Welcome to the Flip Generation
This morning Cisco announced the intent to acquire Pure Digital, makers of the very popular Flip video cameras.
I’ve been a Flip user for years capturing everything from my daughter’s first steps to Cisco’s presence at the Cannes Film Festival. Yes, Flip cameras are a relatively inexpensive video capture device, but the more interesting aspect is how the embedded FlipShare software which lowers barriers for editing and sharing videos. It makes things easy enough that even my parents (no offense) can take videos of their granddaughter, edit down to the most adorable moments, and publish it out to friends and family around the world.
And that’s where the network comes in.
Cisco’s Visual Networking Index, which tracks the amount of media-rich traffic worldwide, suggests that consumer video traffic will increase 49% CAGR from 2007-2012. Now, the bulk of that traffic is not going to be uploads of user-generated videos, but making it easier for non-professionals to capture, manipulate and share video can only accelerate these trends.
That not only loads networks, but it also gives media companies another opportunity to engage consumers and develop new venues for story telling around entertainment content. Passionate fans are already creating videos and other user generated content around their favorite entertainment brands. Rather than just having fans upload video to the ubiquitous YouTube, media companies have the opportunity to create new, interactive environments where their fans can interact with and around the media company’s content. And that’s why from a Cisco Eos perspective, I’m happy to welcome the Flip team to Cisco.
Posted by Scott Brown at 08:12AM PST
Michael S. Scherotter Mar 20, 2009
I’ve been coveting one of those for months - good move Cisco! Now that Silverlight will start supporting h.264 in version 3 and offline capabilities, I could imagine a pretty cool applications.