Ok, so emPivot alone won’t solve the global economy but we do know one thing: what the global economy really needs is a place to find the ideas and solutions to build a new green economy.  There are a lot of places you can read about those solutions but emPivot is the one place where you can see and hear all the solutions for yourself.

Recent Site Updates

After one year in Live Beta, emPivot re-launched into Version 1.0 a few weeks ago.  To enhance our site even further, we’ve released even more upgrades this week.  Thanks for your patience while we were offline for the weekend.

Even Better Video Quality

Users have already commented about the quality of our video conversions, but we are continuing to push the envelope.  Our most recent update allows for h.264–a higher quality of video file–to be uploaded by users.

Add This!  — Sharing emPivot Videos Just Got Easier

We’ve also added some functionality by including the “Add This” button under each video.  This button will allow for users to share videos on other websites with ease.  The “Add This” is located under the emPivot video player; an example of the button is represented below:

The Evolving Video Ecosystem

emPivot is evolving as the natural resource for green-related video content online.  Our hope is to give you, the user, the best possible website where you can find, view, share and network around green-related video content anywhere.

As our site grows, so will our capabilities.  From time to time, you might come upon the image of the field representing our video ecosystem when you visit the site.  If you do, know we are just making some necessary updates to improve the emPivot user experience.  We thank you for your understanding and patience.

With our major announcement yesterday, emPivot made a significant overhaul to its website and took its next step toward refining its next generation online video network platform.   In other news this week, The World Bank joined the network and the Network Solutions blog posted an interview with Co-Founder, Thom Wallace.  The interview by Steve Fisher explores emPivot’s strategy moving forward after the re-launch and Thom’s views on the state of social media and online video.  Check it out here: The Do’s and Don’ts of Building a Scalable Web Business with Thom Wallace of emPivot.

What’s New on the Network

During this last year in public beta, emPivot worked with many of our users to improve the site; now, after implementing those site improvements, emPivot is excited to to walk you through those changes!  During the next several weeks the emPivot team will share information about the updates to the site and how to use the new functionality in a series of blog posts.  More importantly, the emPivot team will soon launch our new “Support” section to help you find all the answers to those burning questions you have for emPivot.

In addition to the new landscape on emPivot, you’ll find a whole lot of new changes to the site.  As you can tell, we have a new company blog and you’ll want to check out our new About section to learn more about the company as we grow.

Here is a quick review of what you’ll find with the new emPivot:

Front Page & Featured Content Area:

Our home page is evolving to showcase the best green content on emPivot.  Our revolving “Featured” content area embodies the latest of our network provider’s content.  From updates from emPivot to individual’s videos to the latest from a premium content provider, this section will highlight the best emPivot offers.

OpenID Integration for Sign Up and User Accounts

Why create a whole new profile for a new social network?  emPivot makes joining our community easy with our new OpenID functionality.

Customized Main Page (Login to customize your page)

When you login to your emPivot main page, you can use the new exciting functionality to customize your emPivot home page and then experience the latest content related to your interests!

Here is why it’s useful:

• View the videos that other people you are connected to have been commenting on, reacting to, and sharing
• Watch videos in your favorite categories by selecting your favorite categories through the “Customize This Page” button
• and soon enough, enter your zip code to get localized results about green media related to your area.

Bigger and Better Flash Player (16×9 Ready)

“Hey, Mom, can you buy us a new big screen TV with all the money you saved by turning off lights and not using the AC this summer?”  Ok, Junior, its not a big flat screen but it is almost as good as an 87 inch TV.

So now those beautiful 16×9 videos look amazing in our wide screen format ready player.  We also love the fact that we took our logo off of your videos so that you can put your own logos in the bottom third when editing.  This also allows for all of the wonderful subtitles to be able to be seen.   We are still working on HD and H.264 conversion capability and will let you know when that becomes available.

Profile Pages and Account Management

When you login you’ll find a whole new way to manage your videos, your network connections, and the information people can find out about you on your profile page.  Our objective is to continue to build a profile on the network that allows you to drive people to the video content and information that is important to you, your company, or your cause.

We are hard at work preparing the release of the new version of the emPivot website for this summer. We are developing exciting new functionality and an enhanced interface (more to come about all that later!). Until then we are taking steps to expand the ways that people find the important content uploaded to emPivot.  Mixx.com, rapidly emerging as one of the top general content sharing sites, just released their ground breaking community functionality. Not only do we think Mixx is great because they are local to the D.C. area, but we also know that its time to get green video in the Mixx. Visit our new specialized community (seen above) at emPivot.mixx.com and get in to it. You’ll also get a small peak of the emPivot that is yet to come.

