Streaming Media East 2000, the main annual event for the streaming media industry, will take place in New York June 12-14. Seattle’s Activate will be offering a live webcast of the three-day event.
Seattle.internet.com met up with the company’s CEO and Co-founder Jeff Schrock and Senior VP of Marketing Stewart Chapin prior to their upcoming East Coast departure to get the latest on the company’s position in the streaming media market.
According to Schrock, the company began to experience substantial growth already back in 1999. “We produced over 10,000 webcasts in 1999. Our annual goal was actually set at 3,000.” The number of events Activate is streaming has increased more that 30 percent from the last three months of 1999 to the first three months of 2000.
Schrock believes that his company is an excellent medium to reach medium size audiences. Dan Uhlmeyer, product specialist at Atlanta-based teleconferencing company InterCall apparently agrees.
In an e-interview with seattle.internet.com, Uhlmeyer confirms that Activate’s products enhance competitiveness by enhancing communication. “We have not only broadcasted our conference calls live over the internet but have also made them available for playback through our company intranet. Activate’s streaming services have given us a cost effective way to create a library of information that can be retrieved day or night– directly from our intranet,” says Uhlmeyer.
According to Chapin the company has been marketing its services mainly by being on the scene at major industry events, including broadcasting events such as NAB (National Association of Broadcasters). “What we have seen in the past few years with the growth of the internet is a convergence between the internet industry and the traditional broadcasting industry.”
Activate’s involvement in the radio industry, for example, was validated with Arbitron’s latest Webcast Ratings Report, which positions Activate as providing streaming media services for 15 of the top 25 Internet radio stations that Arbitron measures, including the top three.
In related news, the company is currently remodeling its four story building on Rainier Avenue. The building, which was built in 1914 – will soon be home to not just the growing number of Activate employees, but to what Schrock refers to as “the largest digital media infrastructure in the world”.
