David Kaiser is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Coincident TV, a software suite that allows content creators and distributors to design, manage and measure interactive video engagements across digital platforms. Kaiser is a serial entrepreneur behind seven startup companies, including RespondTV and Navisoft, and was also the first VP of engineering at Macromedia (acquired by Adobe).

Check out our interview with David below and connect with @coincident_tv on Twitter.

1. As experiences become more immersive in the social web, Coincident TV has created an interesting platform that intertwines content, social media, and ecommerce. Please tell me more about how the company came about and what your vision is.

I thought of the idea behind Coincident TV (CTV) in 2008 while at home watching the news with my laptop beside me. After a story caught my attention, I went online to look up more information but found myself frustrated with the disconnected experience. Although simple, it sparked the idea to build a technology that enables hypervideo, the merging of online video, social media, weblinks and commercial transactions.

My vision is to change the way we watch TV by transforming how we view and interact with online video. The goal of hypervideo is to create an interactive experience for the audience, enabling greater engagement between fans, programs, brands, businesses and content owners.

2. What would the ideal implementation of Coincident TV look like?

The great thing about Coincident TV is that it’s flexible and scalable, so the ideal implementation of CTV technology is whatever the author wants it to be. The software suite, both an editor and a player, enhances the video production and viewing experience. Whether it’s a content creator wanting to add real-time social media access to their video or a content producer looking to create revenue-building solutions through increased brand integration, the sequence and combinations of possibilities is only limited by what the author develops.

3. The Coincident TV executions I’ve seen on Fox.com for Glee and So You Think You Can Dance, and the demos on your Web site do not have the option to embed, which has become a key feature for YouTube, Vimeo and most video sites. Is embedding something that you have not decided to pursue or have clients not requested for it?

We are poised to jump into video embedding in a big way this Fall. While most technologies presently focus on sharing individual videos or pieces of content, Coincident TV will soon enable any video viewer to quickly and easily assemble entire video playlists and channels to share across the web. They’ll be able to use videos from YouTube, Blip TV, their own computers – literally any source. Users will also be able to add their own content links and other annotations into their content channels – without ever editing or even accessing any of the source videos. We see this as a quantum leap forward for embedding and we’re excited to launch the application.

4. What is your personal view about HTML 5 vs. Flash?

Flash is still the dominant and ubiquitous standard. And while our technology was originally conceived to work with Flash, we definitely understand the long-term potential of HTML5. And since CTV is based on a proprietary language, we were able to quickly adapt our software suite, both the editor and the player, to support HTML5. We see this as a huge competitive advantage for our platform: build one CTV file and it seamlessly works in Flash, HTML5, even Android.

5. What were some of the best lessons that you learned from working at Navisoft and Macromedia?

I learned the importance of surrounding yourself with a team as dedicated and passionate as you are. At both Navisoft and Macromedia, I worked with enthusiastic teams of technology professionals and our hard work paid off. AOL acquired Navisoft in 1994 and our technology became AOLPress and AOLServer. At Macromedia, we developed Director, the seminal PC animation application and precursor to Flash, and were later acquired by Adobe Systems in 2005.

6. What does it take to be a successful entrepreneur and how did you decide to become one?

While I have found it takes a number of things to find success as an entrepreneur, one key is having patience. It takes time to raise funding to get off the ground, and with any business, you don’t immediately start to see profits. It takes time and an investment. Although I didn’t start my career with the intention of becoming a serial entrepreneur, I discovered that I enjoy the challenge that comes with a startup that introduces new, exciting technologies, like CTV, to both businesses and consumers.

7. Is Silicon Valley still as essential for startups and tech companies or are cities like NYC becoming more attractive for talent, opportunities, and funding?

While Silicon Valley is still a hub for many startups and tech companies, the landscape is definitely starting to change and having a presence in other cities can be beneficial. While Coincident TV is headquartered in San Francisco, we also have offices in Los Angeles and New York. By having a presence in these cities, we feel we have an advantage as Hollywood and Madison Avenue are currently seeking new ways to monetize their content online and offer a more dynamic entertainment experience. We’ve been able to meet with studios and television executives and show them that Coincident TV can help them create an effective monetization model.

