Brightcove Blog - The Leading Online Video Hosting Platform

Content App Platforms – Why Companies Should Care

Alyssa Chew-Nair — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:30:44 +0000

South Korean is a booming mobile market. The market passed the 105% penetration rate mark in 2011 with many individuals carrying at least one mobile phone.* Additionally, South Korea’s Android App Market is No. 2 globally in terms of download.**

Mobile apps have also experienced tremendous growth, thanks to the introduction of Apple’s App Store and the emergence of Facebook as a distribution platform for apps and content. As these apps continue to proliferate across channels and devices, they now take many forms, such as native apps, mobile Web experiences, connected TV apps and social network apps. While this is a huge opportunity for publishers of all kinds, publishing apps across these platforms and devices requires a significant amount of additional technical work, higher costs and increased complexity.

This has sparked the emergence of a new category of software called Content App Platforms, where content is now delivered "in-app" environments to build brand loyalty, increase customer engagement and integrate into the social media ecosystem.

In view of this trend, Brightcove is hosting a seminar in Korea titled “The Rise of the Content App Platform – why Companies Should Care”. This event will be held on March 6th in Seoul from 3pm – 6pm at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, located at Kangnam-Gu, the economic epicenter of Seoul.

James Yoon, our Sales Director for Korea, will be speaking at the event. Attendees can expect to learn:

How to leverage cloud content services for competitive advantage
What are cloud content services
How smart companies are leveraging cloud content services to drive competitive advantage and innovation
Introduction to App Cloud, Brightcove's solution to build cross platform content apps using open standards and no compromises

We currently have over one hundred registrants for this event to date, and have recently changed our venue to accomodate the overwhelming response. If you are interested, please act quickly to sign up here to book your seats. We are in the final stages of accepting registrations and expect to close soon.

*[http://www.budde.com.au/Research/South-Korea-Mobile-Market-Overview-Statistics-and-Forecasts.html]
** [http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/16/android-global-south-korea-second-only-to-u-s-in-app-downloads/].

Brightcove CMO, Jeff Whatcott, to Present Webinar on the Appification of Digital Media and the Rise of Hybrid Apps

Kristin Cronin — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:21:53 +0000

On Wednesday, February 22nd, Brightcove CMO, Jeff Whatcott, will be delivering an exciting new webinar on the "appification" of digital media, the future of content distribution and the rise of hybrid HTML5 apps for iOS and Android devices. Jeff will deliver two versions of this webinar, one at 9:00 am ET and another at 3:00 pm ET. You can register for the morning webinar here and the afternoon webinar here.

During the discussion, Jeff will discuss the fragmentation that is occurring across smartphone, tablet and consumer electronics platforms. This fragmentation makes for widely varying user experience conventions to reflect different form factors and user habits. And, the technical requirements for app development are equally diverse across platforms, calling for highly specialized, platform-specific skills and workflows that look nothing like Web development.

Many of the challenges posed by content apps stem from the need to develop different versions based on different standards for each platform or device. This has led to the emergence of hybrid apps, which offer the best of both worlds. They are developed with cross-platform HTML5 wrapped in a native, platform-specific container.

During the webinar, Jeff will also discuss how the rise of hybrid apps has lead to a new software category called content app platforms. These platforms address the challenges of content app development across the full lifecycle of an app, reducing the cost and complexity of operating in this diverse new environment while freeing organizations to focus on brand, content, and user experience innovation. Brightcove App Cloud is the pioneering content app platform, and helps developers and publishers support the entire lifecycle of content-centric hybrid apps and deliver them in a cost-effective manner across multiple device platforms.

You can learn more about this emerging software category in our new whitepaper, "The Rise of Content App Platforms". You can also visit Brightcove at Mobile World Congress next week in Barcelona to learn more about App Cloud.

We hope to see you on tomorrow's webinar!

