Thank you to Jesse Thomas for this amazing media reviewing the State of the Internet. It might just knock your socks off!

It may appear that I've dropped off the face of the planet, but it's only so I could focus on some cool projects - one of which just launched this past weekend.

The Online Campus is now available at gccwired.com!

Specifics:

• you can get to it a few ways: idochurchonline.com / live.gccwired.com or by simply going to gccwired.com and clicking on the countdown clock at the top of the page.
• Enter as a visitor (anonymous for the most part) or create an account for a full service experience including the ability to give online and register for things offered on the site.
• Lobby gives interesting information regarding the current series and links to the Online Campus Blog so people can stay connected during the week.
• Once inside the auditorium, you find the service agenda on the left sidebar and next step opportunities on the right sidebar.
• Real time chat (including private chat) on the starting tab.
• Granger notes: you can follow along or take notes of your own. Print them off or email them to a friend.
  
• Audience view: See a visual representation of who is in the service (individuals and groups).
• Who's Here tab: Find a person and connect with them via Facebook, Twitter or an email.
• Map: See where in the world people are participating in the online experience.
• Write on your Facebook wall or Tweet directly from the auditorium. Default message is to invite someone to the experience.

Of course I can't talk about the Online Campus without giving a shout out to our creative strategists and partner in all things web - AspireOne.

AspireOne worked with us for months to brainstorm, dream, create and develop this online experience. It was more than a project that just needed to get done. It was the birth of an idea to expand the realm of online church possibilities. Our intent is to take the social networking tools embedded in the site and allow the vision of our Online Campus Director (Mark Meyer) to explode in the virtual world.

We're at the start of an incredible journey. If you get time, stop by the campus (currently offered twice on Sunday evenings) and check things out.

I'd love to hear feedback on your experience so give me a shout if you have ideas. Email: dmcmullen@gccwired.com

Flash support via Flash Player 10.1.

It's one of the reasons I purchased the Palm Pre in the first place. I knew that flash support was to be added by the end of the year.

This is HUGE for me because I don't like mobile websites - I want access to the full version of the website on my phone.

Today I finally saw some articles come through about flash on the Pre. This post on PreCentral even has a video demo showing flash in action on the phone. Another article here on Mashable.

Looks like hte countdown has begun. Can't wait!

We've been talking about it for over a year now and though it isn't a reality yet, you can definitely hear it coming.

Websites like ipTV News and ipTV Community offer up to date information on where we're at with Internet Protocol Television (ipTV) and how soon it will become available.

But for me, it's all a bunch of noise until I see some actual movement in that direction. Maybe movement like this:

For immediate release: Silicon, OEM, Cable and Content Partners Embrace Adobe Flash Platform for Televisions, Set-Top Boxes and Blu-Ray Players. (full press release)

Now that's the type of news I'm talking about! Flash video has taken the Internet by storm and is easily the standard by which all other streaming media is measured.

But the unfortunate reality is that flash has not expanded quickly beyond the web.

On gccwired.com we offer streaming flash video of our media clips and weekend messages. Right now if you want to watch them you have to use your computer. But as flash support spreads to various devices we will be able to do the following:

1. Watch flash media on your LCD/LED/Plasma HDTV: If your HDTV has a network plug you could stream flash content directly off the Internet. HDTV's that support flash could also stream flash video directly off a network (NAS devices or other computers), off flash drives and even off PMP's like the Zune.
   
2. Watch flash media through a set top box or Gaming System: If your television does not support flash you might still be okay if you have a set top box or gaming system like the Xbox360 or PlayStation3 that supports flash. These devices would decode the flash video and send it to your television.
3. Watch flash media on your phone: Currently flash support is weak on mobile devices. But the Palm Pre is launching soon and claims that they will support flash by the end of the year. I'm assuming most other cellphone manufacturers are scrambling to do the same.
   

Obviously there is work to be done, but believe me the pieces of the puzzle are coming together faster than ever. And I can't wait.

I don't know what you dream about, but for me its emerging technologies and the way we can leverage it in ministry.

