Webware

Overlay.tv, a service that lets users add links, images, and even other videos on top of Web video has a new API for developers to build applications on top of its technology. The company has also put out a new labs page where developers can promote their applications and see what others have built.

One of the early stars of the bunch is a special YouTube uploader built using Adobe AIR. It lets you upload videos from your desktop without having to use YouTube's Web-based uploader. Once a file is up and hosted on YouTube you can then create and design overlays right inside of the application, which compared to YouTube's annotation system is a little more advanced.

Another fun labs creation is a karaoke player that's been built into children's Web site Kidz Bop. Overlay has taken the site's existing player and added on-screen lyrics, which users can view at the same time they're recording themselves singing. It's also put together links to related sites and services that have been vetted as kid-friendly.

I still prefer VideoClix.tv's approach to on-screen overlays. The service is a little more subtle about the things that are added to a video, letting you view a video without the overlays, and only pulling them up when you mouse over the selected item. However, its solution is not nearly as consumer-friendly as Overlay.tv's, which with this platform will let any site or service tack on its functionality to existing video tools.

The YouTube uploader lets you send video files from your desktop straight to YouTube, then add on-screen links and annotations, all using Adobe AIR.

(Credit: Overlay.tv)

In a move to make videos easier to understand without volume or for the hard of hearing, YouTube has given users the option of embedding closed captions that show up as semitransparent overlays. Caption files that have text dialogue synced up to the proper timestamps can be uploaded during the time of upload or afterwards, and YouTube has provided multiple language support to let viewers swap between different languages of a single video without having to leave playback.

Videos with closed captioning have it as an option in the lower right-hand corner menu; a part of the user interface that also houses the toggle to turn video annotations on and off. Even with the inclusion of closed captions you can continue to keep annotations enabled, although the two may overlap if annotations have been ledged on the bottom of the screen.

Videos with closed captions appear as on-screen overlays. You can also swap between multiple languages if the video author has provided that as part of the file.

(Credit: CBS Interactive)

For now closed captions can only be seen on YouTube. Embeds do not yet have the option to have them toggled on, just like annotations are not yet available.

Also, no news yet on if this feature will be making its way to mobile versions of the site, particularly the iPhone application which does not yet have support for YouTube's warp or on-screen annotation features. Considering that the iPod Touch does not have an external speaker built-in, having closed captions on the go could make for a much richer mobile experience.

There's already a small handful of content providers including closed captioning in their videos, including CNET, MIT, and the BBC. Of the bunch I think the most useful is for video lectures, although for non-native language speakers, seeing a video in your own language (if available) is pretty darn useful. If you want to see it in action go check out this episode of Blassreiter which is entirely in Japanese--and awesome.

Omnisio lets people add annotations and captions to videos.

(Credit: Omnisio)

Apparently Google concluded it could use a little help with its own YouTube annotation technology:the company said Wednesday it's acquired Omnisio, a start-up that lets people add annotations to video.

Google announced the acquisition on its YouTube blog Wednesday but didn't disclose terms.

"We're big fans of anything that lets people interact with online video and gives the YouTube community the chance to express themselves in creative ways," Google's YouTube team said. "The Omnisio team has tremendous technical expertise when it comes to advanced video tools and having this kind of talent at YouTube should help us further explore ways to enhance your YouTube experience."

Omnisio's technology can be used to insert comments such as cartoon-style talk bubbles in videos. The company also lets people embed presentation slides next to videos, combine multiple video clips, and add tags that can help people navigate to a desired part of a video, the company said.

Omnisio's three founders: CEO Ryan Junee, User Experience Director Julian Frumar, and CTO Simon Ratner

(Credit: Omnisio)

Bugged by the overlay ads popping up on some YouTube videos? The purity of those home videos is about to get a little more cluttered with the inclusion of video annotations.

Wednesday morning the video-hosting company rolled out its own tool for adding text bubbles, links, and call-outs to uploaded videos. The feature is available as part of its TestTube service, which showcases some of the technologies the company is testing, but is not ready to unleash on the general YouTube populace.

Unlike some other Web video annotation services, you can only add them to a video if you're the creator--something I'm betting will change in later iterations with a possible toggle to view community annotations. In the meantime, if you come across a video with annotations that you'd care not to see, you can simply click the new arrow button on the right side of the player.

As far as actually adding annotations there's a simple two-pane editor with your video on one side and a list of each annotation on the left. You physically have to play the video and pause it to track down the right times to start and stop an annotation.

There are also slots to input the exact start and stop time down to the second. It's not an exact science. Ideally I'd like to see YouTube add some better timeline control to let you simply drag a start and stop point as if you were editing the video itself. To push it live you just hit the publish button and any changes are reflected immediately.

One thing to note is that annotations don't yet make their way with the source video when embedded, something I'm sure will be changed later down the line. For now you can check out this example video I made shortly after unboxing the new Flip Video Mino.

Adding video annotations to YouTube videos isn't hard, but it could be a whole lot easier. Most users will know what to do right away.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

This afternoon I've been playing with a real fun annotation tool (at least fun compared with Microsoft Word). It's called A.nnotate, and it's one of the simplest tools I've come across, letting you add small (or very large) notes, corrections, or scribblings that float on top of the document like little widgets.

By default the notes are anchored to where they've been put on the document, but you can simply move them about, or sort them on a one-page listing that will organize them by time or who wrote them.

Power users will get the most use of the small notes. You can re-color them one of 21 shades and give each one tags, either from a preselected list or by making your own. This is one of the simpler ways to organize corrections, things to delete, and additions, so whoever gets the document back can sort out what needs to be done and very easily turn it into a workflow.