Working with arrays in App Cloud

Adam Mark — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:00:22 +0000

App Cloud apps are voracious consumers of JavaScript arrays, which carry all kinds of data from server to client: news articles, photo gallery metadata, a list of places near a user's location, and even tweets. You're probably familiar with the two basic techniques for iterating over arrays:

for (var i = 0; i < stuff.length; i++) {
    ...
}

and

for (var i in stuff) {
    ...
}

Now comes a third one:

stuff.forEach(function (val, idx, arr) {
    ...
});

Yeah, you read that right. And it doesn't use jQuery or any other sugar. Here's a complete example:

var fruits = ["apple", "banana", "cherry"];

fruits.forEach(function (val, idx, arr) {
    console.log(val, idx, arr);
});

Run the above code in your browser to see the output—then feel free to use this technique in your App Cloud template.

There are some other native JavaScript methods that might look new to you: every(), filter(), map() and some(). Read all about them in the MDN docs.

p.s. Get more tips and tricks (and share your own) by joining the Brightcove App Cloud discussion group on Google.

Brightcove Introduces Exciting New Video Cloud Enhancements for Video Content Management and HTML5 Smart Players

Rob OConnor — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 13:00:29 +0000

At Brightcove we are laser focused on continuing to innovate and introduce new Video Cloud features to empower our publishers to drive more value with their online video initiatives. In the past month, we have released a number of features and enhancements that will help our customers reach audiences on emerging platforms and manage video libraries more efficiently.

Video Content Management Features

Video content management is a core feature of Video Cloud, and we’ve always been focused on providing features that make your video management workflow more efficient. February’s release adds two features that simplify updating and editing video assets and enable business-level users to have more control over managing video libraries.

Though you could previously make updates to remote assets programmatically, we added the functionality to edit remote asset renditions through the Video Cloud Studio. Your less technical users can play a larger role in your content management process with the ability to add, edit, and update renditions through the Studio UI.

You can also now delete video still images, logo overlays, banner images, or bumper videos in the Video Cloud Studio. As your video library grows and you rotate out old videos in favor of new content, your previously saved assets can make it difficult to find a single image or bumper video. This new feature enables you to delete old assets that are no longer in use to clean up the asset selection menu. The feature also prevents users from deleting assets that are currently in-use, eliminating any issues that can result from such a scenario.

Smart Player Enhancements

Brightcove changed the mobile video publishing game with our Video Cloud Smart Players more than a year ago, and we’re continuing to innovate and provide our publishers with the tools needed to create compelling cross-platform video experiences.

This release includes HTML5 plug-in support. HTML5 plug-ins have access to the Smart Player API and enable you to build custom functionality like integration with third-party analytics providers, advanced player customization, and more. Now these plug-ins can run in your players in both Flash and HTML5 mode, ensuring a consistent video experience no matter what device your viewers are using.

These are just a few examples of our recent Video Cloud innovations. Head on over to the product updates page to read up on all of the details surrounding our latest release, and be sure to subscribe to the product updates RSS feed to make sure you’re informed of new features as soon as we release them.

Meet with Brightcove at Mobile World Congress

Kristin Cronin — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:37:39 +0000

Brightcove is excited to be participating in this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona from February 27th through March 1st. During the event, we will be showcasing a variety of exciting new Brightcove innovations that are enabling organizations around the world to deliver video across mobile devices and create engaging, cross-platform native mobile apps.

At the show, we will be demonstrating the power of our groundbreaking new content app platform, App Cloud, which enables organizations to build and operate engaging native apps for Apple iOS and Google Android smartphones and tablets. Organizations across all industries today need to engage with their audience on mobile devices, but developing apps for these devices has become increasingly complex and costly. App Cloud removes this complexity by making app development fast and easy, while also decreasing the total cost of ownership of apps.

If you are attending Mobile World Congress, please let us know if you are interested in scheduling some time to learn more about App Cloud by sending an email to mwc@brightcove.com.

We also invite you to visit the Brightcove booth, which will be located in the App Planet zone in Hall 7 on stand 7G8.

We will also be on hand at the awards ceremony for the GSMA Global Mobile Awards on February 28th, where App Cloud has been shortlisted for the Best Cloud-Based Technology category. These awards honor excellence and innovation in mobile communications, so we are very excited to be in the running!

