VUVOX Blog

Q: I want to change the email address on my account. How do I do it?

A: Your privacy is very important, and so is the security of your email address. As a policy we don’t change account email addresses once an account has been opened. We recommend you use your username as the primary way of logging into your account. If you have questions about changing your email address associated with your account, please request in writing.

Q: I want to close my account. How do I do it?

A: While you are logged-into your account, click on ‘My Account’ from the top nav bar. This will take you to a simple ‘Update your account’ page. Click on the Red link entitled ‘Delete Account’ — You will be asked if you REALLY want to do this. If yes, then your account, all media and respective presentations will ALL be removed.

Q: How is the ‘Pubic info’ field used?

A: The public info is used to mask your username if you would like to have a more ‘legible’ and user-friendly phrase of authorship associated with your creations. Use the Public info field on the ‘My Account‘ Page. This is the info that people will see next to your profile icon.

Q: How do I set my profile icon?

A: Follow these steps:

1) While you are logged into your VUVOX account, select the ‘My Stuff’ tab from the global nav.

2) select the link entitled  ‘Profile’ –> you will be presented with your public profile page

3) Select ‘Edit’ to update and change the information on your public profile. From this page you can upload an image to change your profile icon.

Q: How do create / use channels?

A: Channels can be created from your ‘My Stuff’ page by selecting the button entitled ‘Create a Channel’. You can think of channels as online containers for your presentations. Their visibility can be set to Public or Unlisted based on your sharing preferences. When you publish to a channel, your presentation can have it’s own content and permalink, but you can also get the permalink of your channel itself, allowing you to group content together. The channel architecture also let’s you embed channels in the VUVOX player. For more information on embedding Channels, visit the Embedding VUVOX FAQ.

Frequently asked Questions about Creating, publishing and embedding a VUVOX Collage. For additional help, visit our Online Video Tutorials on Lynda.com.

Q: Can I embed Collage in my blog?

A: We support many existing blog formats, but there is a known issue if Wordpress hosts your blog, it will not be able to be embedded. If you have a specific blog where it does NOT work, please tell us.

Q: Can I embed a VUVOX Channel in my website or Blog?

A: Yes, Channels are supported in the embed code. All you need to do is replace the path of the URL from a presentation ID to a Channel ID. See example below.

<object width=”100%” height=”450″>
<param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true” />
<param name=”flashvar” value=”controller=autohide”/>
<param name=”movie” value=”http://www.vuvox.com/channels/YOURCHANNEL#.swf“/>
<embed src=”http://www.vuvox.com/channels/YOURCHANNEL#.swf” flashvars=”controller=autohide”
allowfullscreen=”true” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” width=”100%”
height=”450″></embed></object>

Q: Can I defer Collage from playing automatically?

A: Yes. Collage will not play *any* background music until the end user presses the ‘play’ button. You can also defer the player from playing by embedding collage with a width smaller than 320 pixels. anything below 320 pixels width will put the player into a mode where (when clicked) it will start the presentation and go full screen.

Q: Can I update my Collage after it has been embedded?

A: YES. Emphatically, yes! This is a great advantage of the publishing workflow. You can evolve your piece after it has been placed on a site. This is great when you want to make updates & changes to a collage without involving any additional technical pushes or updates to your site. Alternatively, you can not hurt an existing collage by using the ’save as’ button in VUVOX collage to create a new version. Any additional changes will only be reflected in the new version.

Q: Can Collage be modified to something other than horizontal format?

A: We currently don’t support other stages other than Horizontal. We’d like to support other stage sizes and aspect ratios soon.

Q: Is there a White Label version of Collage?

A: VUVOX is willing to work with select companies to develop custom variations of the tool. Send us a note via Feedback form with attention to ‘Business Development’… it’ll be routed to the correct person.

Q: Can I remove the ‘VUVOX’ logo from the Player?

A: Yes, but we usually ask that you ask for permission. You can remove the logo from the player by inserting a variable value  into the embed code. See example below:

———— < begin embed code > < Your object height=“400″ width=“550″><param value=“true” name=“allowFullScreen”/><param value=“showHeader=false&showMenu=false” name=“FlashVars”/><param value=“always” name=“allowScriptAccess”/><param value=“http://www.vuvox.com/collage_express/collage.swf?collageID=YOURCOLLAGEID#” name=“movie”/><embed height=“400″ width=“550″ type=“application/x-shockwave-flash” allowfullscreen=“true” allowScriptAccess=“always” FlashVars=“showHeader=false&showMenu=false” src=“http://www.vuvox.com/collage_express/collage.swf?collageID=YOURCOLLAGEID#”/>< end your object tag > < end embed code > ——————-

Q: Can I change the color of the Player?

A: Yes. From VUVOX Collage, you can select the ‘Settings’ button. This allows you to change the background color as well as the color of the Letterbox when it is published & embedded. Below is the interface used to change the color:

NOTE: you can also change the color of the Letterbox by inserting a parameter into the embed code as well: see example below

———— < begin embed code > < Your object height=“400″ width=“550″ bgcolor=”cccccc”><param value=“true” name=“allowFullScreen”/><param value=“showHeader=false&showMenu=false” name=“FlashVars”/><param value=“always” name=“allowScriptAccess”/><param value=“http://www.vuvox.com/collage_express/collage.swf?collageID=YOURCOLLAGEID#&marginColor=0xcccccc” name=“movie”/><embed height=“400″ width=“550″ type=“application/x-shockwave-flash” allowfullscreen=“true” allowScriptAccess=“always” FlashVars=“showHeader=false&showMenu=false” src=“http://www.vuvox.com/collage_express/collage.swf?collageID=YOURCOLLAGEID#”/>< end your object tag > < end embed code > ——————-

Frequently asked Questions about Creating, publishing and embedding a VUVOX Collage. For additional help, visit our Online Video Tutorials on Lynda.com.

