New Year’s Features

Posted on December 31, 2007

We had a fantastic year (it was our first one :)! And we are sure joining Sclipo was your most memorable social network event (just kidding). Well … not really. Facebook is for keeping up with friends, YouTube is for having fun, and Sclipo is for sharing knowledge and meeting people to teach and learn from through video … or, Sclipo is for social learning.

And yes! It is New Years … so below are some New Features for you. We hope these help you improve your learning experience. If not, please tell us what features you’d like. We will work our butts off to fulfill your wishes during 2008.

All the best for 2008 from your Sclipo Team!!

======

Here our New Features for you:

Google thumb: When searching videos via Google, thumbnails of your videos at Sclipo will show on the Google search result page, which means more people will find your videos at Sclipo through Google.

Enhanced player: To ease learning from a video, we added a slow motion and step-by-step functionality to our player.

RSS: Keen on a specific area? Or, do you like a specific member Academy? Just subscribe!

Invite Students, Friends, …: Do you want to teach your students through Sclipo? Now you can automatically invite students, colleagues and friends by importing their email addresses from your Gmail / Hotmail / Yahoo email address book.

Sclipo launches Webcam Record

Posted on November 4, 2007

Creating and uploading tutorials to Sclipo has just become much easier with Webcam Record. This new feature allows you to create and upload videos instantly with the webcam of your computer.

With Webcam Record, we are adding a second tool (the first was SclipoLive) that allows our members to create content in addition to publishing it.

Here is how Webcam Record makes sharing your skills so much easier:
1. No digital camera needed! You do not need an (expensive) digital video camera to film your skills. Any computer webcam will do (by the way, a decent webcam costs only around $20-30, a really top webcam costs around $100).
2. No lengthy file transfer needed! You do not need to transfer the video file from your camera to your computer.
3. No export or compression needed! You do not need to compress or export your video file with a video editing software. Webcam Record does all that work for you.

Yes, a webcam is probably no good to film your mountain bike tutorials, but there are many skills you can nicely capture, like for example cooking, language or any music / singing lessons. Our Webcam Record allows you to pause the recording, so you can easily create different chapters.

Here a video tutorial showing how Webcam Record works.

To use Webcam Record, just go to Upload. After describing your video, select Webcam Record to create and upload it.

For a review of Webcam Record, check out Kristen Nicole´s post on Mashable: Sclipo’s “Webcam Record” for Easy Video Addition.

Oh, have I mentioned that Sclipo is the first social learning network to offer such a feature? We hope you like it!

Questions or feedback? Just email edwin-at-sclipo.com.

Sclipo launches SclipoLive - a pioneer webcam teaching system

Posted on September 14, 2007

How was your summer? We had a great one … crunching out the public version of SclipoLive, our new webcam system for teaching. With SclipoLive, our Academies can now choose if they want to share knowledge via video, or webcam or both.

SclipoLive is a powerful new app that offers our members two distinct advantages:
1. To teach personalized classes live (how-to videos are, in the end, not customizable one-fits-all micro-lessons).
2. To make good money (teachers may charge for a live class, whereas users would hardly pay to watch a video, except for tips here and there). Teachers can use their videos as self-advertising! What better way to convince somebody that you are great teacher then showing her how good you teach in a short video?

Sclipo takes a small commission from the seller of a class. For classes taught for free, Sclipo charges nothing.

Here’s how SclipoLive works. Besides a large webcam window where you see the teacher / learner and a small window to see yourself, SclipoLive allows to chat and to take private notes. These are deep-tagged into the video stream, which is recorded. This means, classes (which remain private) can be reviewed, and by clicking on a note or chat text, you jump forward to the point where the chat / note was made.

Pretty cool, isn’t it? Don’t you wish you could have video-recorded all your classes, and that all your notes where deep-tagged, so you can easily find exactly that part of the lecture where the prof explained …

Here was what others say about SclipoLive: Genbeta, Mashable, Techcrunch.

We hope you like SclipoLive. Questions? Or interested in a demo? Please email Edwin [edwin-at-sclipo.com].

Sclipo launches Academies

Posted on July 21, 2007

We have just enhanced our tab “Masters” to become “Academies“. This improvement will have a strong impact on how people use and experience Sclipo.

Academies benefit our users, because, hey, its more meaningful and exciting to have YOUR Academy than just being a Master. Our members can now build their own “teaching institution” and even create their own “brand”.

All people and institutions can set up their Academy at Sclipo. From here they can share their knowledge by uploading their videos and by teaching live with SclipoLive - our pioneer webcam system (SclipoLive is currently in private Beta). Each Academy has its unique profile page and URL, where students will find all videos published by the Academy, communicate with its teacher(s) and meet its students.

Here some of our favorite Academies.
> Learn all about PCs, Windows and more from Virtualtweak.
> Boost your English language skills with ColorfulEnglish.
> Immerse yourself in Tai Chi with Weihong.
> Delight your friends with Spanish homemade cooking from Carme.

Sclipo announces SclipoLive in Blogak / StartUp 2.0 at Guggenheim in Bilbao

Posted on May 24, 2007

We are proud to announce, SclipoLive which we will be officially launched in its BIO (By Invitation Only) version on Monday, May 28, 2007. With this, Sclipo is the world’s first, user-generated skills-network offering a web-cam for live teaching.

SclipoLive will make a significant impact on non-academic learning: With SclipoLive, a Master can instruct one or many students anytime and anywhere in the world. Masters can charge students for the class, if they want, at the price they want. All classes are recorded.

Now, Hans from Hamburg can learn Flamenco-guitar from Pepe in Sevilla and Weihong can practice English with Jennifer from Seattle. SclipoLive also allows Students and Masters to chat during the class, to take notes and to exchange supporting documents. These are time-stamped and deep-tagged into the recorded class. Students can now review their classes much more efficiently then before: they just go to their notes and comments they made during any live class. Reviewing classes will easier and more productive than ever before.

For now, SclipoLive will only be accessible for selected users by invitation. If you want to be a beta-user, create an account on Sclipo and send us an email with your username to SclipoLiveBeta@Sclipo.com. If you want to be notified when SclipoLive goes live, please send an email to SclipoLiveNotification@Sclipo.com.

Thanks!

Sclipo launches new Master’s page

Posted on May 23, 2007

Today we launched a new Master’s page. We re-designed the layout so Masters can better communicate and promote their skills. We added a blackboard, where anybody can post a public message for a Master, like asking her/him to create a special skills-video. The new Master’s page also allows users to network around the skills of the Master: you can see and click through to all Students (= subscribers) of the Master and you can see who the Master is learning from in the myFavorite Masters box.

Also: each Master has now a unique, easy URL. So, Master Amanda’s URL is sclipo/user/amanda. So, open your Sclipo account fast to make sure to get your name on Sclipo.

We hope you like our new Master’s page.