Caching 101: How the cache works in App Cloud

Adam Mark — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:00:16 +0000

If you've ever worked with HTML5 Local Storage, the following should look very familiar to you:

To save a value in the cache:

bc.core.cache("name", "Adam"); // sets "name" = "Adam"

To get a value from the cache:

bc.core.cache("name"); // returns "Adam"

What about other types of data, like numbers, arrays and objects?

bc.core.cache("age", 36);
bc.core.cache("colors", ["red", "blue"]);
bc.core.cache("company", { "name": "Brightcove", "location": "Cambridge, MA" });

When you set and get values via bc.core.cache(), the data type is preserved. This is UNLIKE how localStorage works. Compare:

bc.core.cache("colors", ["red", "blue"]);
bc.core.cache("colors"); // returns ["red", "blue"]

localStorage.setItem("colors", ["red", "blue"]);
localStorage.getItem("colors"); // returns "red,blue"

In the first example above, the value of colors is preserved as an array. In the second example, the value is converted to a string when put into storage. Here's another example that clearly illustrates the difference in behavior:

bc.core.cache("name", { "first": "Adam" });
bc.core.cache("name"); // returns { "first": "Adam" }

localStorage.setItem("name", { "first": "Adam" });
localStorage.getItem("name"); // returns "[object Object]"

In the first example above, name is still an object when we retrieve it from the cache. In the second example, name is converted to "[object Object]." Boooo.

The lesson here? bc.core.cache() is a simple and effective way to save objects for later retrieval.

p.s. Get more tips and tricks (and share your own) by joining the Brightcove App Cloud discussion group on Google.

Managing Your Mobile App Life Cycle

Jay Liu — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:45:52 +0000

Digital marketers and media publishers are struggling to find the right solution to develop their mobile apps without breaking their budgets. There are multiple operating systems and numerous devices to support, many internal content systems and external service platforms to integrate, and key functionalities to develop. You need to find the right team with the right skills, equip them with the right tools, and manage the obstacles that will spring up on your way to that big launch. Needless to say, mobile app development is challenging.

But most importantly, you have a strategic goal to achieve for your mobile initiative, whether it be distributing and monetizing content for media companies, building brands and generating leads for B2C companies, growing communities for non-profit organizations, driving operational efficiencies for B2B companies, or communicating with key constituencies for government organizations. To drive towards these goals, building and launching an app is just the very first step.

At Brightcove, we believe mobile apps are a journey, not a destination.

After you have launched your apps, you will have a set of tasks for successfully operating the app. These tasks include updating content, sending push notifications, managing your advertising operations, and monitoring performance and reliability, just to name a few.

As the business owner of the mobile apps, you need to have real time visibility into app adoption trends, user engagement indicators, and monetization performance. Based on these insights, you may need to adjust your content mix, stimulate user engagement in targeted ways, and optimize your monetization policy.

Stakeholders across several functions need to be involved, from the development team and the operations team to the marketing team. To streamline this operation and push the execution of your app strategy to the efficiency frontier, you need a closed loop where these stakeholders can collaborate seamlessly on an on-going basis.

For instance, consider the following common scenarios for a newspaper app (actually one iOS app, one Android app) that has been installed by tens of thousands of users on iPhones and Android phones:

Your marketing team wants to know how many times a particularly hot piece of content -- an exclusive interview, for example — in your app has been viewed, and the average viewing time, in real time.
Your development team needs tweak the design of the app to feature that particular piece of content in the app, but they don't want to force users to upgrade to a new app.
Your advertising team wants to switch the mobile advertising account (for example, AdMob) used for this content to a different one for better targeting.
Your cross-functional business team dispersed across five locations needs to review and test drive the next release of the app in real time, which is being changed every minute by the development team.
Your marketing team needs to notify your app users living in Boston that there will be a special event downtown in a couple of hours.

Actually it doesn't have to be a newspaper app. Marketers, manufacturers, non-profit organizations, and government offices will run into similar situations on a daily basis.

There are point solutions in the marketplace that may be able to help you with some of the challenges, including mobile development frameworks, mobile analytics engines, and push notification platforms. But the responsibility for seamlessly integrating these solutions and managing them with separate vendors falls back on you and your development team. It is inevitable that you will run into compatibility issues along the way.

At Brightcove, we believe bringing together all these discrete technologies in an end-to-end solution would addresses the full life cycle of an app, from development to operations. We believe that this solution would deliver tremendous value not only to developers who build an app, but also to the producers, operational administrators, and marketers who manage an app on an ongoing basis.

