What's a custom page? Glad you asked. Custom pages are a great way to add secondary pages to your channel that are navigationally linked via your channel’s home page. Custom pages can very helpful as an organizational tool or as a way to feature content on your channel.

What does a custom page look like? Here are a few channels that are using custom pages well. Look along the left hand side at the custom page navigation (the text links).

www.alongthemetro.com

whostwittinnow.magnify.net
 
So how do you put a custom page on your channel?

Adding a custom page is easy to do:
1) Sign into your channel and go into site admin
2) Go to the "design" tab
3) Click "Change custom page layout." 
4) From here, you will see one page listed, "Home", which is your current home page.  Click "Create a new custom page". You have 13 stan...

Well, actually no one here technically has the virus, but responding to a need to provide both aggregation and curation for news and video of Swine Flu 09, Magnify.net today launched SwineFlu.magnify.net.  The web site provides live, breaking and constantly updated information from a wide variety of sources including the Center For Disease Control, the Associated Press, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times and Google News. The site, which curates content from multiple sources, is aimed at giving users an up to date information portal on the happenings of swine flu. To track the locations of reported cases of the outbreak, we have also incorporated a live Google Maps Swine Flu Tracker. This channel is great! You really feel like you are getting a variety of the most recent news from different news sources - all in one place. And of course video as well.

Today is a very proud day for the Magnify Team as we watch two of our very own , Alan Medvin and Ari Greenberg, get a shot at stardom on tonight's episode of Cash Cab - a TV show where unsuspecting New York City taxi passengers hail a cab and have the chance to win hundreds of dollars by answering quiz questions. Make sure to tune in to the Discovery Channel at 6:30pm EST to watch.

Here's the LINK: http://support.magnify.net/video/Alan-and-Ari-Take-a-Ride#

The code monkeys at Magnify have been hard at work building bodacious new features, including new and awesome Twitter tools. Get the full run down.

Wondering why you should use Twitter and Magnify together? Don't trust me - read the testimonial of a user below. Also, see a really amazing Magnify channel built around Twitter.

First, the new toys:

1) Auto-Tweet - gives site administrators the ability to auto-tweet an alert when new content is posted. You also get to choose the frequency of tweets (every time a video is posted, once a day, etc.) It’s easy to set up and is a great ways to let users of your channel know when new content has been posted. (Site admin --> "Content" tab --> Manage Twitter Announcements)

2) Tweet-Caster - I love this thing! A custom-built twitter se...

I often get questions from users wondering how many people are visiting their channel. Well, it is easy to find out. For channel admins, sign into your channel, go into site admin and right there in the "channel" tab you will see a link to "review channel statistics". Here is the link: www.YOURCHANNEL.magnify.net/admin/service/stats

Channel Stats can give you a good sense of how many people are visiting your channel and what exactly they are doing there. This information can be helpful in a variety of ways. If you notice for example that your channel attracted a large number of visitors on a specific day, you can often think back to that day and figure out what you did to get a traffic spike. New video? Was your channel mentioned in an article or blog outside of Magnify? Did you have a video that a lot of users commented on? Digging even deeper into the stats will give you even more info.

Wondering what certain statistics stand for? Check out are FAQ for exact definitions.

Today is Earth Day and to celebrate everyone in the Magnify office will be multching all waste produced, wearing hemp necklaces and donating their paychecks to the Human Fund. No, no, but all joking aside, we think Earth Day is great and an important day that should be recognized by everyone. There are quite a few green minded channels on Magnify and we have singled out a few below for your viewing pleasure.

http://video.liveearth.org

http://earthday.magnify.net

http://coloradogreenproperties.magnify.net

http://www.ecobabble.com

http://ecoall.magnify.net

If you're planning to be at NAB, please stop by to hear Steve Rosenbaum, CEO of Magnify, speak on the panel "How Syndication is Powering the Broadband Video Era". The panel takes place Wednesday, Apr 22nd, at 3:30pm in the Content Theater. Will Richmond will be moderating the session. We hope you'll join us as the panel is sure to deliver a lively and informative discussion. Stop by and check it out.

If you haven’t heard of Susan Boyle, you will. And part of the reason could be the Magnify channel www.susan-boyle.com. Susan Boyle, a 47-year-old “small town spinster” created a pop culture phenonom after appearing on Britain's Got Talent. Shortly after her appearance, a fan set up a Magnify channel and with over 3000 members in a little over 48 hours, has become “The #1 Fansite for UK's newest singing sensation.” The channel has exploded with user activity, including thousands of comments and tons of user webcam uploads. The channel is filled with videos, news, user uploads and even a link to buy a Susan Boyle T-shirt. You have to check out this channel.