8. If you could bring web experiences to television sets, what would you do to ensure that people would find it appealing?

With Web television already available to consumers and new advances happening daily, Coincident TV wants to bring interactivity to these experiences.

Additionally, our technology can be applied to DVDs to create an experience similar to online video viewing. With CTV’s technology, DVD extras will have the ability to constantly be refreshed and can provide a unique experience
every time they are viewed, depending on the audience’s real-time interests and curiosity.

9. With the rise of Twitter and Foursquare, and the opening up of Facebook, social media continues to change the way we view privacy. Do you think “opening up” is essential for the evolution of the social web?

I think there has to be a balance. The evolution of the social Web is exciting because it is making everything more collaborative and engaging. People want to interact with each other and content online but not at the expense of their privacy. There has to be a happy medium where people feel safe sharing otherwise the advantages of the social Web will be negated.

Bob Phibbs is a business motivational speaker, and consultant. He is also the author of “The Retail Doctor.” While I don’t work in retail these days, retail is close to my heart because I come from a family of entrepreneurs and I worked in retail businesses from a very young age. Many retailers and small businesses have taken a hit in the last couple of years and I really think Bob’s book is a great read for anyone wanting to transform their business, from returning to basics to leveraging Social Media. Below is an interview with Bob.

1. You’ve written a great book about growing and turning around a retail business. How did you get started in retail and what motivated you to start sharing your expertise?

My first job was as a janitor at a jewlry store in Glendale California when I was 16. i learned then that appearances were everything.  I put myself through college working retail and like so many people my part time job became my career.  I build a small regional set of western wear stores from 5 to 55 before quitting and realizing I could do more on my own as a consultant. I never looked back.

2. Social Media has become an extremely hot topic for businesses because it is now fairly easy to engage directly with customers and potential customers. What are some of the most important things retailers should be doing to use Social Media effectively?

How about what they shouldnt do? Social media is not taking your Val-Pak coupons and tweeting them or offering Facebook Fan page coupons.  Most effective are finding ways loyal customers can share things meaningful with your other loyal customers. Encourage them to post a video of the child who received the gift purchased at your store. You can’t be like the big brands so keep it small and honest. That’s what brings people back time and again. In the book, I mention Pufferbellies in VA, I think they do a great job with  their blog and Facebook page.

3. What are some small business examples of doing “social” well?

Product videos like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyTJ78VZx5c
Local farmers like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X-9Vxcfhbs

4. Should entrepreneurs and CEOs be blogging, tweeting and creating videos?

Especially entrepreneurs because that’s how you show your expertise. Bill Marriott’s blog http://www.blogs.marriott.com/ isn’t just Marriott related but shows him as a person as well. That’s really important the larger you are because it humanizes the brand. Most people are so hung up on making a blog, tweet or video “perfect” that they do none of it. I say, jump in and learn. You can’t break something. You can always take it down but get over yourself. The Internet is people being human, not the manufactured images of Madison Ave.

5. What about ecommerce? How important is it for retailers to be able to sell online through online storefronts or third parties like Amazon and eBay?

I wrote a whole blog on why you shouldn’t do it: http://www.retaildoc.com/blog/online-shopping/abandononlineretailstore. Basically, if you can’t be as good as Amazon, don’t try. The margins aren’t there, the demands are high and cookie-cutter won’t work.

6. Without giving much away, what are some of the key things that retailers should be doing to “diagnose, treat, and cure” their businesses?

a) Look at your financials to see exactly where you are. Not profit and loss but average check/transaction, number of customer counts, etc.
b) Evaluate your crew how well they are moving the needle of sales. More than likely they are clerking the merch – that just won’t work.
c) Cut out your bottom 20% of categories and bottom 20% of SKUS to run leaner and put that money either in your wallet or into the top 10%.
d) Have a sales process.
e) Stop marketing like it’s the 50′s using coupons, Yellow Pages ads and fliers on cars.