Last Christmas I purchased an Xbox360 Elite. I got the one with the big hard drive in part because all the other ones were sold out, but also thinking I would fill it up with pictures and home videos. However, pictures can easily be pulled from the network and my AVCHD video has to be converted into another format if it is to be watched on the Xbox360. So it may not have been such a necessary thing...

But that has nothing to do with why I'm geeked. The big win came in November with the release of the new and improved Xbox Live interface.

And no...I'm not talking about the fact that you can arrogantly create an avatar in your own image :).

I'm talking about the partnerships being formed and the interactivity between the Xbox and online services like Netflix. With the new interface you can connect to Netflix and stream video in HD. Simply create a Netflix account, put HD movies in your queue and they become available in your Xbox console menu.

Now I know this has nothing to do with ministry, but I'm looking at the trend and not the immediate reward. In the future, what if the Xbox360 had its own browser? What if you could go to gccwired.com and watch the weekly message in streaming flash video right on your big screen?

Oh...the possibilities!

Ever since the first mobile browser there has been a massive chasm between what a full blown browser can do and what your phone browser can do...

...until now.

The typical problem with the mobile browser is that it requires a stripped down version of a web page. Full blown html/css layouts appear broken and are often unusable. Not to mention that flash doesn't work.

Because of this designers/developers have either created "smart" css pages based on device or they have created mobile versions of their sites all together.

Enter skyfire - a beta browser that takes surfing on your mobile phone to incredible heights. Open it up for the first time and you immediately sense its power. Navigate to your favorite website and watch it magically appear before your eyes - not just the copy and a few images, but the entire site in its correct html/css layout.

Now the problem we run into is that most phones have very small screens with inadequate resolution to handle this new power. Not a problem - skyfire has added a smart zoom feature so you can choose a section of the site to zoom into. Once at the correct zoom level you can access buttons, text entry fields and other page elements. This until phones start adding screen real estate and better resolution.

The Biggest Difference
However, the most incredible thing (to me) about this browser is that it supports flash.

This is HUGE friends!!!! I can't tell you how long I've been waiting for this. Flash entered the progressive download and streaming video field with force and yet the mobile world didn't recognize its importance fast enough. Before you knew it sites like YouTube had millions of viewable clips that the mobile world couldn't access. In fact YouTube even had to create a separate set of video clips (in a different format) for the introduction of the original iPhone just so that phone could use the content. Since then YouTube has even added a mobile version of their site so that I can view clips on my phone using Windows Media Player.

But once Flash is available on phones and other mobile devices all this work will be for not. We can go back to watching the original flash version of the clips (Incredible storage savings for YouTube...)

In Summary
One of the first things I did with skyfire was to go to gccwired.com and try viewing a flash video clip from our media player. The next was to try watching our streaming service. Both worked and the phone/browser combo actually kept up with it. Amazing!

Of course there are kinks to work out. My phone has a hard time controlling audio in skyfire due to my phone (Sprint Motorola Q9c) not having external volume buttons. Because of this I have to zoom into the actual volume control on the website and try to drop the volume.

But for a beta browser these are small things that will only get better when viewed on more advanced phones.

HUGE things are possible because of this browser technology. I can't wait to see what happens next...

Just a quick post for those who attended my Casual Q&A sessions during Innovate08. I promised you some information so here it is:

Web Streaming

• Video encoding software (see list of tools below)
• Vendors for streaming video (see list of tools below)
• Our current Streaming Video Settings: 640x360 | Deinterlace on | 750kbps max stream | 15 frames per second | 80kbps stereo (audio)
  

RSS / Podcasting

• Blog software (see list of tools below)
• Blog readers (RSS aggregators): Bloglines, Google Reader, Modern browsers like IE7 and Firefox3, Outlook 2007

Good Info for Both Groups

• List of helpful tools
  

I'm sure this isn't a complete list so hit me up for more information if you need it.

My last post was 10 days ago - right about the time I (we) got knee deep into three projects with fairly short timelines. But that's the nature of things in this position. You pull hard for a while then back off to clear your head.

