively customisable/embeddable players together with changes to playlists and downloading features. They’ve even created a TechCrunch Player based on our site design which takes videos from the TechCrunch YouTube channel. Other new features include: Custom embedded players for playlists, MP3 downloads among others.

It’s so interesting that they are concentrating on video players, at the same time as Quick.TV, coming out of Newcastle, is prepping its own video player product. Must be something in the water…”

You can see the full review here review here

Adding Advertisement Videos to YouTube Video Custom Players

iDesktop.tv proudly boasts the ability to place selected advert videos at the start, between, or after videos in a playlist in the new iDesktop.tv Version2 currently in Beta Testing.

Benefits of Video Adverts

• “A healthy portion of exposed audiences interact with video ads
  The interaction rate is the “all in” metric, including the sum total of all interactions that people have with the video ad units. Those include mouseovers, expansions, interactions with the video control buttons, clicks and other events. This is then divided by the total impressions served. The overall average interaction rate for ads studied in this analysis is 8 percent.”
• “Users click the “Play” button more than they click on image ads
  All DoubleClick video ads include a panel of control buttons to play, pause and stop the video. The rates for those actions are calculated as a percentage of total impressions served. The video control consumers are most likely to click is the “Play” button. At 0.32 percent, consumers are roughly twice as likely to play (or replay if a video starts automatically) an online video ad unit, as they are to click through on a standard JPG or GIF ad (the standard CTR for image ads is between 0.1 and 0.2 percent). The cumulative control panel interaction rate is 1.13 percent (this is the sum of all control panel interactions as a percent of impressions served).”
• “On average, video ads play two thirds of the way through
  The majority of the video ad units observed in this analysis were embedded in Web pages, as opposed to being within streaming video content. For those in-page units, the most common length of play was 30 seconds; the next most common length was 15 seconds. There is little difference in the length of play between ads that expand to a larger display window and standard video ads that do not expand. In both cases, on average, video ads play approximately two-thirds of the way through, or 19.1 seconds for a 30-second ad and 10.3 seconds for a 15-second ad.”
• “Video click rates are far higher than image format ads
  Because of their ability to convey a story through sounds and motion, most advertisers think of online video ads as a format for driving brand awareness. When judged on the basic direct-response metric for online advertising - the click-through rate - online video ads perform extremely well. Online video ads experience click-through rates ranging from 0.4 percent to 0.74 percent depending on the online video format. By comparison, the click-through rate for plain GIF or JPG image ads ranges between 0.1 and 0.2 percent, based on DoubleClick data.”

Studies completed by doubleclick.com
Source tvover

What iDesktop.tv V2 can do.

Example 1 Pre-Roll

iDesktop.tv

The advert plays before all other videos in the playlist

Example 2 Mid-Roll

iDesktop.tv

The advert plays between all videos in the playlist (Press next video to see)

Example 3 Post-Roll

iDesktop.tv

The advert plays when all videos in the playlist have been played.

How to do this Yourself in iDesktop.tv V2

The process if very simple and easy for all types of video enthusiasts.

Step 1 - Getting into iDesktop.tv V2

Login or Sign-up for Beta Testing at http://beta.idesktop.tv

Step 2 - Finding your videos

Either Paste directly into the search bar the youtube link (eg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOZfd1o15zI), or enter a search term to bring up search results for your chosen advert videos.

Step 3 - Creating an Adverts Playlist

Click on the Video Thumbnails in the results, that you want as advertisments in your player, to add them to the playlist. Then click untitled playlist* to reveal a dropdown menu and select save. Next, enter the name for the playlist.

Step 4 - Opening the Custom Player Creation Form

Click on the Custom Players link (In the Menu at the top of the page) and click “Create a new player”

Step 5 - Adding Advertising to the Player

In the Custom Players Form, choose your main video source in the videos selection tab. Then, customise your player. When you are happy with the look of your player, select the advertising tab and check the boxes for where you want your videos to appear in the playlist. Then choose the playlist that you saved in Step 3 and select a specific video in the playlist to play, or choose random for iDesktop.tv to randomly select a video in your chosen playlist to play.

Step 6 - Saving and Enjoying

Click “Save and get code”, copy the code, paste it into your blog/website and enjoy!

Adverts in Results

iDesktop.tv also offers premium sponsorship ad units displayed in the search results for the iDesktop.tv home page.

If you would like to advertise with iDesktop.tv please click here to contact us.

iDesktop.tv V2 Beta testing is now LIVE!

The day has arrived for iDesktop.tv V2 Beta Testing. If you have already registered for Beta testing, please check your E-mail now for a link containing log-in information.

If you wish to apply for Beta testing then go to

http://beta.idesktop.tv and enter your email address to Sign-Up

Happy Testing Everyone!

Enjoy all of our hard work!

The iDesktop.tv Team

Beta Release - The wait is almost over

Hey Everyone!

