Carmen Ferrara’s Weblog 2.0

I received my copy of Streaming Media magazine today. This is a new print publication put out by Streamingmedia.com. The print version will be sent out quarterly and I imagine all the articles, reviews, news, etc. will be available online as well. I don’t think the content in this new publication will be all that different from the regular site content, but it’s nice to see a print publication for the streaming industry out there. I’ve followed Streamingmedia.com for several years, and attended the annual Streaming Media East tradeshow a couple of years ago. It is an excellent resource from a busines of streaming perspective, as well as from a technical perspective. If you’d like a free subscription, you can sign up here.

One interesting item from this month’s issue was a review of Macromedia/Adobe’s Captivate and TechSmith’s Camtasia Studio products. Basically, these two products are the gold standard of web presentation tools, and iPresent Producer’s nearest competitors. Generally speaking, the reviews were positive, noting that Captivate excelled in creating software simulations, whereas Camtasia Studio was more adept at creating “quick and dirty” web presentations. The reviewer glowingly decided you need both tools in your rich media software arsenal. That’s a pretty pricey proposition. Also, one glaring error I noticed was the incorrect pricing for Camtasia Studio, listing it at $29.99 (should have been $299).

As it has been stated before, there’s nothing wrong with entering a competitive market, as long as you can differentiate yourself - which I believe iPresent Producer will do. Also, it’s also a good thing to be entering a strong, healthy market like rich media communications.

I couldn’t let an entire month pass by without a post. So on this last day of March I just had to slip one in. Yes, it’s been very quiet on the blog front, but not so on the home front. On March 8th, we welcomed Claire Kathleen into the world, and we couldn’t be happier. We are all settling in quite nicely.

Sleep deprivation aside, I’m feeling rather invigorated and ready to make a final push towards getting iPresent Producer out the door.

A short video from the blizzard of 2006. This was shot just before another heavy band of snow came through. Total snowfall: 17.5 inches.

Duration: 8 seconds

 Blizzard 2006: Quicktime version

I had a rather lengthy first post planned. It was fairly ambitious - it described the company I am starting, a bit about myself, what this blog is about, and some philosophies on building software and businesses. Then I thought, I don’t need all that stuff up front - just let the blog evolve, let the posts themselves describe who, what, and where. Plus, I didn’t want to scare people off with my long-windedness.

So, here’s the short version. This blog is about starting a small software company. I hope to have an open conversation with others about the process. I am dedicated to building better software by listening to feedback. I hope to learn by listening, and to contribute something back through my experiences.