Yesterday, things reached a feverish pace right up until it was time to go home, but before we left we were able to check two things off the big list:

1. Not completed - More info soon to follow...
2. Online Giving Project
3. Weekend Experience Page Project

Online Giving Project
Starting this weekend we're doing a 4-week series on giving - which typically happens once a year. But this year we decided to really dust off the online giving process to make sure we weren't creating barriers for people. After finding more than one pain point we decided to make the following changes:

People let us know that the process was difficult from the beginning because online giving was hard to find. It's in the main navigation under 'More Next Steps' but it wasn't visible. So to accomplish this we added both Online Giving and My Account links under the search box on the right sidebar of every page. This makes it easy to find but doesn't elevate it to the point where it sticks out like a sore thumb. Next, we added 'Give Online' as a quick link option on the Weekend Experience Page - currently the most visited page on the site other than the home page. It's a place people go to watch the services so it fit in nicely there too.

The online giving page itself got a makeover. Gone is the pledge link for the My Life building campaign. New to the page is one large button to launch the online giving application and a heart theme (icons, quick links and the main graphic). For those of you that attend the church you'll understand. Our senior pastor typically uses the "Where your money is, your heart will also be" analogy when talking about giving.

A sidebar was added with the following information and/or links: how to give online, frequently asked questions, a link to change scheduled giving and a link to view giving history.
Hopefully these changes will make online giving a quick and easy process for people that may not have known it was even available a week ago.

Weekend Experience Page Project
Ever since we added streaming video to the site our main series page has been the number two visited page on the website. However, it lacked the functionality it needed and wasn't built to accommodate this crowd with it's specific interests. So we split it into two pages.

Now, there is the main series page which lets people know what is coming next week, and the Weekend Experience Page where you get the following:

• Last weeks message. Streams at the top of the page with the series graphic visible prior to starting.
• The ability to watch the messages in full screen mode.
• Archived messages from the last two full message series.
• Quick links to important areas of the site for those 'attending' church on this page.
• Access to service elements like the program, granger notes and MP3s of the messages.

It's been a fun week - but I'm also glad it's over...

My partner in crime (Jeanna) emailed me this link today. It's a blog post about ABC offering the first three seasons of the hit show LOST on their website for free. Now that isn't very shocking, until you notice that these episodes are offered in HD.

The minute I saw that, I had to go play. The first thing you notice when you get to abc.com is that media must be important to them. Notice below that the 'full episodes' button is red and first in the line of available options. Its also graphically tied to the ABC logo which I'm sure was no accident...

So you click on the button and it opens the player. Next, you navigate to the LOST episodes and pick it from the dynamic navigation bar. When you do, a warning message ('informational message' or 'free tech tip' to put a more positive slant on it) comes up. This message lets you know that your viewing experience will be greatly enhanced if you have the following:

• 2 Mbps (or better) Internet connection
• Dual core processor
• 128 MB Video RAM
• Full size monitor (at least 1330x770)

The Player: Not bad though a bit cluttered in 'normal' mode. Comes complete with play/pause and audio/mute toggle, click-to-seek timeline, cool 'more info' drop panel with the episode description, current/total time indicators and sizing options of Normal, 720p HD and Full Screen HD.

HD Mode: In 720p and Full Screen mode the clutter is gone (no room for it) and you are offered the 'HD Meter' for lack of a better term. This meter shows you the bandwidth used to stream the larger content. This meter fluctuates - but stays around 2030 kbps if there is movement on the screen. Picture was incredible with no visible frame rate distortion.

Behind the Scenes: I first viewed the HD stream in the early morning - and had the incredible experience mentioned above. However, later in the day I tried again and could not duplicate the experience. This time, when I selected the 720p and Full Screen options, the HD video wasn't there. Instead the lower quality video played at the larger screen size. This was a seamless experience, but the loss in quality was very evident. The HD Meter fluctuated between 300 kbps and 600 kbps based on movement - leading me to believe that abc.com tests the user download speed before sending the higher quality stream. This isn't a bad thing, but the fact that it still says HD when you are watching it is a bit misleading. I'm also assuming that the connection speed at work had dropped with the added users in the afternoon.

I can't wait to look into this and see what the ramifications are. We're currently streaming at 640x360 (probably close the default size at abc.com) so it would be nice to offer a larger version that would look good on a 720p or even 1080p HDTV.

The other thing I'm wrestling with right now involves media delivery to less traditional devices like smartphones, PDA's, Tivo, Xbox, etc.