We are now pleased to anounce iDesktop.tv V2 will be released for Beta testing this week.

So get ready for the new iDesktop.tv experience!

http://beta.idesktop.tv

Want to beta test iDesktop.tv Version 2?

The iDesktop.tv team have been very busy working hard on a new version of iDesktop.tv which is near beta.

Have you ever wanted to create a custom player and playlist of YouTube videos with a few clicks?

Have you ever found YouTube’s custom players limited?

Have you ever wanted to create different player types such as pop-out players and video walls?

Have you found using the embed player does not match the design and style of your website?

Have you ever wanted to brand your own player with your own logo, colour and skins?

Have you ever wanted to put your own advertisements between videos?

Well iDesktop.tv has gone all out to produce fully customisable players that will suit non-commercial and commercial needs.

Custom players can now be produced taking videos from YouTube’s users, channels, results of a search, featured videos, top rated, your favourites, your playlists and much more. With over 15 players and playlist types, users can now produce those custom players they have always craved for their websites. Extensive custom options are available to produce the unique player that suits you. We have also added fully customisable advertising allowing users to place certain videos at the start, between or at the end of videos in the playlist.

New features to the idesktop.tv website include :

• Custom embedded players for playlists
• User Interface
• Video player re-design
• MP3 downloads
• More Stable and faster website
• And a lot more

If you are interested in viewing our new custom embedded player examples please click on click below:

http://beta.idesktop.tv/embed-examples/

Fancy winning the new iPod Nano?

Beta testers have the chance to submit to us their custom players, where the designer of the most unique and cool looking player wins a free iPod Nano!

So please sign up below:

http://beta.idesktop.tv

Please send any feedback to support@idesktop.tv

Feel free to review the website and put references to these examples.

iDesktop.tv presents at Web 2.0 Start-up Ignite 2008 in Berlin

iDesktop.tv was chosen out of hundreds of applicants to present at the Web 2.0 Expo 2008 in Berlin for Startup Ignite.

The Expo took place in the Berliner Congress Center on 21st October 2008.

The application involved writing a short description about iDesktop.tv. From this, Lukasz Gadowski(Spreadshirt) and Brady Forrest (O’Reilly) chose iDesktop.tv to present with 5 other finalists (Aka-aki, Amazee, Plista, SoundCloud and Txtr) at the Web.20 Expo in Berlin. iDesktop.tv were the only UK based compnay. The format was simple, five minutes on stage and a maximum of 15 slides, no demos and videos are allowed. We gave a presentation on the upcoming release v2.0.

Jason Grimmitt and Dale Pepper flew over to Berlin to represent iDesktop.tv. At 17.45 local time, iDesktop.tv were on stage in front of over 1000 people including Lukasz Gadowski, Christophe Maire, Brady Forrest and Mike Butcher, who gave feedback on the presentations. The presentation went well with all the judges giving postitive feedback.

“A layer for a player”

Mike Butcher TechCrunch UK

“Web-based iTunes for YouTube videos”
Adam Tinworth onemanandhisblog.com

We hope to continue this success.Thank guys for the opportunity.

iDesktop.tv has been included in Startups’ list of the UK’s best new businesses!

iDesktop.tv has been included on Startups’ list of the top 100 best startup companies in the UK. The list is “the definitive countdown to the UK’s most innovative, inspiring and ground-breaking new companies”. Amongst the criteria applied whilst creating the list was that the business had to be exciting. Also, Startups wanted to see businesses that displayed:

• ‘Innovation, in concept or delivery
• Ability to disrupt existing market places
• Demonstratable growth potential.
• Strong management, bright thinkers
• Evidence of existing or future revenues’

The company felt that iDesktop.tv met these criteria. We are extremely pleased that iDesktop.tv made the cut, out of more than 500 businesses.

Nice!! And now to deliver! And, no, we didn’t pay someone who knew someone to get featured on this list.

Check out the list here

The long wait is over

iDesktop.tv is back after we were gone for some site renovations. We upgraded our servers and changed some of the hardware in order to provide better service to our increasing users base.

There are still a few small improvements that will be made on the website. Soon we will switch to a new player which will increase the speed of the videos.

All users that hadn’t been able to finish the activation of their registration can click on the confirmation link and finish it now.

We sincerely apologize to our thousands of users for the wait but it was all for improving the quality of our services and making your experience with iDesktop richer!

iDesktop.tv featured in Webuser

Webuser, the UKs best selling internet magazine, has featured iDesktop.tv in its “Best new websites section”. Webuser gave iDesktop.tv 4 out of 5 stars. It mentioned the download functionality and the viewing and sharing functions. The reviewer also wrote about the interface, stating “the interface is designed to resemble a desktop application, so it’s very simple to use, and can be customised with different themes”.

The review is on page 17 of the current issue (issue 180).