So,  by now you've heard the news... big news...  that Magnify is stretching our wings and growing both our Free service and expanding with a Pro and Enterprise offering.

Yikes - that's alot of new things to talk about... but here goes.

First,  what most of you know and love... FREE.

http://www.magnify.net/options/free/

As of today,  we've added Flickr,  Mogulus,  and Twitter support to the Magnify.net free widget area.  So you've got many more ways to bring your content into your site.

And,  of course,  since you're in the know - you've seen our "Social Network" tools go live - but now it's official.  So if you haven't turned on Friending or Following yet here's a chance to send out email and invite more of your friends to join your channel.  If you haven't specifically turned it off - we've opted sites to turn Friending on,  so you may find the feature is already live.  You can always turn it off if you wish.

So,  free is free - and free is good.

Now,  more things.   Some of you (ok,  lots of you)  have said that from time to time you'd like to be able...

Check out John Shinal's interview with Magnify.net CEO Steven Rosenbaum.  The video is HERE.

Here's what Vator had to say: "Steve Rosenbaum, CEO of the social video platform Magnify.net, has been working with user generated content for more than a decade.

In the 1990s, he handed out cameras to ordinary people who had called in with interesting story ideas, allowing them to film their own lives for MTV's  News Unfiltered.

Rosenbaum tells Vator.tv's John Shinal that, at the time, people in the media thought it was revolutionary.

To him, though, "we were just answering the phone."

Today, he's surprised that more media giants are still not inviting users to create content.

"At the big media level, not a lot of people are answering the phone yet," Rosenbaum says.

He says that when big Internet sites like Amazon and eBay start hosting user-generated content, media companies will get a wake-up call.

Rosenbaum adds that when Apple puts a video recorder into the iPhone, it will be a "game changer."

Still, th...

For those of you in the Bay Area,  we'll be presenting and visiting with friends at the Future of TV Conference that's run by our friend Tracy Swedlow.  We'll be at the Yerba Buena Center fo the Arts on Wednesday,  and then at the Tech Meetup that night - look forward to seeing you..

LOCATION: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission Street, San Francisco. YBCA.org. Parking information is available on their site under"Visit Us.".

2:00-3:15PM
Screening Room
UGC 2.0: Personal Broadcasting, Personal Video Portals, and Other New Developments

Over the past two years or so, the user-generated content phenomenon has been increasingly embraced by traditional television and its advertising base, with user-generated videos appearing on many established broadcasters’ TV channels and broadband Web sites and even being incorporated into Super Bowl commercials. This panel–which includes ...

Greetings from Austin, TX!

I took an early morning flight on JetBlue and arrived in sunny Austin, TX for the start of the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive conference. The plane was filled with lots of SXSW attendees and I saw a number of familar faces from the New York tech scene.

SXSW Interactive is an event that brings together over 6,000 people from the world of tech for a jam packed conference that includes panels, readings, networking, parties and much more.

If you're at SXSW, please feel free to shoot me an email (Ari (at) Magnify.net) so that we can meet up.

I'll be here until Monday afternoon and I'll be blogging (with photos) from the conference floor. Click here to check out my mobile blog for the most recent updates.

If I could be reborn as any conference in the world in my next life, I'd want to be TED.

TED is remarkably transparent, humble, and self-effacing event,  despite the overall wattage of the attendees.

The conference means different things to different people, but I thought sharing my experience could provide some insight into how TED illuminates the challenges facing the planet. TED is fundimentally a platform for ideas. As ideas - called TED Talks - spark throughout the room,  the conference leaves you feeling empowerd. That the solutions to the issues we face lie in all of us.

First, a bit of context. At TED, scientists seem to be the biggest 'stars' in the room. Sure,  there is a smattering of film and TV stars, and a handful of well known musicians.  But the 'rock stars' of TED are physicists, astronomers, inventors, and biologists. For four days, reclusive and often shy visionaries in the hard sciences get to tell their story to a thousand or so mortals - and try and see if they can turn science into more broadly understandable passion. This is hardly sexy. Frankly everyone is a bit scared.  It's like a flashback to high school science, So if you weren't a left...