Out of the many companies that launched at The Next Web, one that particularly got my attention is yellowBird.
They promise to “rock the movie industry world” and they may actually do it. They have a really cool technology, inspired by Google Streetview, that creates a complete 360° video that can be watched in any flash capable computer, and shared easily on the internet with their proprietary flash player.
“The viewer becomes the Director, who can choose what he wants to see from his position”, says co-founder Rafaël Redczus of yellowBird. He started working on this technology almost 10 years ago, but now all the pieces of the jigsaw are in place. 
“There are unbelievable opportunities for this new dimension in online experiences. Film producers can use it for their trailers on the Internet, city marketeers can use it to attract tourists, dance events become virtually
physically accessible for millions of visitors, documentaries and sports events become probing experiences, whilst this technology will bring about a
revolution in the world of advertising.” Redczus comments “Advertisers are looking more and more to the Internet. This offers them unrivalled opportunities
to present themselves.”
The Groningen-based startup may have actually created something that will change media distribution, not a minor funny technology.
Pictures, video, color video, live video, live internet streaming.. what’s next? This sounds like a good candidate. We will see how these guys do very soon.
According to Marc Groothelm, Managing Director of yellowBird, they are still the only company in the world that makes this concept accessible and available to
businesses. Keep in mind this is not intended at all to go mainstream for consumers, as the “stitching” process of the 6 video streams requires lengthy calculations by extremely powerful computers.
It is great to see such innovative startups in Europe reminding everyone that we aren’t just the artistic continent but we can have a major role in business and technology innovation.
Thanks to the guys of Creating Inspiration you can watch the video of their presentation at The Next Web:
Very inspirational thank you for sharing this.
have a look to Germany:
since 2008
http://www.city-views.tv/wb/pages/beispiele.php
They are certainly not the first… and not even in Europe! This website at http://www.videostreetview.com is showing well that others have been for much longer on the task… and probably with bigger power and experience! Nice anyway though!
You had better check your sources more carefully because these guys were never even close to being the first company to produce immersive video. There are quite a few in Europe and A LOT in the USA.
Immersive Media was the first, going back to development starting in 1994. Created Google Street View, first to broadcast live video streaming, world leader with credits from biggest brands. http://www.immersivemedia.com. They did the Olympics, Haiti with CNN, etc. etc. Yellow Bird is known for doing some music videos — that’s about it.