MissingMethod

These days, more and more new computers are shipping with built in webcams and microphones. That means new business opportunities are opening up around letting people create content with their computer over the web. Odeo and its child venture/experiment, Hellodeo are two of these; Odeo lets you record audio through your built in mic and save it to the web, Hellodeo does the same with video.

Most people think that to be able to do something like this, you need to purchase Adobe/Macromedia’s Flash Media Server, which is so expensive they don’t even list the price on the site (think thousands of dollars).
Red5 is an open source Flash server. It’s the open source counterpart to Flash Media Server, and it can do a lot of the same things, for free! With Red5, you can accomplish the kinds of advanced user interaction you never thought were within your reach:

• Real-time Multi-player gaming
  • No more turn based gaming for Flash
  • Say goodbye to polling a server for updates
• Multi-user video chat
• Stream Music/Audio
  • Ondemand entertainment
• Stream video
  • Ondemand education
  • Ondemand entertainment
• Broacast Live Streams to anyone with a flash client
  • Live Concerts
  • Online conferences
  • Exranet company meetings
  • Screensharing / whiteboard applications
• Record Video
  • Online Resume’s for job seekers
  • Online tutorials
  • Online Lectures
• Record Audio
  • Online music colaboration

Getting started requires a little work (you’ll have to install and setup the server on your machine). But once it’s running, you can try out the packaged examples for a taste of what’s possible.

If you’re just itching for the next big Web 2.0 idea to build, start thinking about user-generated, real-time, collaborative audio and video. Red5 makes it possible.

Last Modified : September 14th, 2006
Filed under : Web2.0, Entrepreneurship
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