7. How do our personalities affect the way we do business and what can we do to become better leaders/managers?

We tend to hire people just like ourselves which means we usually just “click” with customers like us. That can give a business a “hive” or “club” feeling if you are not that personality type. To become a better manager, you need to become a chameleon by being able to quickly recognize the four personalities, speak to them in a way they want to be spoken to and train your staff to do the same.

Turnover is one of the biggest problems in retail. How can a company find, train, and keep talented employees? Go shopping, give your card out to anyone who goes above and beyond in a dry cleaners, restaurant or other service business. Just hand them your card and say, “If you ever would like to pick up some more hours, please give me a call. You do a great job.”  Too many retailers hire by “Help Wanted” crisis which rarely fills any need but the schedule.

8. If you could change the way universities are teaching business today, what would you change to create better business leaders?

Have them sell something every day. A variety of things. We must bring back the entrepreneurial spirit of getting to know people if we are ever to compete. Right now book learning/computer learning/elearning is in a vacuum. How do we develop the young people who are risk and person -averse into someone willing to wait, to serve, to put their own needs second? Solve that and you’ll have been a great teacher.

9. Is there a point in which a retailer or small business should simply call it quits? What is the best exit strategy in such situations?

If you are not profitable for 2 or more years, get out. The second part is the hardest. You have to become profitable or you won’t get any money for your business so never try to sell when you are losing money. No one will buy a hardship. They will at most buy a job, but not a sinking ship.

10. What about those who are considering starting a new retail business. Is it a good time to do it and how can they differentiate in potentially saturated markets?

Please see this blog – as current today as last fall when I published it http://www.retaildoc.com/blog/starting-a-business/open Don’t open a “me too” business. You’ll be creamed. You must be different. You must be clear on why you are opening it. You must have a plan as to the need, how many widgets you need to sell to be profitable and how you are going to market. “Build it and they will come” is NEVER true.

I had the very cool opportunity to speak at this year’s SXSW Interactive as part of the Future15: Diversity series, which was organized by Glenda Bautista. The presentation, titled “The Online Latino: A New Digital Native,” was all about Latin Americans and the web. 

While it is a myth that Latin Americans are not online, only 30% of them are. The presentation went into the challenges (poverty, inequality, censorship, and the social/economic/digital divide), as well as what is changing (tech hubs, encouraging governments, businesses rolling out infrastructure, and a rapidly growing online community).

If you’re interested in learning more about what is happening online and offline in Latin America, including Streisand effects, citizen journalism, social networking, innovative start-ups, and stories about the people that are converting ideas into movements, check out the slides and videos below. Feedback (through email or comments) is appreciated

Thanks to Diego Contreras (aka Diegoliath) for helping me with the design, Jon Gipson for recording the video, and Kara Andrade for writing the original proposal with me and helping out with ideas, insights, and stats.

SXSW Interactive is full of startups and entrepreneurs. Some of them attend to listen to the panels. Others are there to speak, to party, to showcase their products/services, or simply to be part of SXSW history. Perhaps they are there because they want to be around people like them or maybe they are there because they truly believe their work could change the way we live, work, and play. While I met many entrepreneurs from all over the US and all over the world, here are a three memorable conversations partly captured on film. Regardless of the products they make, these are guys that I enjoyed talking to and briefly getting to know. Enjoy.

Elli Grace is a fashion brand that was launched in February of 2009 by designer duo Sojung “Sue” Yang and Lamarr Nanton. Earlier this month, I spoke with Lamarr, who has 19 years of experience in apparel design and development with companies like Giorgio Armani and JC Penney, at the first Elli Grace retail location in Plano, TX.

