osTube - a new social networking media platform | MyTestBox.com

Posted on 04-21-2008

osTube - a new social networking media platform

Filed Under (Social Networks, Video sharing) by Veiko Herne

osTube www.ostube.de is a social networking media platform allowing the sharing of music, video, pictures and documents. It has been developed by AUVICA GmbH in Munich, Germany. Their other product lines are MyRadio, Reisepanne, and VIMP.

osTube is available by three product editions: Community, Professional and Enterprise. Community edition is free but you can’t run any ads and social networking communities with it. The Professional edition allows banner and video (priced differently) ads as Enterprise edition is a not priced solution for commercial projects which can include Live Streaming, Mobile payments, etc.

Professional edition costs $149 to manage Google AdSense ads with some extra templates and you should spend $299 when you want to run video ads and have more templates included.

Installation and configuration.
AUVICA promised us a test environment and without their help, I would not have been able to get the product running at all. The upload and distribution of files went quickly but afterwards I ended up with list of Apache Linux settings errors that I was unable to change without a console access besides modifying directory rights using ftp. Even I downloaded the English version of the software, the installation and error messages where in German. So seems that not all installation messages where yet translated. I also encountered several spelling mistakes in English language version further.

When finally I was able to complete installation routines, I ended up “Insufficient Rights” SQL error when trying to access the administration module. Finally when they had fixed it I was able to use the administration module when logged in as “admin”.

When logged to the administration module, the first page shows all developers news and you re able to login to developers forum to seek help.

The users section allows to manage users, including a modification of their profile, lock users, give users administration or moderation rights, modify groups and configure the minimum length parameters for passwords, usernames, group names, etc. You can get a list of those users who have missing address data or e-mail address not verified.

From the module configuration settings, besides site parameters the administrator can setup the language (English, German) which sections (video, audio, pictures, documents) are in use, is member address required, is it visible, is birthday data visible, maximum upload size, notifications when media item has been reported, will the uploaded media and new users to be approved by administrator. There is also possibility to setup site metags, paths and video conversion settings.

The Layout section allows changing the templates, uploading site logo and changing portal objects colours. The administrator is able upload watermark supporting only PNG format.

The modules section allows configuring which kind of modules will appear in first page, including the news module where the administrator can enter a separate message for each section.

Banner management section in Professional edition allows to setup banner campaigns as “superbanner” (horizontal banner over the screen which can be shown in top, below the header or in bottom), “skyscraper” (vertical banner in the right side of the screen) or Extended. Using extended setup, I was able to setup Google Adsense which can be shown in all mentioned sections. The campaign options management allows defining the priority of banner ranging 1-100 scale, duration and which pages this banner will be shown. There where no possibility to setup certain amount of views or clicks. The banner statistics gives campaign views and clicks information including click thru ratio.

Site statistics shows top users, top media, top videos, top music, top pictures and top documents.

As the administrator I was able to design elements in home and community page, including setup the element width by dragging and dropping them. The screen seems to be divided to four columns. However those boxes somehow didn’t want to stay in the place where I wanted them to be.

Usability
The home page has sections Featured Video, Las added and Video Top 3, New Users with Picture, Latest messages, Chat, Top rated, Icon Description and Tag Cloud. The chat box button says “Send Mail”.

After the confirmation, new member is able to edit profile, upload media, edit friend list, manage groups, empty history or delete profile.

Besides the basic information such as birth date, gender, address, sex, relationship status, a member can upload the avatar picture, give the general about me description and talk more about the occupation, school, favourite movies, favourite music and favourite books.

Member can setup also the e-mail notifications for new messages and comments.

When uploading the avatar my picture where cut from the bottom and changing my profile background and text colours changed those only for my profile part of the page, but not guestbook, recent activities and on actions box.

From the profile page user can relate the guestbook entries with person media but there where no integration between comments on media and guestbook entries.

Members can upload Videos, MP3 files, Pictures and Documents. Each media can be tagged and categorised having multiple categories for each media.

The media can be private or public. Document types I tested were PDF, MS-Word and MS-Excel. Those where opening as Windows objects allowing document modifications but I wasn’t able to save them back to server.

After the media file upload there is possibility to go directly to media page or upload another media. Somehow the system didn’t make a screenshot picture from my FLA test videos.

From media page the owner can make it private or delete it. Everyone can rate it, comment it, report abuse and bookmark it either to your bookmark list or to oneview.de, iq.lycos.de, del.icio.us, digg, mister-wong.de, yigg.de, blibklist.com and webnews.de.

There is a possibility to copy the embedded link for each media type.

The media page shows category playlist, statistics, related tags, WebPages referring to this media, page visitors and related media with same tags.

Users can browse the media by type and categories, sort them by most recent, by rating and by views.

The search box allows also keyword search from members, groups and blogs.

Groups must be setup also by categories and can be private or public. The group creator can setup the media approval and new media notifications to the group. Each group will be given their specific URL address.

Besides your group and media, site member can write a blog. The blog entries were not showing up in profile page but users are able to attach media files with blog entries and use simple formatting (Bold, Italic, Underline, Link and Link to Image) within the entry text.

Same Rich Text options where also available when creating blog comments, including the possibility to include additional media files for comments.

Each blog entry must be accepted before it appears in the blog list.

The blog page shows all blog entries which can be limited to 10/25/50 in page and latest messages. Blog entries can be sorted by date or latest comments.

Community page shows Top rated users, new users, most active users, new guestbook entries and latest comments. User is able to list new members, most active users, top rated users and switch to groups.

The group messaging allows only short one line topic header which can be related to your media file and can be commented. The commenting button says “Send Mail”.

Conclusion
osTube is commercial alternative to phpMotion (both being social networking media platforms with common characteristics). I found their staff quickly reacting to problems even the product I tested was official release and not beta as phpMotion. So instead asking license fee for commercial use of their software maybe this company should consider support and hosting services. The site setup features where more powerful, compared to phpMotion and it can be seen everywhere that this product is in active development. Of course they should hire an English speaking person to get a German product properly translated to the English speaking markets.

The software being a media portal platform, I didn’t see any need for the document sharing in a way they have implemented it.

Despite the problems I actually liked the software and the fact how committed their creators are to the product, I would consider it as a good commercial alternative (and the free edition too).
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Veiko Herne is lifetime entrepreneur, currently working as Independent Consultant with over 30 years experience in IT and starting his activities in Internet since 1993. After establishing and managing one of the most successful IT companies in Estonia after the collapse of Soviet Union, he later managed worldwide interest to his analytical financial accounting and HR management software packages from New York until September 11th. He is currently living in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
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