next2friendsblog.com

Next2Friends at the Glastonbury Festival 2008

Hans — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 18:48:38 +0000

Well, Next2Friends has made it back from the Glastonbury Festival in one piece and we have to say, it was a great time! We were determined to bring you all the excitement of the festival in real time and squarely accomplished that goal! Check out our Glastonbury Profile. We streamed over a hundred real time videos using Next2Friends Live and shot and uploaded nearly a hundred photos using Next2Friends Snap-Up. Have a look through our photos and videos. Here are a few highlights:

And then there are the loads of videos we captured from the event, including a real time stream during the “Amy Winehouse punches fan” incedent. Check it out:

Good times! Find out how you can broadcast live events using Next2Friends!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

Next2Friends Live from The Pussycat Club

Hans — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:39:41 +0000

Next2Friends has an exciting weekend ahead. We are partnering with the Pussycat Club to bring you all the excitement of this weekend’s Heatwave Tropical Beach Party! The Pussycat Club is one of the longest running, most highly respected club brands in the UK.

And did I mention that they know how to throw a party?!? Check out this footage from their 13th birthday bash:

The Next2Friends Team will be out in full force for the event, capturing all the excitement using Next2Friends Live, Ask and Snap Up! And rumor has it there will be exclusive videos and pictures only viewable by friends of the Pussycat Club Profile. So head on over to their Next2Friends page and befriend them so you don’t miss out! Don’t have a profile? Sign up for one! See you Saturday and if you can’t make it, well, we’ve got it covered!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

Next2Friends Members of the Week

Hans — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:27:30 +0000

So I mentioned last week that we love our members and in case you forgot I’ll say it again: We love our members! This week’s member of the week is:

Squeaks

She is a 26 year old living in the UK, has just graduated college and is a DJ among other things! Great to have you Squeaks and congratulations on not only graduating college, but making Next2Friends Member of the Week!

The Next2Friends Video of the Week was created by Genius. Aside from his cute little dog and gorgeous bird check out the quality of picture he got using Next2Friends Live. Pretty amazing:

And last but not least is the Next2Friends Picture of the Week. This was submitted to our Next2Friends Glastonbury Festival profile. We’ll be at Glastonbury bringing you all the excitement of the worlds largest greenfield festival for 4 solid days!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

Flixwagon is FAR from Live

Hans — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:46:22 +0000

I decided to test Flixwagon’s assertion that they bring you ‘Your Life…Live!’ I wanted to see just how ‘live’ their video broadcasting from mobile was. I was pretty shocked at just how NOT live they are. Over WiFi they were running about a 30 second delay from the genesis of an event to when it hits the web! WARNING: It takes a while to get to the actual test, it begins right before the 2 minute mark, but have a look for yourself:

A few weeks ago I did a similar test of Qik and have to say that they fared better. They ran about a 3-5 second delay over WiFi and anywhere from a 9-45 second delay over a 3.5G connection.

But none stand up to Next2Friends in their ability to deliver events to the web AS THEY HAPPEN. Have a look at Next2Friends over WiFi:

And here is Next2Friends over a 3.5G connection. Notice that the delay is almost indistinguishable between the two:

Next2Friends is the only one to deliver TRUE LIVE from mobile so far! We’re finding more and more people who seem to care. Do you?

www.Next2Friends.com - It’s NOW!

Next2Friends Member of the Week

Hans — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:21:05 +0000

Next2Friends is all about community and we’re excited that so many people are finding Next2Friends a meaningful place to go. And, frankly, we love our members so we’ve decided to feature a member every week! This week’s featured member is:

Dan Cronin

Dan is a 22 year old from the UK. He’s been an active member of Next2Friends since December, 2007. He likes to ski and hang with friends among other things.

We’ve also decided to pick a Video and Picture of the Week. This week’s video is great, a bit painful to watch, but good nonetheless:

And the Picture of the Week:

Thanks everybody! Keep ‘em coming!

www.Next2Friends.com - It’s NOW!

3 Easy Steps to LIVE Broadcasting Your Life

Hans — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 22:43:07 +0000

Sarah? Shannon? How do I get started!?!

#1: Start a Next2Friends Profile

Go to:

Next2Friends Signup

#2: Download the Applications to Your Mobile

Go to this address and use the drop down boxes to pick your phone, then download and install the various Next2Friends applications:

Next2Friends Mobile Applications Downloads Page

#3: Broadcast!