See the three videos below to learn more about Elli Grace, Lamarr’s personal story, and some of the geeky stuff they’re doing to differentiate themselves in the fashion world (including blogging and tweeting):

Lamarr shows how to use a mobile device to charge customers from virtually anywhere that has a cell signal or Wi-Fi, after the jump..

Jonathan Crowley is the co-founder of Black20, a multi-platform digital studio that operates out of Long Island City, Queens. There’s a good chance that you’ve seen or at least heard of one of their viral videos or award-winning web series, which have been viewed by over 60 million people. A recent partnership with 15 Gigs means their entertaining content is going to reach even more people. Prior to co-founding Black20 in 2007, J. Crowley was a part of NBC Digital Studios developing comedy programming for the network’s digital initiatives. You can check out more of their programming at Hulu and Black20.com.

1. Black20 recently partnered with Fox TV Studios’ 15 Gigs to produce Web-based pilots like “Heart Felt.” What kind of relationship do you have with FTVS and how has it been working with them?

We partnered up with FTVS to create innovative and cheap-to-produce content for the web, and always with an eye towards its extension to other platforms like television.  We view it as both an opportunity to develop stories and formats that can really speak to a Web-video-consuming audience and also as a chance to play around with a much more cost-efficient development model.

“Heart Felt” is merely one example of a digital pilot we produced to gauge our audience’s appetite.  In this case we wanted to test whether people wanted to watch a comedy about relationships between people and puppets. The viewership and feedback were very strong, so we now look at how to shape this series for both online and television platforms.

2. Black20 seems to focus on the content instead of spending money on marketing. What are some of things you need to do when creating content that is meant to be spread by the online masses?

We’ve never paid a single cent for marketing or promotion. We’ve relied on our content to virally spread itself. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. It’s tricky predicting what videos will go viral, but we’ve realized content focused on nostalgia or topical events tend to spread much faster. Oh yeah, or anything related to Star Wars.

3. The web gives you the benefit of gauging audience responses to better develop your characters and stories. Can you give some examples of how you’ve adapted or improved a show after listening to feedback online?

We had some strange characters on the series “net_work,” that the audience wasn’t really taking to. For example, there was a werewolf named Dean who worked in the office. He wasn’t getting the reaction we wanted from people. Probably because he just growled. We eventually wrote him out of episodes and started to focus on the main characters Michael Torpey and Mike O’Gorman.

4. How are you using social media to spread the word and how do you personally use sites like Twitter and Facebook?

Some of our biggest fans have a massive Twitter following. When they retweet links to our videos, it can spread pretty quickly. Recently, Kevin Smith tweeted about our “Transforminators” video we created for IGN.com. He has 1.5 million followers. Traffic to that one video was explosive.

5. The name “Black20″ came from a lucky break in Atlantic City where you and the other founders doubled your money on a roulette wheel. Please tell us what happened and describe your philosophy on risk-taking.

We were working for a big network at the time, and when our production budgets got cut, we did what any other cash-strapped producer would do. We grabbed our cameras, drove down to Atlantic City, and threw what was left of our budget on a single roulette spin. If we won – awesome, we had great footage. If we lost, disappointing, but still a pretty compelling episode. Luckily we won.

We’ve never been afraid to take risks – from that drive to AC, to the content we create. There’s a lot of content online, too much in fact. If you want to stand out – you have to take a different approach to storytelling. We have an episode of “net_work” where anthropomorphic skyscrapers sing about the racism. I’m sure there are some people who watch that video wonder what the hell we’re doing – but a lot of viewers will never forget that episode, and keep them coming back for more.

6. Does producing video for the web sometimes feel limiting from a creative standpoint? For example, do you sometimes feel constrained to a certain look or a certain audience?

We have more more creative freedom on the Web – there’s no limitation to the stories we can tell. The only limiting factor is Web budgets. I have the unpopular job of telling the writers we can’t buy this amazing costume called “Dressed to Kill” – it’s a sweet King Cobra wearing a tuxedo. Maybe we’ll hold a charity car wash or something.