We built such a solution; it is called Brightcove App Cloud.

To learn more about App Cloud and try it for yourself, you can sign up for a free account at brightcove.com.

Video Cloud Scores Role in BAFTA Awards

Chris Nicholson — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:39:09 +0000

Like all great films - and awards ceremonies honoring those films - there are plenty of behind-the-scenes players contributing to their success. In the case of the 2012 Orange British Academy Film Awards, one of those players was of the more literal variety: Brightcove’s Video Cloud Smart Player, which the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) used to display a wide-ranging assortment of video content leading up to and following its annual awards ceremony in London.

Since 2009 BAFTA has been using the Video Cloud online video platform to make its content library of long- and short-form footage, awards ceremonies, lectures, and sample clips from more than 200 annual events available to BAFTA.org viewers on any device, including smartphones, tablets, PCs and connected TVs. In the case of the BAFTA awards, the organization creates video libraries featuring winners and red carpet interviews, as well as a wealth of overview and educational content building up to the high-profile occasion.

BAFTA creates a wealth of online video content in support of its annual awards programs.

In a case study documenting BAFTA’s use of the Video Cloud platform, BAFTA online editor Pippa Irvine noted that the ability to quickly post red carpet video content and behind-the-scenes interviews at the time they’re happening is critical. “Efficiency is key,” Irvine said. “We want to be there first with all the backstage goodies for viewers to check out online via their laptops, iPads or mobile devices.”

Brightcove extends its congratulations to all of the 2012 BAFTA Award winners and nominees for their efforts that were so clearly on display both in front of and behind the camera.

Remote debugging in App Cloud

Adam Mark — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:17:35 +0000

If you're a fan of Chrome Developer Tools, you might be frustrated by the lack of similar debugging capabilities on your mobile devices. Sometimes you want to inspect the DOM, print messages to a console, modify styles on the fly, or peek into local storage.

Enter remote debugging, the process of debugging a program on a different machine than the debugger itself. Weinre (pronounced winery?) is a remote debugger maintained by PhoneGap and based on—you guessed it—Chrome Developer Tools. It's pretty great despite the name.

Check out the hosted version at debug.phonegap.com. All you do is drop a <script> tag into your target web page—in our case, a view running in the Workshop app—while the remote debugger runs in your web browser.

You can also run Weinre yourself if you're feeling brave. Good luck!

p.s. Get more tips and tricks (and share your own) by joining the Brightcove App Cloud discussion group on Google.

Career Fair Season - Spring 2012

Becky Bajan — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 22:32:01 +0000

It is an exciting time! Career Fair season is once again upon us. This past week our Brightcove team went to three different schools and met some great students. Check out the schedule below to see if we are going to a school near you.

University of Washington - 2/7

Olin College of Engineering - 2/8

University of Massachusetts Amherst - 2/8

Northeastern University - 2/8

Worcester Polytechnic Institute - 2/16

Brown University - 2/22

Massachusetts Institute of Technology - 4/5

For those of you who won't be able to make it to a career fair this season, we would like to encourage you to check out our newly designed careers page. In addition to having all of our open positions, there is information about life at Brightcove and what to expect if you come here for an interview.

Creating a reading list in App Cloud

Adam Mark — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:37:45 +0000

The function bc.core.cache() is great for all kinds of things: saving user preferences, saving application state, or saving "favorites," as in a reading list.

Here are some functions for managing an array of "favorites" in the cache. In this case, the favorites are news articles (objects), each identified by a unique ID:

// get the favorites from cache, or return an empty array
function getFavorites() {
    return bc.core.cache("favorites") || [];
}

// overwrite the favorites in cache
function setFavorites(favorites) {
    bc.core.cache("favorites", favorites);
}

// determine if an article is a favorite (by article ID)
function isFavorite(articleId) {
    var favorites = getFavorites();

    for (var i in favorites) {
        if (favorites[i].articleId === articleId) {
            return true;
        }
    }

    return false;
}

// save an article as a favorite (by article ID)
function addToFavorites(articleId) {
    var favorites = getFavorites();

    if (!isFavorite(articleId)) {
        favorites.push(getArticle(articleId));
    }

    setFavorites(favorites);
}

// remove an article from favorites (by article ID)
function removeFromFavorites(articleId) {
    var favorites = getFavorites();

    for (var i in favorites) {
        if (favorites[i].articleId === articleId) {
            favorites.splice(i, 1);
            break;
        }
    }

    setFavorites(favorites);
}

To see this in action, check out the "reading list" template in the App Cloud Demos repository on Brightcove Open Source.

p.s. Get more tips and tricks (and share your own) by joining the Brightcove App Cloud discussion group on Google.

