Ci2i, a creative business management and production services firm headquartered in San Francisco, has launched its core product, Streamline. The Web-based Streamline comprises a suite of digital tools that manage and support the spot production process from spec development through postproduction and archival storage.
Streamline users require a computer, an Internet browser and a T1 connection or better in order to upload and share rich media files. According to Ci2i president/CEO Quincy Yu, the product was designed to mirror the commercial production process, but offers the key advantage of automated tracking to ensure that the most current version of a file—be it text, audio or video—is what users access.
"Streamline facilitates and provides a platform on which users can communicate assets," explained Yu. "We tell you what’s been approved, track the most current budget, manage everything from the opening bid through completion of the job."
Yu also noted that Streamline is backed by a fully secure "robust infrastructure." At its foundation is a large-capacity rich media storage system built by Hopkinton, Mass.-based EMC Corporation.
To initiate Streamline, users log on to the Ci2i Web site www. ci2ionline.net and send an e-mail request to set up a project. After a down payment is received, involved parties are invited to log on and receive a personalized password granting them rank-appropriate access to the project. If a user has more than one active project on Streamline, he or she can gain access to any of them. Yu added that the service also allows for private communications. For instance, she said, "Between the editor and the director, there’s a lot of back-and-forth before the agency sees a cut. Streamline allows users to control how and when they share information."
Moreover, because those in the commercial community typically work with different creatives and vendors from job to job, fees are charged by the project. Average per-project cost for using Streamline is in the neighborhood of $3,000.
Streamline is one of several companies that leverage digital and telecommunications technologies to facilitate collaboration within the creative community. However, it falls outside of the so-called "CyberCarrier" arena, in which young companies such Picture Pipeline in Carson, Calif. (SHOOT, 1/26, p. 7), and Culver City, Calif.-based NeTune Communications (SHOOT, 8/25/00, p. 7) are competing for market share. While Streamline provides access to rich media files, it does not offer virtual real-time collaboration, such as remote edit sessions and other services that require dedicated broadband and/or satellite network connections, as well as unique hardware and software. And unlike most CyberCarriers, Streamline was developed specifically for the commercialmaking industry, with its short production schedules and à la carte vending model. By contrast, CyberCarriers have generally been more inclined to service projects of longer duration—namely feature and television productions—because of the time frame required to establish a connection between two locations, at least at this juncture.
"We will upload any file, regardless of whether it’s a graphic, audio or print file," Yu said. "Users can open it and communicate by notes. But I see those [CyberCarrier] companies more as people we could partner with."
According to Yu, some ad agencies have already committed to using Streamline, but she wasn’t at liberty to identify them. She and her sales team have also been promoting the service within the production and postproduction ranks.
Yu took on her current post at Ci2i in January 2000, after two years as president/COO of San Francisco-headquartered Red Sky. Previously, she had co-founded and spent 10 years at San Francisco software company PeerLogic (which was recently acquired by San Francisco-headquartered Critical Path). Earlier in her career, Yu worked in sales and marketing for Bank of America and the Printing Industries of America, Washington, D.C. She is based in San Francisco.
Other key personnel at Ci2i include the recently named senior director of global sales, Phyllis Oulmann (see SHOOT’s Rep Report, 3/9, p. 30). Based out of the company’s New York office, Oulmann joins Ci2i after a 10-year stint as executive producer at Coca-Cola. Also based in New York is VP of marketing and sales Tom Jasinski, who joined Ci2i last year.
Ci2i (formerly US Creative) was founded in ’96 as a creative services directory and career resource that quickly moved from the print arena to the Web. In Dec. ’99, founding partners Royce Fromme, Robert Annschutz and Kurt Gustasson secured funding from Silicon Valley-based Convergence Partners and Austin-based Sanchez Capital Partners, and shortly thereafter they hired Yu and began developing Streamline. VP of engineering Fromme, creative director Gustasson and director of community relations Annschutz—all based in Ci2i’s Austin, Texas, office—are currently heading up efforts to reconstruct the original directory, which will be a complementary feature of Streamline. Ci2i will eventually roll out versions of Streamline to support the production of radio, print and Web advertising.
In addition to its operations in San Francisco, New York and Austin, Ci2i maintains an Atlanta office and plans to open up branch offices in Chicago and Los Angeles later this year.