7. You produce a lot of content and you actually created videos on a daily basis for the first couple of years. What has changed since you started producing less frequently?

When we first launched the company in 2007, our strategy was focused on becoming a destination. We quickly learned how difficult it was to start a destination in an already crowded space. More importantly, running a destination is fighting the way online video is meant to be viewed and shared. 60 million viewers have seen our content – all on other sites. Instead of fighting upstream, we became a digital studio that produces content for brands and larger destinations that already have millions of viewers.

8. You got started at NBC, where you got to run NBC’s digital studios department after pitching a show called “Out of Context.” What happened and how did you get through it?

“Out of Context” was our first Web series we produced in 2003.  We sold it to NBC, and were hired into their Digital Studios department. We produced a ton of content, but the department struggled with an undefined business strategy – largely due to being a small team that had to play by big corporate rules in a very nascent space. One day we got the crazy idea of running a start-up, and before you know it, we were working out of some nasty apartments in Brooklyn.

9. The Webby-nominated “The Easter Bunny Hates You” is still getting views on YouTube. Is there a sequel, and if not, is that just to make a point about sequels (ie Hollywood sequels)?

We were asked to make a sequel, but we thought it would be super lame. I mean, how many different ways can an Easter Bunny punch a dude in the face. But we ended up releasing a prequel called “Easter Begins” – it reveals the Easter Bunny’s battered childhood and how he became so violent and angry.

10. Have you ever tried to pitch some of your shows to get them produced on cable or network television? I can imagine a show like “The Middle Show” on G4. Or maybe as a Late Late Late Show.

We’re currently talking to a few networks about developing these shows for television. When you’ve proven that you can create multiple episodes of a series, and get over ten million viewers to watch it – there’s definitely potential to bring it to television. Our team has a knack for writing irreverent late night style comedy – so a late night variety show like “The Middle Show” is something that’s right in our wheelhouse.

11. Video online really took off with YouTube. How important is YouTube as a video platform today?

YouTube is certainly not the only player in the space, but they are the biggest name in town. If you want your videos to become viral – leveraging YouTube and Twitter are the key components.

12. Hulu is flirting with the idea of paid-for, subscription-based business models. Do you think that would be a mistake or a natural business move for itself and/or its partners?

I think having a partial-subscription based model is the next natural step for sites like Hulu – although not at the expense of alienating casual viewers. I would imagine Hulu would offer a certain level of free ad-supported content, along with a premium subscription service for watching movies or exceeding a certain threshold of consuming content. Even though they’re not online video, I think Flickr does a nice job of balancing free and subscription-based service.

13. There’s an episode in “net_work” called “Internet’s full” where Mike and Michel are brainstorming for video ideas. Have you ever made a video that ends up looking a lot like some other existing video?

With so much content out there, it’s bound to happen on occasion. We take the time to research other videos and make sure we’re not tackling something that’s been done a hundred times before. In fact, we often find videos that are pretty similar after we have released ours. We had some viewers accuse of us of stealing jokes from Jim Carrey in “Yes Man” – specifically the scene where Carrey plays the song “Jumper” by 3rd Eye Blind. It closely resembles a scene from our series “net_work” where Mike O’Gorman plays the same song, to talk a suicide jumper off the ledge. We released our “net_work” episode well over a year before that movie came out.

14. Black20′s web site mentions “organic product integration” opportunities for advertisers. How is product placement on a viral video or online series different from one on a movie theater in terms of how viewers respond to it?

The nature of online video gives the audience an opportunity to be either active or passive viewers. Online video has potential to be a much more enriched, interactive experience. If brands are associated with viral content, their message can travel to a variety of social networks and platforms as it is shared and discussed among communities. Whereas in a movie theater, there’s brand integration – the message is delivered, and the experience is over. The viewer is still passively sitting back in a dark theatre. I doubt they’re talking about the product integration when the exit the theatre. And let’s not forget, the price to integrate into a Web series on viral video is a much cheaper alternative to Hollywood movie or television.