Working with the DOM in App Cloud

Adam Mark — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:11:10 +0000

Apps are full of lists—articles, videos, events, and so on—and these lists are often created dynamically with JavaScript. Say you're creating a list of news articles. Your HTML might begin like this:

<ul id="articles">

</ul>

How should you fill the empty <ul> with content? There are two basic approaches:

The BAD way

var elem = document.getElementById("articles");

for (var i = 0; i < data.length; i++) {
    elem.innerHTML += "<li>" + data[i].title + "</li>";
}

The GOOD way

var elem = document.getElementById("articles");
var str = "";

for (var i = 0; i < data.length; i++) {
    str += "<li>" + data[i].title + "</li>";
}

elem.innerHTML = str;

What's the difference? The BAD technique modifies the DOM over and over again, causing the web view to repaint and reflow the document many times. What a drag!

The GOOD technique builds up a string in memory, then injects it into the DOM once and only once. On mobile devices, this sort of optimization is essential to creating speedy apps.

p.s. Get more tips and tricks (and share your own) by joining the Brightcove App Cloud discussion group on Google.

Notes from the Field - Business Video Expo, Miami

Shiri Friedman — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:42:05 +0000

I recently had the opportunity to participate on a panel at the Business Video Expo (BVE) in Miami Beach. The topic, Video in the Cloud: Leveraging Hosted Solutions for Enhanced Communications, allowed me to share some best practices for online video strategies with an audience that was clearly eager to amplify their own initiatives. It was a fun, informative session and I enjoyed exchanging ideas with attendees along with my two co-panelists and Brightcove Technology Partners, Michael Kolowich of KnowledgeVision, and Ralph Pelamourgues from Mixmoov. (Mixmoov announced the integration of its Video Editor with the Brightcove Video Cloud online video platform during BVE.)

One of the nice things about conferences like this is that you’re able to learn a lot from the conversations you have between the educational sessions, not just during them. That was the case at BVE, where I picked up on three predominant themes that were very much top of mind amongst the marketing, IT, and communications professionals in attendance.

One of the most frequent conversations I had was along the lines of monetization. There’s a fairly common school of thought that monetization equals advertising, and there are plenty of instances where including advertising in your organization’s online video isn’t an option. I always try to impart that advertising is just one of numerous monetization strategies. Just by adding video to a website, you’re content starts working for you thanks to the additional traffic it generates and the extra time that it will keep audiences engaged on your site.

In-player calls to action, like these opportunities to read more or act now, offer an effective means of content monetization.

While advertising might not be an option, in-player calls to action could very well be. This gives organizations the opportunity to cross-promote other items or services, or simply invite viewers to learn more and make their way deeper into the site. Calls to action can very effectively convert viewers into buyers or qualified leads.

Another hot topic was analytics. I spent a good deal of time talking about analytics in general, and how businesses can use the incredibly valuable and insightful information available to them in order to formulate their online video strategies and drive better results. This also gave me the chance to discuss Video Cloud’s out-of-the box analytics, which include audience metrics like unique viewers, new viewers, and geographic distribution of views, as well as endpoint profile reports with details about users bandwidth consumption, operating systems and browsers.

It’s also worth noting that Brightcove integrates with third-party Web analytics platforms such as Google Analytics and Ominture. This allows users to access site metrics and video analytics all in one convenient place while demonstrating how video affects time on site, engagement and conversion.

The other point that came up was a blended YouTube strategy, something that Brightcove has espoused for some time. Essentially, we suggest using YouTube as a good “front door” into your site and environment. YouTube is great for building awareness and promoting viral sharing and awareness. Once engaged, the key is to drive traffic to your site for a fully branded experience that drives deeper engagement and conversion.

