This past week RealPlayer finished its US-based Reality Check tour. We traveled to 10 cities in each corner of the country (as well as holding an event in Seattle) to find out about how you currently use web video and how you’d really like to use web video.

The crowds differed greatly in each location, but one theme remained constant: SMC members have a serious drive. It’s impressive, and it’s also intimidating. They want only the best tools, the best applications, the best ideas and the best content to come across their plates. I think talking with them over these past 2 months has been the best research and discussion and crowdsourcing that we could ever possibly hope to achieve. After all, if we work with the folks who are raising the bar, it’s absolutely mandatory that we not only keep up but try to get ahead of the pack (not easy!).

Wednesday evening had us in Philadelphia, at the coolest possible location for a meeting ever, the offices of Red Tettermer, and former residence of the Wanamaker family. That venue is pure eye candy. Bold colors covered the wall, spray painted bikes hung from the walls, and chandeliers made of colorful junk danced from the ceiling. You can’t help but smile in their offices. The crowd was about 50 strong and focused on our favorite topic- web video- as well as the new FTC blogger guidelines (which are extremely interesting, and worth a read). The video discussion focused mainly on how RealPlayer SP is a completely different product than the RealPlayer of the mid-90’s which everyone used at some point. People seemed excited about the possibilities of portable video. We even had a few fans in the room, which is always a welcome event.

Thursday evening took us to Boston to the SMC meeting held at the Microsoft NERD Center. Quite a fitting venue for such an event, wouldn’t you say? The crowd in Boston was bigger, but much quieter when it came to talking about video. After a little gentle prodding people started coming up with ideas. One person really caught my attention. Justin Whitaker said something so simple, but yet, I don’t think anything but a complex solution exists. When asked what he would want to see in the future of web video, he took it a step further by saying that there needs to be a solution to easily creating content that can easily be shared across all platforms. Less hassle, more results. This goes for video, photos, documents in general, whatever is next in social media. Content is so scattered and in so many different formats it’s not such a simple task to put it where you want, when you want. Why can’t video adopt a simple codec the way music has (mostly) adopted the Mp3? It was a good question. And I think it got a lot of people thinking. It certainly got me thinking.

Other points people have made that have really stuck with me:

Why is it so hard to live-stream video to portable devices?

Why isn’t this (RealPlayer SP) wireless?

How are we going to keep up with the oh-so-swift currents of technology innovation?

All are great questions, and ones we intend to answer as best as we possibly can, as soon as we possibly can. Stay tuned. In talking with SMC members over the last few months we’ve received our marching orders, and dare I say, we’re excited about the future of RealPlayer. Thanks to all 10 cities for letting us crash your parties! We had a fantastic and extremely valuable time at each event.