Profiled - Kaltura - The first open-source platform for the creation and consumption of rich-media web applications
An interview with Dr. Shay David, co-founder and VP of Business and Community Development at Kaltura
Kaltura talks to the Social Media Portal about open source video, rich media and working with developers to build custom applications
Social Media Portal (SMP): What is your full job title and role at Kaltura?Dr. Shay David (SD): VP Business and Community Development. I am in charge of Kaltura?s sales and business development teams, as well as overall business, technology and community strategy.
SMP: Briefly, tell us about Kaltura, what is it and what does it do?
SD: Kaltura provides the world's first Open Source Online Video Platform, which presents a low-cost and flexible alternative to proprietary video solutions in the market. With over 30,000 publishers, award-winning Kaltura is growing rapidly, with hundreds of sites joining daily.
Beyond catering directly to web publishers, Kaltura's open framework provides integrators and developers the ability to create custom video applications with minimal time and effort. The Platform also includes unique interactive features that increase user engagement and time spent on site.
SMP: What made you start Kaltura?SD: In every mature industry, there is an open source player, and the same is true for video. Kaltura is to Video what Mozilla is to browsers or MySQL to databases. We started the company with the notion that we can bring together a global community of developers that will build the world?s best and most affordable video solution.
SMP: What was the most challenging part of building the service?SD: Making sure that the platform was flexible and open so that developers can easily understand and work with the source code and the pieces of the platform. Scale, is also always an issue. But I guess that if you?re not worried about scale, you?re not growing fast enough?
SMP: Who are your target audience and why?SD: In general ? Kaltura targets any site looking to add video capabilities.
More specifically, Kaltura has a three-pronged approach:
1. We target mid-sized sites and publishers looking to enhance their site with online video and who are not well served by today?s existing expensive and cumbersome proprietary video solutions on the market. Kaltura offers a lower-cost, flexible alternative.
2. Kaltura offers self-serve downloadable video packages for web platforms such as WordPress, MediaWiki and Drupal - this allows small, independent publishers to benefit from a full video solution with a few mouse clicks - something that has not existed till today.
3. Developers and integrators looking to develop video applications now for the first time have a rapid and cost-effective way to develop their own applications using Kaltura's open source video framework.
6: How important is community to Kaltura and why?SD: Community is a critical part of our business and overall company strategy. Without the Kaltura community, our entire business model and corporate mission is practically irrelevant.
SMP: How did you initially attract users to your service (and the world?s first open source online video platform), and how do you do it now?SD: Originally we focused a lot of effort on the interactive and collaborative aspects of our platform, showing our unique UGC features. Now we focus more on the benefits that we provide publishers by being open source and therefore having the ability to offer the most flexible and low-cost full video management platform.
SMP: What are your low moments of what you have been doing so far?SD: Start-up life is challenging. It?s 24/7, constant work, the large majority of which is not recognized. It?s always tough to lose a deal to a lesser competitor, or to spend hours fixing technical bugs. The trick is to always focus on the good parts, and let the good moments wash away the bad ones.
SMP: What are your high moments of what you have been doing so far?SD: Seeing the great traction that our solutions have had in the market ? more than 30,000 publishers have integrated the Kaltura platform, with hundreds joining every week. We?re also very proud that Wikipedia had chosen our technology to be the basis of their entry into the video market.
SMP: Now that you are established, what do you see as your biggest challenges and opportunities?SD: Becoming the de-facto solution for video in the open source world ? to further become what Mozilla is to browsers, MySQL is for databases and JBoss is to application servers. In other words, want to make sure that the famous LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), becomes the KLAMP stack, with Kaltura being the default layer for video apps.
SMP: What are the next moves for Kaltura?SD: Public launch of our self-hosted video platform, additional pre-integrated extensions and plug-ins to leading CMS platforms, expansion into additional global markets, and a big push on mobile video.
SMP: How important is video in the today?s digital environment and what did you learn (and share) at the Open Video Conference earlier this month?SD: With over 17 billion videos watched every month in the US alone (according to comScore) and steady month-over-month growth, it is clear that video is here to stay.
Possible the biggest take-away from the Open Video Conference, where over 900 thought leaders joined us, is that open video is a topic that is making waves in the industry and people/companies form all layers of the ecosystem are looking into open source video, and open video more generally, its potential and the value it brings to the entire market.
SMP: What?s the next big step for social media and networks and what role does video play?
SD: Regardless of what the next step for social media and networks is, it is clear that video will be an inseparable part of it. I believe that the next big step is deeper adoption of social media and networks on mobile and wireless devices.
SMP: What?s going to be the most interesting aspect regarding social media / technology throughout 2009?SD: Due to the economic climate in the US and the world over, it will be interesting to see which companies rise to the top with new innovations and progress, which will remain in a more stagnant position and who will ultimately get left by the wayside. I think that the ones that will survive are the ones that focus on creating immediate value, whether that value is measured in its ability to entertain, connect people, or facilitate commerce.
SMP: What impact is the global recession having and what do you think the best way is to manage it for businesses such as yours?SD: The recession is a good reason to relook at budgets and ensure that our money is being spent where it should be ? there is a fine line between limiting spending to save cash for better days, and not spending enough to progress and finding yourself with money in the bank but no prospects on the horizon. There never has been a better time to switch from proprietary to open source alternatives.
SMP: How does this fit into plans at Kaltura?SD: Kaltura has found a great balance in this respect. Also, the fact that we?re open source is a huge advantage ? we have an entire developer community working together with us to further enhance our technology.
SMP: Best way to contact you?SD: shay.david @ kaltura.com
Now some questions for fun
SMP: What did you have for breakfast / lunch?SD: A two egg omelette. Trying to keep low on carbs.
SMP: What's the last good thing that you did for someone?SD: I connected one of our users, a disabled musician who wanted to distribute his music, to our Wiki communities, so that his music can help enhance content on Wikipedia.
SMP: How many hours to you work a week?SD: How many hours are there in a week? Pretty much all of them. I probably work 15-16 hours a day, 7 days a week.
SMP: If you weren?t running Kaltura what would you be doing?SD: Working on my next start-up, in the area of global collaboration.
SMP: When and where did you go on your last holiday?SD: I believe in the work-hard party-hard philosophy. My last vacation was a long weekend on Martha?s Vineyard. But don?t tell anyone.
SMP: What?s the first thing you do when you get into the office of a morning?SD: Drink coffee. Lot?s of it. Caffeine is the real driver of innovation. Don?t let anyone fool you.
SMP: If you had a superpower what would it be and why?SD: Healing power at my fingers. So that I can help cure people.
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