The question isn't whether or not we would make content available on these devices, but how and when will we be able to make it happen.

Problem: It's a Saturday. The forecast calls for severe winter weather during the night. And you want as many people as possible to be able to attend the three services scheduled for Sunday morning.

What would you do? Business as usual? Pray for better weather? Just accept that what happens, happens?

Or would you be willing to try something outside the box?

Opportunity: This is exactly what happened last weekend. And we decided to step out of the box. Instead of waiting until Monday morning to put up the streaming version of the message, we transcoded the 7:30 service Saturday night and had it uploaded by 3 a.m.

Next, a short email was sent to our enews mailing list letting people know if they were unable to make it to church, they could watch it online (on Sunday).

Kudos: Since this wasn't my decision, I can say (without being arrogant) that I thought it was very insightful. Those making the decision took the time to think outside the box, allow technology to solve a problem and in doing so endorse an element of our ministry that has been growing in popularity since it was introduced in January of this year.

The Stats: So this is how it all shook out with the streaming version of the message:

• Total page views on Sunday: 881 (compared to 237 the previous Sunday and 528 the previous Monday which is typically the first day the new message is available)
• Total page views from Sunday and Monday: 1672 (942 on Monday and Tuesday of the previous week)

I typically don't have time to respond to comments posted on my blog. I read them and often take suggestions from them, but can't get into the back and forth dialogue many of them require. However, there are times when a post generates a lot of comments/questions so I try to answer them all at one time in a follow up post.

In this case there were quite a few questions about the online media player and the subscription service that accompanies it. So here is are some extra details:

The Online Media Player:

• Rivals cutting edge players like those used by VH1 and ABC in terms of player layout and features offered (including channels, categories, playlists and send to a friend feature.
• Is totally dynamic and created completely in Flash with over 700 hours of development time invested.
• Is fully supported with excellent customer service.
• Has a simple Administration Panel allowing the user to add Channels, Categories and media items.
• Comes with free upgrades: All ongoing upgrades and tweaks are offered free to subscribers.
• Is designed to accept streaming video feeds directly from LightCastMedia (streaming packages sold separately) which allows larger and longer video clips to be used in the player. Adding a LCM streaming video is as simple as putting a video ID# from LCM into the Online Media Player Administration Panel.
• Has a monthly subscription cost so you don't pay for upfront development, ongoing development, hosting or storage.
• Allows you to present your created media in a cutting edge player in less than 24hrs.
• Allows you to stream full length messages, services, trainings, etc. in a player capable of displaying content in full screen mode (additional streaming service required).

Hopefully this helped answer some of the questions I saw in the comments. If you have other questions feel free to email me (see link in footer of this page) and I'll try to reply or post again if there seems to be groups of similar questions.

When your job requires you to develop or work with developers you will undoubtedly experience the "burden of knowledge." You will create things or know that things are being created, but must keep your mouth shut until they are fully completed.

And so it is for me much of the time. A bit frustrating, but with this comes the excitement of being able to reveal the new stuff and watch the process happen from beginning to end.

All this to say there is something very cool I get to reveal. After months of development and testing the Online Media Player went live last week during the Innovate 07 conference.

We have received numerous calls requesting the technology behind our media player. Unfortunately when people learn that the player was created from scratch by our web developers (Aspire!One) they sigh and thank us for our time.

But now I can point people to the Online Media Player which solves this problem and allows anyone to get a media player up and running quickly. Here are just a few of the benefits:

• Professional look/feel and interface that can be popped up from any website.
• Allows online video capability for those of all budgets.
• Streaming capable/ready (separate streaming service required - but no additional setup fee).
• More here...