In addition to Word docs and PDF files, the service works with entire Web pages. You can plug in any old URL and it will take a snapshot of the page in a similar fashion to Iterasi (review). These same notes will show up on a source list you maintain. Clicking on any of them will take you right to where you left the note on the saved page, which will stay the same even if the source content changes.

The service is free to use--to an extent. Each document you open costs credits. You get 150 free each month, and the standard document costs 5 credits a page. If you want to work on docs with others, and work on several larger, multipage documents, there are premium plans that expand the amount of credits you have at up to 50,000 per month.

Other services in this space include Diigo (coverage), Evernote (coverage), Fleck (review), and TrailFire.

(Via Web Worker Daily via Lifehacker)

Leave notes on any bit of document, PDF, or Web page with A.nnotate. You can even add tags to each note and sort through them later.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Looks like I've found a partial replacement for my beloved dead-pooled photo annotation tool 2view. Check out SimpleBucket, an aptly named photo host that lets you upload and share up to five photographs at a time, and let others mark them up with onscreen notes. It's one of my favorite features in Flickr, and I'm glad to see it beginning to reach elsewhere.

Adding notes works just as it does on Flickr, although there's a nice option to toggle them off entirely, which means the accidental mouse over won't make them appear (which can be annoying). SimpleBucket doesn't show you who has left the note--which makes it far less social, but it also doesn't require any registration from others to mark their territory. Unfortunately the notes you make on the photo pages don't travel with the photo embeds, something that made 2View a lot of fun.

The service has an unusual method of having users upload their shots. There's not a bulk uploader or any sort of system to group photos together into albums; instead, it makes you add photos one at a time (up to five per upload) as you'd do in a Web e-mail. You then have to plug in your e-mail address to get a secret log-in link to your account. SimpleBucket lets up upload up to 500 shots total with its free account. An upcoming pro service will give users unlimited storage, although in its current state I wouldn't recommend it over the myriad of other free photo hosts, including Flickr, which offers a much more social experience.

Add notes to any photo with SimpleBucket, a free photo hosting service.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

2View, one of my favorite tools for adding notes to digital photos recently ceased to exist, and since then I've been wondering if any other services would pop up in its void. Today I've been playing around with Picbite, a wonderfully simple (and slightly similar) way to add small speech bubbles or annotations to photos from your hard drive or from a Web link.

You can add small, yellow notes of any size to images then share them with others. The service provides a direct link as well as embed codes for use on popular social networking sites, forums, and as direct downloads in JPEG and PNG formats. I've placed a small thumbnail sized example of a Picbite I made from our coverage of Under the Radar last year at the end of the post (original shot by Brian Solis).

I don't think it's nearly as fun as 2View was, but with more types of speech bubbles to use, it has got great potential for keeping annotation simple and elegant.

See also: Onesens, Voicethread, and Fleck

[via Delicious]

Onesens is a really peculiar annotation tool for shared media on the Web. It lets you add a variety of words like magnetic poetry to a photos, videos, and music tracks. When another user sees your creation the words are scattered about, but there are buttons to reorder, or simply "explode" them once again. Users can also reorganize them as they would fridge magnets to create new expressions, although these can't be shared with other users or the creator of the original message.

While the creators of Onesens claim the application "will change the way you communicate via the World Wide Web," I think it's pretty useless--despite being fun to play with. The one thing it does quite handily is it lets you grab media from all over the place, including videos which can be pulled in from YouTube, and photos from your hard drive or Flickr.

I've embedded an example Onesens message below. The text comes courtesy of Wikipedia.

Whiteboarding tools associated with virtual conference solutions frequently don't offer an easy way to record what's being written down, or distribute it elsewhere after the fact. And for presenting, we're often limited to PowerPoints, video, or audio recordings--or sometimes a hodgepodge of all three at once. Enter Sketchcast, a happy medium between voice and whiteboard recording that the service coins as "Sketchcasts." Users can create their own audio-enriched doodle sessions for all to see, and embed them on blogs or Web sites to distribute their work.

Sketchcast creator Richard Ziade drummed up the idea after finding it cumbersome to spend the time blogging out his ideas, and equated his experiences in meeting rooms, with the potential for blog readership. At least that's the concept, anyway. If Sketchcasting has anything in common with Podcasting (which it does), both require your audience to absorb content in a linear fashion, which is far slower than giving someone several paragraphs of writing that they can peruse at their leisure. There's also the problem of indexing and searching the content, which (for now) is only made possible with tags and user-submitted descriptions.

As a tool, Sketchcast gives users a massive color pallet to choose from, along with an eraser and text tool. All three of the tools can be summoned or dismissed in an instant with keyboard shortcuts, which is a big help to power users. The recording feature is also incredibly simple to use, and can be paused at any time if you need time to draw out your next slide. When finished, the tool gives you the standard smattering of links, including a simple URL, e-mail link, and embed code. Videos are broken down into four categories, including one just for tutorials. The service also is also set up to support user ratings (on a five-star scale), and comments that show up just like they do on YouTube.

I'd definitely recommend giving Sketchcast a spin, if only to play with its editor, which is incredibly simple and fun to use (Ed: It requires registration to use.) As for its worth as a blogging tool, I can only say that preparing a proper Sketchcast takes more of my, and likely more of my reader's, time, which is hardly a suitable replacement for text--as much as it is a complement to whatever is being written. I've embedded an example Sketchcast after the break.

[via TechCrunch]

Related: Live whiteboard collaboration with Scriblink

Make your own voice annotated sketch recordings with Sketcast.

(Credit: CNET Networks)