Business Video Expo proved itself to be a good event with a great turnout of attendees. There was a solid cross-section of businesses represented, from small and medium operations to global enterprises, all who were attending with the shared goal of learning more about and improving their online video initiatives.

If you’re just starting to pull together your online video strategy or are looking for ways to improve, a good place to start is Brightcove’s free “Video Strategy Framework” whitepaper. And of course, don’t ever hesitate to get in touch with a Brightcove expert. We’re always glad to help.

App Cloud image transcoding service adds cropping capability and JPEG quality settings

Adam Mark — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:10:39 +0000

I can't say enough good things about image transcoding in App Cloud: It's a snap to use, it saves bandwidth, it speeds up your apps, and it makes users happy. We just added two new features to make it even better:

Cropping

You can now crop images on the fly! To crop an image, just add crop=x,y,w,h to the transcode URL, where x,y is the top left coordinate. Take the following image (originally 425x282):

http://coffee.brightcove.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/female.jpg

Now make it 275x275, a perfect square:

http://transcode.appcloud.brightcove.com/?image=coffee.brightcove.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/female.jpg&crop=0,0,275,275

Now reduce it to 100x100:

http://transcode.appcloud.brightcove.com/?image=coffee.brightcove.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/female.jpg&crop=0,0,275,275&width=100&height=100

As you can see, cropping is applied before resizing. Important: Your image must be large enough to cover the cropped area or else the request will fail.

JPEG Quality Settings

You can now specify a quality setting for JPEG images on a scale of 0-100. (The default value is 70.) Take the following image:

http://coffee.brightcove.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/m-i-tea.jpg

It's 140KB. Now run it through the transcoding service, maintaining the original size:

http://transcode.appcloud.brightcove.com/?image=http://coffee.brightcove.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/m-i-tea.jpg

Now it's 17KB—whoa!—but you'll notice the quality degrades in some solid-tone areas. Try setting the quality to 90:

http://transcode.appcloud.brightcove.com/?image=http://coffee.brightcove.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/m-i-tea.jpg&quality=90

Now it's 25KB—still a huge savings!

The results will vary depending on the type of photograph. But for most pictures, the default quality (70) will do. Here's the above image at the default quality—see if you can tell the difference:

http://transcode.appcloud.brightcove.com/?image=coffee.brightcove.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/female.jpg

Performance Boost

Finally, it takes a lot of of hamsters to spin the wheels of our image transcoding service. We just added 1,000 hamsters to speed up requests to the image cache by 70%! Try it and you'll see!

"Lazy Loading" your views in App Cloud

Adam Mark — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:39:09 +0000

"Lazy loading" doesn't mean you're lazy. It's simply a technique for deferring an operation until it's absolutely necessary.

If your template has multiple views, you should consider building up each view when the user enters it—and not before. You'll save memory and improve the performance of your app by preventing all your business logic across all your views from running at the same time.

In the following example from my "Map" view (map.html), the function MapView is responsible for loading and rendering the dynamic content on the page:

<script>
var view;

$(bc).bind("viewfocus", function (evt) {
    if (!view) {
        view = new MapView();
        view.init();
    }
});
</script>

By listening for a "viewfocus" event on the global bc object, I can wait to create a MapView instance until the moment the user enters the view. This way, I avoid eating up system resources—and slowing down the user experience—while the user is off playing in another view.

(While you're loading new content, you can show a "Loading ..." message and/or cached data.)

p.s. Get more tips and tricks (and share your own) by joining the Brightcove App Cloud discussion group on Google.

Organizing your App Cloud code

Adam Mark — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:38:50 +0000

App Cloud templates can be organized in any form or fashion, with one exception: the manifest file must be at the root of the template directory. Otherwise, you can use any conventions you like.

