IBM Video Streaming vs. Ion Interactive

Very limited customization features. Permissions are a mess too if you want to have people assigned as chat moderators for events for instance, but dont want them access to the admin panel. The quality of the broadcast and live captions work well, but they charge extra for live captions. For operating a video on demand site, the design of the page is really poor and limited on customization. Been a user for years and seen almost no new innovation on the platform which has been disappointing. The metrics are a mess on the user panels too. They do provide an api link for your external metrics and/or data dumps for using something like tableau, but that features not really something to write home about and a rather basic offering. This is an expensive platform with limited options and an outdated style unfortunately. We have been getting by for our uses but there's nothing really keeping us with IBM if another platform offering came around

If you want to choose a quick start template and fill in the fields with your content, Ion will be fantastic for you. We've done this with whitepapers and quizzes and it's been great and extremely easy to use. If you have an exact idea of what you want, and a background in web development, you may get frustrated. Ion has some quirks that make it tricky to fully customize - everyone once in a while I really just want to go into the HTML and make some changes, but can't. If you are looking to reuse a piece of content for specific targeting (industry or account-specific), Ion is great. The dynamic substitutions are great and very helpful.

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• IBM Video Streaming allows for the integration of interactive elements into video content, such as quizzes, polls, and live Q&A sessions. This can make learning more engaging for young students by making it interactive and fun, thus increasing their attention and participation.
• Teachers in a K-5 setting can access and share professional development materials and teaching resources through the platform. This can help them stay updated on the best practices for early childhood education, innovative teaching methods, and subject-specific strategies, ultimately benefiting their students.
• IBM Video Streaming provides the capability for teachers to create a library of on-demand educational videos. This is particularly useful for young learners who may need to revisit concepts multiple times to fully understand them. It also supports differentiated learning by allowing students to learn at their own pace.
• Young students often benefit from visual aids in their learning process. IBM Video Streaming can deliver high-quality video content that includes animations, demonstrations, and visual explanations of concepts. This can be particularly effective in subjects like science, math, and reading, where visualizations can enhance understanding.

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• Quick Starts make it so easy to get started.
• Real-time updates are awesome and save a ton of wasteful process.
• The combination of user friendliness for simple things and the flexibility to do more complex things is great.
• Chat support is excellent and deeper-dive support has been super helpful.
• The ability to use these tools in the cloud or embedded has given us tactic flexibility.

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• Occasionally, we experience a form of static that lasts for about 1 to 2 minutes. It appears in the live stream and in the auto-recorded file, but not in the live worship assembly. It occurs roughly 1 in every 4 hours of webcast time. I wish there was a way to trace the source of that recurring static. The diagnostic tools could be more robust.
• It would be nice if the chat room allowed a user photo/avatar for each user to personalize that a little more.
• I have wished for a way that an admin could use a “laser pointer” on the video window to point out something on the feed that other live viewers could see.
• It would be wonderful to have a mini-tutorial for viewers who are not technically savvy that would inform them of how to get to the site and explain how they can use the software. For example, how they can see and type in the chat room, how to maximize the screen and make it smaller. Some of our viewers are in nursing homes or otherwise limited in capability to learn to use this on their own.

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• Ion University, while stacked with a wealth of information, is difficult to navigate from a troubleshooting perspective. The tutorial videos are all very helpful, but they are also very long. Sometimes I would want to search for how to address a particular issue I was struggling with and it would be a two-minute segment buried in a 45-minute video.
• Again, getting back the self-guidance side of things. I think a lot of the tutorials are set up in a way that makes sense to Ion, but not as much to the end user.
• I think the controls admins use when creating new users could be a bit more straightforward.

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Our organization depends heavily on this streaming service. Now that we have the option of allowing our clients to attend meetings virtually, we can never retract that option as so many of our clients love the flexibility. Also, we have no complaints with the service itself. It is reliable and dependable and any issues we have encountered have never been to blame on the service but rather our lack of knowledge of it or needing to update our embed code

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We use it for every landing page and we plan on only doing more dynamic content creation. We dont see that option coming in-house any time ever in the future. ION has a very robust platform for us to work with that really allows us to do more for our customers in regards to having the one-to-one conversation.

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The user interface is pretty straightforward, but simply needs optimization. (Please hire a seasoned UX person to fix it.) However, all of the key features are there and understandable. It's a great platform overall, a bit expensive, and could use some more options for its viewing experience, and a better "smart" embedding window for mobile applications.

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Usability is straightforward, with extensive documentation and tutorials provided to ensure landing pages are built to specifications and can be optimized for performance. Built-in platform funnels give insight into customer dropoff, success/failures, and conversions (at a glance). Setting up a landing page can be done quickly and easily, with numerous integrations (CRMs like SalesForce, for instance) supported

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Absolutely. We have never had an outage problem or any application errors that I have been privy to. We are duly notified generally in advance of outages or updates

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As we use it now, we are satisfied with the streaming performance. I cannot speak to integration yet as we have yet to engage in that but have plans to in the future

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Sometimes the editor can be a little slow.

We funded 'white glove' service as our timelines were tight and our needs were well-defined. Tier 1 and Tier 2 support were able to help us get up and running in shorter order than we would have on our own. Documentation on the eCDN product had gaps, increasing the time to resolve and created concerns about success.

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The ION support team is amazing. There has not been a single issue they they could not solve for me. If there is a feature or request that they do not have, they have even, on occasion, created custom scripts for our team. *Update 6/5/17 - ION has continued to delight on multiple occasions. I appreciate their attention to detail and ability to solve whatever issue I have. After 3+ years of use and support, ION still has my full endorsement.

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They offer a great amount of online training, videos, articles, etc. There is usually an answer available if you run into an issue. I would recommend taking advantage of the online training they offer. I wish I would have done it sooner.

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Ustream is easy to implement. It takes any stream we have thrown its way and distributed it quickly and with quality. When talking to others that are pursuing live stream implementations, I often remind them that the technology used to distribute your live stream is less important than the quality of the content you are distributing. Taking care to use the right camera equipment, the proper encoder, and quality sound gear will result in a high-quality stream that will allow the strength of the Ustream CDN to shine.

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There were a lot of things we learned about the tool once we really got in and got our hands dirty. Being hands-on was essential for our team to be able to utilize ION in the most effective manner.

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Vimeo offers better tools for on-demand like chapters and marketing tools. But their live options are limited to event durations. YouTube can stream for longer durations but IBM 24/7 stream has been much more reliable and easy to use.

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I was not the decision maker to choose this over Uberflip, but the UI is much more appealing to me. It's incredibly easy to use, clean, and from a backend standpoint, it requires little to no tech savvy'ness. Our team has really enjoyed using it and has required no training what-so-ever.

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IBM global network.

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Separate client portfolios enable scalability, however, some elements are still grouped for all accounts so it's difficult to scale for an ad agency with multiple clients. Would prefer totally separate sections of the platform for all clients with each element housed separately.

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• Our ROI is measured by the provision of ministry and satisfaction of our congregation. We are extremely pleased with our USTREAM and feel that it is a valuable asset to our church.

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• Though we have not had the service long enough to see any measurable outcomes, we've been able to create interactive web content faster than ever before
• The speed with which we can build interactive pages and re-use assets has been critical as projects we've done with Ion have made their way around and more and more internal clients have said "me too" for their own projects
• It is very pricey at $28K for the base annual subscription (dropping to $24k after the first year), so depending on your budgetary situation, that may make no sense for your team--but we had contract money set aside for a company to build us a microsite for around the amount, so we just used it for Ion instead and will now be building the microsite ourselves using it

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