Product Updates - Wistia at Work

Archive for the ‘Product Updates’ Category

Replaceable Video. For safer screw-ups.

Monday, January 30th, 2012

Your newest video just entered the wild, and you couldn't be prouder. Then, just when the tale seems to be reaching its happy end, you realize you've made a horrible oversight and something major is off. There's no getting around it: you need to replace the video, stat, but the one person with access to the page where the video is embedded is nowhere to be found, and you're racking up views by the hundreds who think your company is named "Wisti" or "Wisteria" or "Bratwurstia" instead of "Wistia".

With our Replaceable Video tool, launched today, you'll never have to worry about this scenario again. With one click, you can upload a new file in the place of any video in your account, and it will be replaced everywhere: in all of your embeds and in the Wistia app. It works with all SuperEmbeds and in all legacy embeds except the legacy HTML embed. As we're encoding the web-viewable versions of your new video, the old version will stay visible. As soon as those encodes are complete, your video will be automatically, seamlessly updated in all locations, with a new thumbnail and everything. So go ahead, run wild, be free and make mistakes. We've entered no regrets mode.

Tags: fixin' things, mistakes, product updates, replaceable video, screw ups, time travel, video embeds, web video
Posted in Product Updates | 11 Comments »

Unified API: Flash and HTML5, in beautiful harmony

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

In ancient times, a.k.a. about a month ago, Wistia’s Player API (and all associated documentation) basically controlled the Flash side of the player, without really allowing much control on the HTML5 side. Since we’re all about making sure your video plays right everywhere — including the mobile devices where HTML5 video is a necessity — this could not go on forever. So we’re happy to announce our new Unified Player API, which just works, regardless of whether your audience is viewing your video in Flash or HTML5.

The new Player API places a new layer of abstraction on top of the player, creating a true Wistia API that eliminates the annoying little details that used to catch people up (for instance, you couldn’t instantaneously issue commands to the Javascript API, you had to wait for it to initiate). With the new API:

No more polling the video! The unified API supports video events like play/pause/ended/timechange on both Flash and HTML5.
You don’t have to worry about what’s going on under the hood, just tell the player what to do and we’ll take care of the rest!

We’re excited to have a Unified Flash/HTML5 interface and we think it’ll make everyone’s lives a whole lot easier. To learn more, read the new Player API documentation. Combined with our recent new customizable player, Matador, and SuperEmbeds that make customization even easier, you have more control over your videos than ever.

Tags: api, flash, flash vs. html5, harmonious interactions, html5, player, player api, wistia player
Posted in Product Updates | 1 Comment »

SuperEmbeds: Viva La Revolución

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

Today we are pleased to announce the launch of a new feature we call SuperEmbeds. We’ve totally re-engineered the way video embeds work with the goal of giving you more advanced tools to customize your video — tools that you can now deploy with a click of the button. Please watch the video, read the post, try out the demo page and let us know what you think!

In the not-so-distant past — a past which overlaps with the present or future for many video hosting providers — video embeds focused on one task: embedding the video. To add extra richness to the video experience, you or your crazy computer whiz friend had to build additional functionality on top of the existing embed, creating long, complicated codes built from barely compatible snippets, stitched together haphazardly to create something that only barely functioned (and probably experienced compatibility issues we shudder to think about).

We at Wistia were not content to exist in a world where functionality like social buttons, interactive transcripts, popovers, and calls-to-action were only accessible through a cumbersome process that only 1% of the population could successfully employ in concert (#OccupyWebVideo). We’ve always had labs with neat extra features available, but not everyone could make use of them. So, we’ve been working hard on a completely new way to handle video embeds. We’re starting a video revolution, and its handsome hero goes by the name of SuperEmbeds.

These have been a work in progress for quite some time, and we’ve thought about it from all angles. First of all, in the true Wistia way, these embeds — and all added functionality — are compatible across all devices, without you having to think about it. They will work on your desktop, they will work across browsers, they will work on all mobile devices, with no extra work on your end. These embeds work seamlessly no matter how many additional “plug-ins” you decide to add — we’ve devised a grid system that prevents conflict and tested it like crazy. An added bonus of this system is that it will be super easy for us to add new things in the future.

We’ve got a lot more to say about SuperEmbeds, so keep your eyes peeled for upcoming posts about how you can use new features like our Unified API and Calls to Action to your advantage. And as always, we’re happy to answer any questions you may have at support@wistia.com!

Tags: #occupywebvideo, call to action, interactive transcripts, labs, popovers, post roll, pre-roll, product updates, social bar, superembeds, unified api
Posted in Product Updates | 13 Comments »

Back to the Future: Video Plays by Date

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

If you’re in touch with us regularly, particularly about analytics, you have probably heard the mystical phrase Stats 2.0. Perhaps this elicited an image of a single massive overhaul, but what’s the fun in that? That would be like eating your entire advent calendar on December 3. Instead, over the next few months, we’ll constantly be releasing awesome new stats-related features that we’ve been working on (and are currently perfecting). The first of these is a pretty neat one: Video Plays by Date!

You can select a range of dates to view stats for:

And you can also choose to view weekly or monthly graphs:

To access Video Plays by Date in your account, simply visit the usual stats page for a video and click “Plays by Date” in the upper right corner.

Soon, you’ll be able to access this — and other — data as a .csv for Excel manipulation, view stats by project, pivot stats by embed location or visitor, and more! And we’re also happy to report that our stats will never fall behind again (a problem that we’d seen a couple of times in the past).

A fun fact about Video Plays by Date: we developed our own graphing library from scratch for it. We thought that a lot of the libraries out there were too bloated or generic, so we wanted something tailor-built for simplicity. That’s always what we aim for — doing the best job in the simplest way possible (and it’s a pretty sweet bonus when it can look sleek, too). Now, what are you waiting for? Go check out your new stats!

Tags: data love, pretty graphs, stats, video analytics, video plays by date
Posted in Product Updates | No Comments »

Matadors on the Loose: 3 Examples of Player Customization

Monday, December 19th, 2011

We launched our new player, Matador, on November 30. This player lends itself to some sweet customizations, and we’re starting to see some very aesthetically pleasing examples roaming the wild plains of the Internet!

We’ve seen video players where custom color looks tacky, and we were afraid of falling into the same trap (especially when we want our player to stay out of the way and let your video content take center stage), but these customers have picked great colors to make the player look even better amidst their content than before. Click the thumbnails to visit the live sites!

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