For those of you that attended the WEB Workshop the day before Innovate 2007, here is the list of resources we talked about along with some vendors:

Our Vendors:

• Aspire!One (our web strategists)
• Constant Contact (our enewsletter solution)
• Fellowship One (web based church management system)
• Light Cast Media (video streaming)
• NetSuite (e-commerce solution)

Tools:

• Templates: Template Monster, Template Factory
• Blogs: Blogger, TypePad, WordPress, SquareSpace
• Database Solutions: Shelby, ACS
• Enewsletters: World Merge, Sevista
• eCommerce: Miva Merchant, Yahoo Small Business
• Calendar/Event management: Google Calendar, EventU
• Stats/Reporting: Google Analytics, GoStats, StatCounter
• Copyright/Licensure: CCLI, CVLI, Church Copyright Administration
• Software: Anything Adobe
• Converting video to flash video: On2, Sorenson Squeeze, Flash Video Encoder (ships with Flash CS3 Pro)
• Web Design & Development: The Web Developers Handbook, Yahoo Developer Network
• Imaging/Graphics/Photography: iStockPhoto, Stock Exchange, Big Shot Media, Veer, Flickr
• Video: Adobe Premiere Pro, QuickTime Pro

Blogs / RSS Feeds:

• Less Clutter & Noise (Kem Meyer: Director of Communications at GCC)
• TerryStorch.com (Terry Storch: Digerati Pastor at LifeChurch.tv)
• A List Apart (web design)
• Creative Multimedia (all things media)
• Kirupa (web design / tutorials)
• Leave it Behind (Brian Bailey Web Director Fellowship Church)
• Ordered List (Steve Smith Web Developer Notre Dame)
• Web Developer (everything to do with web design)
• 3Cords (a community of Christian bloggers)

Hope this simple list is helpful.

The media player is a big part of the GCCwired.com site because it's a visual representation of what takes place at the church on any given weekend. To give you an idea how often it is used I looked at the total number of videos watched since July 3, 2007 and here is what I found:

Over the last 8 days there have been 4,230 videos started in the media player - an average of over 400 views per day. I'm pretty sure we're not going to touch YouTube, but it seems like a pretty big number to me.

For those interested:

The player was designed to play flash video clips 5-10 minutes in length (360x270) in the progressive download format. But recently our web developers added the ability to do streaming video through the player as well which is huge! Now we are able to stream video clips of any length and at twice the size (640x360) of the progressive download clips.

The other cool feature with the streaming video is that it can be viewed in three formats:

• 1x (which is actually 50% for our streaming video)
• 2x (which is actually 100% for our streaming video)
• Full screen (only available with streaming video)

So how do I know what type of video I'm watching?

This is the interface you see for traditional progressive download videos.

This is the interface you see for streaming videos.

Look around and see if you can find a video that is being streamed. Then check out the full screen (FS) option and see if it doesn't rock your world. We tried it last night on a large flat panel LCD TV and from across the room it looked almost as good as HD television.

[If you're having a hard time finding one just go here]

Isn't technology wonderful?

First off, allow me to give a brief history of streaming video at Granger:

• Late 2005 | IT department began looking into online options for streaming both live and on-demand versions of services that were already being captured
  
• Early 2006 | IT department finds fairly inexpensive solution that allowed us to do a live stream and on demand version of all Weekend Services and New Community services (our midweek service). The stream was 320x240 and was in Windows Media format (.wmv) (neither was available to the public)
  
• Shortly thereafter | An on-demand version of one Weekend Service and the New Community service was linked to from the website allowing for public consumption. The link popped the 320x240 .wmv into Windows Media Player giving the user some control over the look and feel of the video
• September 2006 | Introduced to LightCast Media as a possible vendor for streaming flash video online. Tested the streaming capabilities for the Granger Film Festival (warning: most links in this article do not work now) and found it incredibly simple and yet powerful in terms of the size and quality of the video delivered
• January 2007 | Went live with LightCast Media as our primary streaming service for the on-demand version of the Weekend Service and the New Community Service

Now that you have the facts, I'll add a few words regarding the process.

Our IT department rocks! They began the process of acquiring the streaming service even before the leadership was banging down their door demanding it. They did the work to get us up and running with a solution that served us well for close to a year. From there they helped one of our go-to-guys maintain the process and keep it running well. And finally, they even helped walk and talk us through the transition to LightCast providing ongoing hardware and storage support in order to pull it off.

Next are the media guys that have gone out of their way to work with us on video formats and encoding solutions to make the process more automated and consistent from week to week.

So what's coming next? Well, High Definition (HD) is the next logical step. We do work with HD files for some things but it won't be long before everything captured at the church will be HD. Of course that means much larger files, 60 frames per second and longer encoding time. But I can't wait!