SAN FRANCISCO -- Ourmedia, the world's first video hosting and sharing site, announced today that it has merged with Outhink Media, a company that serves the needs of digital media producers.
Under the merger, Ourmedia will continue to operate as an open-source site and educational resource that serves the digital media community. Outhink, which previously donated servers and considerable development resources to the site, is working to enhance Ourmedia with new features and capabilities.
"We thank Outhink for bringing us this far," said Ourmedia co-founder J.D. Lasica. "Now we're joining efforts to support the work of independent video producers."
Ourmedia was recently named one of the Top 50 Video Sharing Sites by Website magazine.
This week Ourmedia surpassed 140,000 registered members. The site will continue to offer free hosting and bandwidth for videos and audio podcasts through its partnership with the Internet Archive. But it will shift emphasis away from random video uploads and encourage members to create portfolios of more polished, professional works that would appeal to potential content partners or advertising clients.
Ourmedia recently launched a Channels feature (channels.ourmedia.org) that lets any member assemble playlists of media that pull content from any site. Members have created channels devoted to global warming, Free Speech TV, mashups, podcasting for teachers, Barack Obama, video gear and Finnish hobbies.
In addition, the Outhink team has begun work on a Producers portfolio page
that will let Ourmedia members show off their favorite or most professional-looking works with the goal of helping to market and earn money for video producers, editors, script writers and others.
Dave Toole, Outhink Media CEO said. "If you want to show off your video chops and exchange ideas and best practices with fellow video producers, find editors , videographers, the best techniques, head to Ourmedia." "We are focused on helping the video producer community find the best place to market and monetize their video productions,"
Ourmedia also just beefed up its Personal Media Learning Center, a free resource that helps beginners become more accomplished video producers and podcasters. The Learning Center was singled out for praise by presenters at the Drupal Camp workshop for open-source developers in Los Angeles last weekend.
Outhink is best known for its SpinXpress tool (at SpinXpress.com), a free peer-to-peer software application that lets people share videos, photos, audio and other files of any size on a secure private network. The latest version of SpinXpress lets people not only share media files with friends and co-workers but also lets users publish works to Ourmedia or Blip.tv.
For example, many band members use SpinXpress to share musical works in progress and pass recorded files or samples back and forth until finished. The artists can then publish the finished work to Ourmedia or Blip or upload via the Web to YouTube or MySpace.
"We're living in a time of fundamental change in the media landscape," said Toole "We're all becoming media producers. After you've made a few videos, you may want to start your own Internet TV show, shoot community videos or even make an ad. We're providing tools to make it easier."