We want to congratulate the site creator on his excellent work and encourage the rest of you to either visit the site or create your own fan sit - who knows, you could create the next www.susan-boyle.com

Yesterday saw an impressive roll-out by HD Cloud - Magnify's new encoding partner and a company that has been getting some serious attention on the technology front. It was great to see the amazing and well deserved press coverage HD Cloud got yesterday (see links below). We also had the chance to watch HD Cloud put on an impressive demo last night at the NY tech meetup, encoding 100 50mb videos simultaneously in under 5 minutes...and the videos looked awesome.

HD Cloud is best-of-breed technology that is really changing the way that encoding is done and you, as a Magnify user, are at the forefront of change. Amongst other benefits, the new cloud technology has dramatically improved encoding time for Magnify users (you no longer have to wait in line to have your video encoded).

Magnify is excited to continue partnering with great technology and want to congratulate Nicholas and his team at HD Cloud on a great launch, amazing product and overall awesomeness.

Articles on HD Cloud:

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HD CLOUD LAUNCHES NEXT-GENERATION VIDEO TRANSCODING SERVICE

Magnify.net is First Customer for Large-Scale Web Video Transcoding, Transport and Syndication Service;  Enables Automatic Encoding and Syndication for Video Publishers

NEW YORK – HD Cloud, a video technology service provider, today formally launched its next-generation video transcoding service, which enables video content owners to automatically encode and distribute video, up to high-definition resolution, to a wide range of syndication web sites and services. Magnify.net, a leading provider of Social Video Solutions to Publishing,  eCommerce,  and Communities, announced today that they will roll HD Cloud out to their 52,000 clients effective immediately.

Included among the Magnify.net clients that will use the HD Cloud service are Weather.com, NYMagazine.com, Zappos.tv, LiveEarth.org, and BlogHer.com.

HD Cloud supports a wide range of video formats - from H.264 to Real Video and Windows Media - and supports up to 1080i/p resolution and 100 megabits per second (mb/s) throughput.  The company employs an innovative security strategy in which proxy files are wiped from...

We recently asked some of the staff at Magnify to pick a channel that stood out and impressed them. Below, Filip Szmanski, our resident video expert and the only person in the Magnify office with a Southern accent, talks about a channel that has caught his eye.

"Dog training is something that I had recently been involved with after adopting my puppy, Boris.  I would like to think I did a good job training him, however, I had to leave him with my parents - the apartment I was moving to in NYC didn't allow pets.  It wasn't ideal to leave my dog behind but I had limited time to find an apartment. My parents would have to continue his training, which was a daunting task being that my parents have never owned a dog, let alone a puppy.  In preparation to giving Boris over to my parents, I gave them all the tips I could give them but there was just so much to go over.  I had to give them anothe...

Today the Library of Congress released some of the oldest recorded films in history and put them on their youtube channel. Even if you are not a fan of old films, it is pretty cool to see what one looked like from 1903.  But then after watching a few, I thought, if the videos are on youtube, why not take them and build a Magnify channel? And then give away the channel to a Magnify user who would like to become the site admin?

Here's the channel:  http://oldtimers.magnify.net/

Here is how I built it:

1) I took a simple template, changed the background colors and uploaded a custom header - www.YOURCHANNEL.magnify.net/admin/design/layout

2) Imported content from youtube using the Magnify search, searching the term "user:libraryofcongress" (telling the search to only find videos from the user: library of congress). I also ...

New York magazine, the go-to-source for in-the-know New Yorkers, has relaunched the video section of its web site using the Magnify.net platform. What separates the magazine's effort from others is its plan to actively augment video it produces itself with other video sources, including users. By "curating" others' video, New York is looking to beef up the video section of its site by tapping int...

Can 'Curation' Save Media?

By Steve Rosenbaum (originally appeared in The Business Insider, April 3rd, 2009)

It's not a popular thing to say that things are okay in media. In fact, the changes taking place are useful, necessary, and will in short order result in better editorial experiences, because as shown in the press daily, the sky is falling in old media. But, happily, the future is right around the corner.

There is a trend evolving at media companies both big and small that promises to have a remarkably positive impact on what you read, watch, and share on the web: Curation.

Magnify Announces New Pro Packages, Business building solutions, support, and graphic design

Magnify has rolled out a series of small business packages aimed at providing an integrated video solution to smaller publishers at a new affordable price. The new "Pro Packages" will allow small businesses to implement and integrate a social media video solution using the Magnify platform. The solutions are specifically targeted at the Small/Medium size business market – and provide a unique mix of self-serve tools and hands on support to help get new video services off the ground.

"We found that there were a lot of folks interested in video that just needed a hand getting their solution launched" said Steven Rosenbaum, the CEO of Magnify.net. The 'Pro Packages' offering will bundle site set up, graphic design, admin training, and live support to make sure that new customers get off on the right foot."
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