In my templates, I like to have one JavaScript file per HTML file. For example:

template/
    html/
        news.html
        sports.html
        weather.html
    js/
        NewsView.js
        SportsView.js
        WeatherView.js
    manifest.json

My JavaScript "classes" share a lot of functionality, so I throw a base class into the mix. I also like to put third-party code in its own directory:

template/
    html/
        news.html
        sports.html
        weather.html
    js/
        lib/
            brightcove-app-cloud-1.7.3.js
            some-other-library.js
        View.js
        NewsView.js
        SportsView.js
        WeatherView.js
    manifest.json

The base View class performs common functions like loading and caching data:

function View() {
    // load a content feed from App Cloud and cache it by name
    this.loadFeed = function (name, callback, options) {
        ...
    };

    // load JSON from a URL and cache it by name
    this.loadJSON = function (name, url, callback) {
        ...
    };

    // get a cached feed by name
    this.getCachedFeed = function (name) {
        return bc.core.cache(name) || null;
    };

    // etc
}

I also hang some other static functions off the base class:

View.Banner = function (elemId, title) {
    ...
};

My individual view classes, like NewsView, derive from View:

function NewsView() {
    this.init = function () {
        ...
    };

    // etc
}

NewsView.prototype = new View();

There are other ways to model inheritance in JavaScript, but I play it straight.

As for actually doing stuff, I wait until the user enters the view for the first time before running any code:

<!-- news.html -->
<script>
var view;

$(bc).bind("viewfocus", function (evt) {
    if (!view) {
        view = new NewsView();
        view.init();
    }
});
</script>

You can see working code samples in the reference app.

p.s. Get more tips and tricks (and share your own) by joining the Brightcove App Cloud discussion group on Google.

Why hybrid works for content apps

Adam Mark — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 19:42:25 +0000

Like great cars and great fruit, App Cloud takes a "hybrid" approach to app development, combining the power of native device platforms with the flexibility of HTML5 as a development framework. For cross-platform, content-centric apps, this approach saves time and money—and the results can be astounding. Consider the areas where each platform shines:

Distribution

Winner: Native Native apps are easily distributed through app stores like the App Store, Android Market, and Amazon Appstore, while browser-based apps have no formal distribution channels. Since App Cloud apps are native apps, they can be distributed through app stores.

Device presence

Winner: Native Native apps have presence on the device and presence of mind, while browser-based apps are relegated to running in a web browser like Safari—too often they are "out of sight, out of mind." App Cloud apps are first-class citizens on phones and tablets.

Device access

Winner: Native Browser-based apps are forbidden from accessing certain device capabilities like the camera and address book (for obvious security reasons). These restrictions make it hard or even impossible to develop features like photo sharing and offline storage. App Cloud provides a simple JavaScript API to access various device capabilities.

Monetization

Winner: Native Native apps are easier to sell because developers don't have to build their own billing systems and users don't have to reenter their payment information with each purchase. It's seamless. In a couple years, in-app purchases will overtake sales from paid apps, but the benefits to developers and users will be the same.

Ease of development

Winner: HTML5 HTML5 wins on two fronts. First, for most content-related tasks, it's easier to format content using HTML and CSS instead of using native iOS or Android libraries. Compare the complexity of creating a table view in iOS to the simplicity of creating a list of things in HTML. (There is no comparison.) Second, development in App Cloud requires no compilation step and no complex tooling like XCode or the Android Developer Tools. App Cloud compiles apps in the cloud.

Speed of development

Winner: HTML5 In the content business, web developers rule. And the web development model emphasizes rapid iteration. App Cloud embraces this culture in two important ways: First, developers can do most of their work using a modern web browser and tools like Chrome Developer Tools. Second, developers can use the App Cloud Workshop App to test and experience their work in real-time. Code, refresh, repeat.

Market reach

Winner: HTML5 The "walled gardens" of native platforms make it extremely costly to reach the widest possible audience, but web technologies have no boundaries. With App Cloud, developers can create native apps for multiple platforms (and multiple marketplaces) using a single codebase of HTML, CSS and JavaScript—effectively doubling or tripling the potential audience.

Reusability

Winner: HTML5 HTML, CSS and JavaScript are eminently reusable across platforms, so web developers don't need to throw away their bag of tricks when coming to hybrid apps. In fact, developers can use popular libraries and frameworks like jQuery. And code created in App Cloud can be repurposed for mobile-optimized web sites and touch web apps.