You have several options here. The most obvious and perhaps the most fun is to stream LIVE from your mobile phone. Instructions here:

The other ways you can accomplish this are to use Next2Friends Snap-Up to instantly upload photos to your profile or create real-time opinion polls using Next2Friends Ask.

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

The New 3G iPhone and Next2Friends

Hans — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:16:07 +0000

The new 3G iPhone has been released and the industry is abuzz with thoughts and speculation on the particulars. “Twice as fast, half the price” is the mantra being echoed by scores of people in the press. But on further examination it looks as if “half the price” will actually cost consumers an extra $240 per 2 year contract. This still wasn’t enough to stop AT&T’s shares from slipping.

But it’s the new features of the 3G iPhone that really excite us at Next2Friends. Let’s start with the introduction of video. H.264 up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second. This means that we can finally bring Next2Friends Live to the iPhone and open up the world of live streamed video for iPhone users! Development begins the minute we get our hands on one (or maybe sooner).

The next feature of interest to us is the new 2 megapixel camera. Not much to report there but the better the camera the better the picture for things like Next2Friends Snap-Up and Ask.

And of course we can’t forget the ability to connect to a 3G network. Next2Friends Live is completely scalable (unlike our competition) meaning that our picture and audio quality will improve as the robustness of networks improve. With a 3G connection you can easily get a nice 15fps picture. Here’s a test I did:

Hey, I did it to demonstrate picture quality, not bed-making quality or clothes-folding quality! Live is live, warts and all, thats the beauty of this thing we’ve built:-)

www.Next2Friends.com - It’s NOW!

Next2Friends at Gatecrasher 2008

Hans — Fri, 30 May 2008 20:19:52 +0000

Next2Friends recently attended Gatecrasher, a UK music festival featuring artist such as Prodigy and Mark Ronson. The festival lasted 2 days over Memorial Day weekend (or May Bank Holiday if you’re in the UK). It featured 20 stages, 20 live bands, 200 DJ’s and 60,000 people. Have a look at some of our footage:

Part of Mark Ronson’s set.

Part of Prodigy’s set. I bet his voice was hoarse the next day!

The boys partaking in some Oxygen…the last time I checked that stuff was free!

And lastly, a walk through the campsite. Looked like a great time!

Real Life,

Real Time,

Real People,

www.Next2Friends.com

Hans Erik
Content Marketing Director
Hans at Next2Friends dot com

Qik Isn’t Live

Hans — Tue, 20 May 2008 18:06:20 +0000

I decided to test out Qik’s live video streaming to see how they stack up against Next2Friends Live. Here is my first test over a solid 3.5G connection:

As you can see there is about a 9 second delay between an event and when it hits their website. This was the least amount of time I got over my 3.5G connection. Delay times were as high as 40 seconds for some of the other tests I ran. So I tried the same test with Next2Friends, over my 3.5G connection. Here is the result:

Notice the nearly instantaneous correlation between the event and when it is seen online. So to give them the benefit of the doubt I decided to next try Qik over my Wifi connection. Here is the result:

And finally, Next2Friends Live over a Wifi connection:

Notice that the delay between the event and when it is viewed online is no greater than 1 second on either the Wifi or the 3.5G connection with Next2Friends Live! With Qik this delay is quite variable, anywhere from 3 seconds on Wifi to 9-40+ seconds over 3.5G. Why should a delay matter you might ask? There are a host of very useful applications for TRUE live streaming from mobile. With delayed streaming from mobile you are stuck with one simple application: video blogging or something similar. It’s little more than a nifty way to instantly upload videos you shoot from your phone. Next2Friends Live in it’s current state is just the first step in a long succession of applications that are possible once you have truly live video streams from mobile. But you’ll have to just wait to see what I mean:)

Real Life,

Real Time,

Real People,

www.Next2Friends.com

Hans Erik
Content Marketing Director
Hans at Next2Friends dot com

How to Install Next2Friends on Your Mobile Device

Hans — Thu, 15 May 2008 17:36:32 +0000

Here is a brief tutorial on how to download and install Next2Friends onto your mobile device:

Downloading and installing Next2Friends is easy! In case you miss it in the tutorial navigate to this link from your mobile:

www.Next2Friends.com/m.html

And see my coming tutorials on how to use the various services Next2Friends has to offer. Start doing great things with your mobile like Live Video Streaming with Next2Friends Live or quick and easy uploads to your profile with Next2Friends Snap-Up. See why the revolution will be televised…and mobile!

Real Life,

Real Time,

Real People,

www.Next2Friends.com

Hans Erik
Content Marketing Director
Hans at Next2Friends dot com