Q: What is the best way to upload into VUVOX?

A: The most comprehensive way to upload into VUVOX is through the Collage interface. You must be logged in to access this screen. Uploading images, video and audio can all be done through this interface. Even if you are wanting to use VUVOX Studio, you can upload through the Collage interface. From here you can organize your media into groups or sort by media type (images, video, audio) if needed.

Q: What media formats do you support for upload?

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We’re in our final stages of the Collage private beta. It’s been fantastic seeing what has been created!

We’ve added a bunch of new features lately, including:

• Secure Flickr account access
• Secure Picasa account access
• Smugmug account access
• Video Layering
• TEXT layout and positioning

to check out collage, visit: http://www.vuvox.com/collage

We’re very excited about the advancements in ‘VUVOX: Cut-out Express‘. It’s been been fun watching some of our early beta testers create some pretty amazing things. The possibilities of dynamic frame cut-outs allow any photograph to be used to create a contextual portal to another piece of media. That could be a slideshow OR video. The juxtaposition of the media seems to be a really nice combination.

There’s really no end to what you can create with this thing. We want you to use it, share it and *dare* someone to a Cut-out dual!

Click on the ‘Menu’ button in the player to navigate to other cut-out examples.

We’ve been making advancements in our photo collage tool. Our most recent collaborations include the San Jose Mercury News Photo department, specifically the work by Richard Hernandez. We recently invited Tech Blogger & photo enthusiast, Robert Scoble to talk with us about these recent developments, and how VUVOX works with Photojournalists.

The piece created by Hernandez was an interactive photo essay on the town of Willow Glen, California. The piece took about two weeks of research to document and photograph, but only about two hours to create in the new VUVOX collage tool. Scoble interviews Richard on his Creation process.

Next, Robert Scoble interviews Dane Howard, CXO of VUVOX about tool itself and how the user experience was design for VUVOX collage.

The Collage tool is currently in private beta, if you’re interested in giving feedback or being contacted about the VUVOX beta, let us know.

Boston, MA: Our friends at Flashforward and Lynda.com are using VUVOX to showcase images coming directly from the conference. The attendees are invited to upload their images to Flickr and join the “Flashforward Boston” group and/or tag their photos “flashforward” –> They’ll be participating in one big photo feed, that is syndicated back into the Flashforward Website.

There will be three galleries of content. Conference Photos Gallery will include images from conference attendees, Expo Hall Gallery, and Flashforward Speakers Gallery, which will focus on the Point of view of Speakers.

Mario Klingemann, AKA (Quasimondo) will also be on-site, giving a talk and being Mr. VUVOX ambassador.

A new style variation emerged the other day from our test bed of Beta Production tools. This time we’ve added it to the public beta line-up of VUVOX Studio styles that everyone can access. Embedded in this page is an example piece published with this new style. It shows off a couple things we’ve been working on.

Firstly, we’ve been working on styles composites that take on multiple media targets, each can designate their own presentation ‘engine’. Cinematic Duality allows you to set the foreground to ‘Slideshow’ and the background to ‘Vuvision’. We’ve also developed our ’sequence’ engine, which overlays images on top of eachother. An example of the sequence engine is found here. It works best when shooting burst mode on your camera.

The layout is very simple here, but the relationship of foreground/background & the letterbox showed real promise. The live tools allows you to add music and change background color. The customize palette allows you to specify which layout you want in your scene.

TIP: make sure that you play with the order of your media in your storyboard to affect the layout and flow of which images flow into the media targets

Aug. 14, 2007, Palo Alto, CA — We were invited back to the DEMO alumni party, hosted by Chris Shipley. It was a great event to re-connect with old friends.

There was an opportunity to give a quick update to some select individuals on the progress we’ve made since our preview last Feburary in Palm Desert. Here’s some pictures from the event:

VUVOX is centered on enabling our customers to visually express in new ways. We recognize that the market is stuffed full of simple slide shows, video editors and widgets. In many cases, one dimensional presentations are more than sufficient to communicate random images that are may be centered around quick social updates. We are confident that many of these companies will do well and we wish them the best. We are on another track.

We really care about final quality and the content that is being communicated. We also believe that most people feel strongly about how their memories are preserved. However, production values (to borrow a Hollywood term) have always been the domain of lofty professionals with big budgets and time on their hands. Current desktop and online consumer companies have more or less said: “if you want high quality personal content, be prepared to spend a lot of time.” In a 24/7 world….who has time ? The result is that today’s creation solutions force you into accepting imposed limitations. In this world, tech terms like “ease of use” become an accepted tradeoff for simplistic expression. The result: EVERYTHING looks the same. Is this the future of digital media communication ? Is this all you want ?

Anyone who spends time on VUVOX, immediately realizes that we take the user’s overall site experience and targeted feature design very serious. While we don’t always get it right the first time, we know that design elegance centers on making complex tasks appear easy. The experience should deliver results that continually delight the customer. There is no reason more advanced production values can’t be within reach of every customer.

Of course, talk is cheap.

We just had a discussion about a specific feature that might be just beyond some customer’s ability to intuitively understand its function. If they have previously used any standard photo editing tools…they should instantly understand this feature…if not, they might be initially scratching their heads until they move through the process once.

The risk: It will require the customer to click a few more times and perhaps learn something new.

The reward: If we implement this feature it introduce a new browser based creation paradigm that is very exciting (we hope).
What do you think ?

- Should we put that functionality in ?
- Do we “dumb down” the product to make sure everyone can use it ?
- Do we narrow our target market to provide a feature that may cause the larger mass market problems ?