Extensibility

Winner: HTML5 The dynamic nature of HTML and JavaScript make it a snap to mix and match content and change content on the fly. App Cloud takes advantage of this in two important ways: First, developers can create multiple App Cloud apps from a single template. Second, content managers can update data and make configuration changes to published apps on the fly via App Cloud Studio.

The best of both worlds

If you're debating whether to go native or go web, you can get the best of both worlds with a hybrid approach. By combining the best parts of native development (distribution, device presence, device access and monetization) with the best parts of web development (ease of development, market reach, reusability and extensibility), you can reduce development costs, accelerate time to market, and lay a foundation for supporting future device platforms.

Much like a hybrid car combines the power of a gas engine with the fuel economy of an electric engine, App Cloud combines the power of native platforms with the economies of the web: open standards, wide adoption and lower barriers to entry. For content apps, it's a win-win.

Brightcove Community - January 2012

Erica Crossen — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:08:40 +0000

What a great start to 2012! The Brightcove Community Team is really excited about the momentum and activity we saw in January! Here's a snapshot!

WHAT'S NEW?!

January Product Release features
Launched a new Knowledge Base with a much more "solutions" focus than our original FAQ content! Check it out!
Published App Cloud documentation on support.brightcove.com

TOP SEARCH terms on support.brightcove.com

"facebook"
"api"
"youtube"
"live streaming"
"uploading"

Registration for Brightcove PLAY 2012 is Now Open

Kristin Cronin — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:07:43 +0000

We are very excited to announce that registration for Brightcove PLAY 2012 is now open! Visit play.brightcove.com to learn more about the event and to register today. If you register before May 1st, you can take advantage of our early bird pricing rate and save $500, so make sure you act fast!

This year, Brightcove PLAY will take place from June 25 - 27th at the InterContinental Boston hotel. The event will bring together Brightcove customers, partners and industry leaders at the forefront of the digital media revolution. At the event, hundreds of media companies, marketers and developers from around the world will convene for three days of in-depth strategy sessions, next-generation product demos, all-star keynotes and networking.

Brightcove PLAY 2012 will feature keynote presentations and expert-led breakout sessions for business decision makers and strategists, day-to-day users and non-technical programmers, Web developers, advertising operations professionals and more. Whether you are a large media organization looking to expand distribution and monetization options for your digital media, a brand marketer focused on increasing customer engagement and loyalty, or a crack developer looking to expand your skills, there is something for everyone at Brightcove PLAY.

New This Year

Submit session ideas - We excited to accept session proposal ideas from our customers and partners. Click here to submit an idea.
Nominate your organization for a Brightcove Innovation Award - Think you've got a killer Video Cloud or App Cloud implementation? Submit your company or project for the Innovation Awards and come see who takes home top prize at the awards ceremony at PLAY.

Brightcove PLAY 2011 was a sold out event with more than 500 attendees, so make sure you reserve your spot today! And stay tuned for lots of exciting updates on our flagship sponsors for this year and session topics and speakers in the weeks ahead.

Cross-domain requests with the App Cloud Device API

Adam Mark — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:08:57 +0000

If you're trying to make AJAX requests from within the Workshop app—for example, with $.get() or $.ajax()—you'll notice nothing happens. Why? AJAX requests cannot be made across different domains.

App Cloud provides a device method for this very reason:

bc.device.fetchContentsOfURL(url, successCallback, errorCallback);

This asynchronous method can be used to load any kind of textual data, from JSON to XML to HTML. For example:

// get latitude/longitude for Beverly Hills, CA

var url = "https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=90210&sensor=true";

bc.device.fetchContentsOfURL(url,
    function (data) {
        if (data.status === "OK") {
            var coords = [
                data.results[0].geometry.location.lat,
                data.results[0].geometry.location.lng
            ];
            // etc.
        }
        else {
            bc.device.alert("Oops!");
        }
    },
    function (data) {
        bc.device.alert("Oh noes! " + data.errorMessage);
    }
);

Note, bc.device.fetchContentsOfURL() falls back to $.ajax() when running in your desktop browser, so you must start Chrome from the command line with the --disable-web-security flag for it to work. (Do this in testing mode only!) On iOS:

/Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome --disable-web-security

p.s. Get more tips and tricks (and share your own) by joining the Brightcove App Cloud discussion group on Google.