Juliana Riccon Parra, Environmental Editor for the world renowned GlobalVoicesOnline.org, recently featured emPivot in a blog post, emPivot: Green Media Aggregator. The article focuses on content related to China from China Green Beat and a citizen video from El Salvador. You can also read the post in seven different languages, be sure to share it with your friends around the world.

In the past few months a number of sites have been stopping in and giving us reviews, becoming users and letting us talk about what we are doing. Because of this rapid attention, emPivot has grown considerably in the last few months. As a result, we’ve just announced the opening of our first full time position at emPivot. Spread the word and check out the job description here.

The World is emPivoting

GoodCleanTech.com gave us one of the most thorough write ups we’ve read so far.

KillerStartups.com got it right when they called us, “The New Green Media,” which is much more appropriate than what the press has called emPivot in the past; namely, the press has called emPivot, “The Green YouTube.”

We were also happy to have Continue Reading

Ever since I went to the National Aquarium in Baltimore Maryland right before Christmas this past year with my five year old nephew, emPivot has been looking for away to support one of the most important environmental education institutions in the mid-Atlantic region. As part of our growing local outreach efforts, we found a way to help the National Aquarium in Baltimore!

emPivot is now officially a sponsor of the National Aquarium in Baltimore’s upcoming Green Gala on April 05, 2008. Since they are just starting to get involved in the on-line world, we wanted to encourage them to see the great potential in extending their educational and fundraising capabilities on to the internet. So, emPivot signed on as the lead sponsor of the Aquarium’s on-line auction and the silent auction at the event in April. Proceeds from the event go to supporting the Aquarium’s educational programing and institutional impact in the region and across the world.

In addition to local sports ticket packages, passes to the Aquarium, hot air balloon rides, yoga classes and wine baskets, there are a lot of great green-oriented items to bid on. Donate to the Aquarium and take a dive in the Aquarium tank, sport a new recycled tire messenger bag, receive a home environmental consultation, put on some new ecoSneaks (shoes), ride a bamboo skateboard — and among other items — get a once in a life time chance to take part in a private dolphin encounter.

Even though we are a start-up with very little money, there is no doubt that without institutions like the Aquarium, kids might not grow up to do something to help the environment. As a native Marylander, I am no exception to that rule; so with that in mind, emPivot makes our first contribution to this important institution. We hope to see you at the Gala on April 5. If you can’t make it, we encourage you to make a bid on-line!

Thom Wallace
Co-founder, emPivot.com

In late December of ‘07 Portfolio.com of Conde Naste (Wired, Vogue, Style, The New Yorker, etc.) highlighted emPivot.com in “Watching for the Next YouTube” as one of seven video sharing websites making a strong move in the video sharing world. Considering the other six websites listed - Hulu, Veoh, iFilm, Joost, VuMe, and Channel 101 - we stood out as the only niche focused video sharing website. Compared to these extremely well funded on-line video companies our small company is making big waves with our ability to deliver a diverse range of green-related content. This story was also cross posted on MSNBC.com, view the article here.

What’s that buzzing sound? It the sound of the blogosphere writing about emPivot.com.

From Italy to Germany to Silicon Valley we’ve been called the “Green YouTube” by the world and that’s got people talking and people get it. Of course, we don’t claim to be a green YouTube - while you can upload video, we also have a powerful video search engine bringing in content from all over the world and users can share green-related video content with a growing on-line community of users! Call us what you want, we like emPivot - “view green from all angles.”

Here are links to a few of the recent postings. Leave some comments on the articles to let people know what you think about emPivot!

Like YouTube, Only Greener| Sustainable Industries Journal

EmPivot may have a key competitive edge, however. It’s search engine is powered by Blinkx, the largest video search engine.

emPivot: YouTube for the green set | GreenDaily.com

“How often have you found yourself aimlessly perusing videos on YouTube and wondering why there aren’t more clips involving composting, recycling, and Al Gore?”

A Green Filtered YouTube | NewTeeVee.com / Earth2Tech.com

“emPivot has a surprising amount of content from global warming skeptics…It’s clearly aiming present a diversity of viewpoints.”

Watch and Share Green Media at emPivot| Earth Loving Tech

“Get your greenTube on!”

il Video Portale Verde| N3TV

“il Video Portale Verde” - It sounds like a really healthy wine, alas its not, and we just love how it sounds, “portale verde”, ah that’s a so nice!