In Linius’ latest webinar, JB unveiled the curtain on Whizzard. Unlike the moment in the ‘Wizard of Oz’ where Dorothy revealed that wizard hiding behind smoke and mirrors, Linius’ Whizzard shone brightly.
Viewers can see exactly how Whizzard, which forms the basis of all Linius’ products and future extensions, functions. Confusion and doubt have been removed.
Whizzard works pre-match, live, and post-match.
More than that, we can see how Linius can add real value to clients, may impact YouTube, and ultimately reward its shareholders.
JB broke down Whizzard into its 3 main parts: search, assembly and publish.
1. SEARCH FUNCTION “World’s best video search capability”
The search function is well beyond any reasonable expectations.
Cricket was used as the demo and we already know Cricket Australia are sitting on a 40,000 hour and growing archival library.
Cricket fans immediately would pick up on the precision of the search; it’s miles beyond just clicking a batter, match, and runs. Also included are:
Shot locations (cover, fine leg, long on/off, point, square leg etc.)
Bat connection (bottom edge, gloved, hit body, inside edge, leading edge etc.)
With Rugby (Inverleigh) we could see an equally impressive precision search engine. Beyond players & games, Inverleigh can hone in on highly specific moments with any game, including broken tackles, clean breaks, knock-ons, rucks, scrums, drop goals, line-outs, turnovers, try assists etc.
2. ASSEMBLY FUNCTION “One of the key components of Linius’ patents”
Without Whizzard, editing can be a laborious, expensive, and time-consuming process. Cricket Australia, for example, had to locate the videos that match their search criteria, download all the different videos to their PC, clip out the pieces that they want and save them to their PC. They then transferred all those new files to an editing tool, put it all together and rendered out another new file.
In stark contrast, with Whizzard it’s all on the same page. Upon a search, editors have a choice of mini clips, which they can then drag and drop to the timeline along bottom of the screen. These clips can also easily be edited, too, before or after dropping into the timeline.
Once in the timeline, the selected clips can easily be reordered in seconds. No files are downloaded nor rendered. It remains in a virtual state.
On this note, JB offered an illustration of the athletic director of one the large universities in America:
“He said literally yesterday I was trying to get something published out. I sent an email. I told everybody what I needed. I was literally standing looking over the shoulder of our editor wondering why it was taking so long for this to happen and you (Linius) just did that in 30 seconds. If I had that capability that would completely change things for me and my team.”
3. PUBLISH “Drive monetization immediately”
When clients are ready to export their final product, they have 3 distinct options: MP4, URL, and EDL.
With the first option, make and publish an MP4 file, a client can render a file and upload it onto social media like Instagram and YouTube. Linius stand to earn a cut of the advertising revenues gained. As we’ve been informed with the Cricket Australia deal, the cut is close to 50%. Whizzard is now live with Cricket Australia and revenues will kick in soon.
The second option, paste and publish a URL, seems to be the big one for clients. JB stressed clients are more likely to use the first option to engage fan interest to draw viewers back to their own website. With a URL, the file stays virtual and within seconds will be live on their website driving higher monetization through advertising and sponsors. The faster the client gets the videos on their website, the faster the client makes money so the speed and simplicity of Whizzard is an attractive selling point here.
The last option, an EDL or Editing Decision List, is used where clients are looking to directly monetize their content through licensing. In this way, permitted 3rd parties can come in and choose the content they want, push the EDL button, and this will go straight into their shopping cart and pay via checkout.
It’s the overall combination - precision search, ease of assembly, and publishing optionality - which arm Whizzard with a competitive advantage. Whizzard drives efficiencies throughout the workflow process and unlocks value for rightsholders.
It relieves rightsholders from having to employ more staff or even outsource to find exactly the parts in a video they seek then laboriously stitch all those bits together. Headaches are removed, costs are decreased and it’s extremely easy to use; no teaching required.
Overall, under the surface it seems JB is highly alert to clients’ needs and these clients’ needs are helping shape the exciting evolution of Whizzard. Additional extensions of Whizzard are planned soon, including for the lucrative automated highlights market and an immersive fan app where fans can search through the entire archive, but the key is the rightsholder remains fully in control of the revenue versus social media sites like YouTube today.
Linius does not seek to replace YouTube, but its emphasis on clients’ needs does pose interesting countering effects.
On one hand, Whizzard will augment YouTube as Whizzard enables rightsholders to effortlessly upload more authorized content onto YouTube and earn advertising revenue and strike back at fans ripping off rightsholders with amateur YouTube compilations.
On the other hand, Whizzard empowers its clients to directly compete with YouTube. It is unsurprising that clients would rather earn top dollar by having fans go directly to their website to watch virtual videos and thereby avoid YouTube’s hefty clip of the ad revenue ticket.
YouTube was cool 10 years ago, but it’s limitations with archive sports replays have been exposed with time. Who else has long grown tired of the times a YouTube search has come up with unsatisfactory results or low-quality footage? Fans must consume the little they’re given and often made by non-rightsholders.
Whizzard, by contrast, can conjure up an ocean of content to drive more revenue for its rightsholder clients and, in turn, Linius shareholders.
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(20min delay)