Rudy Viard of the web-based screencasting tool ScreenToaster (@screentoaster) kindly answered my questions about why they’re building a free on-line screencasting service and how the company started.  This interview is one of many in our screencaster interviews collection.

The company is 8 months old, based in Paris with 5 employees and uses the experience gained during 2-years of development on a previous (still growing) web-app company.

Can you provide some background about ScreenToaster and yourself to set the scene?

ScreenToaster was launched by Marco Fucci, our CEO, about 9 months ago using technology and knowledge developed by Iteria (CrunchBase), his previous company (still active), using its peer-to-peer remote assistance service called WizHelp.

We had the knowledge to develop a web-based screencast service and we felt there was a space for a new competitor in this market.

From September to January, we launched and tested our Beta with really good responses in the press (Techcrunch, Download Squad, Digital Inspiration…) then officially released the public version of ScreenToaster in February step by step adding new features.

Building a cross-platform web-based screencasting tool must be rather hard.  Why make it?

The main concept of ScreenToaster is to be able, at every step of the process, to reduce the time it takes to create and distribute videos online.

Only a web-based screencasting tool allows you to capture, upload, stream, share, embed and spread your screencasts in a couple of minutes.  Screencasts were only for specialists, we think people shouldn’t focus on technical aspects but on the contents.

We also tried to keep ScreenToaster as simple as possible. Advanced functionalities (editing tools, new player…) are being and will be implemented step by step.  We don’t want these functionalities to bother users who only want to create good screencasts. Additional functionalities are hidden, e.g. users will be able to choose to “Show more edition tools” or not.

We don’t want beginners to get lost and we want advanced screencasters to get all the functionalities they need. Last but not least, we are working on the user-design for all of the service.

As it’s more accessible, free, faster and easier to use, ScreenToaster opens screencasting to a larger community of users that have never used software such as Camtasia.  This is the most exciting part of the job.

What’s different (good and bad) about ScreenToaster compared to Jing and ScreencastOMatic?

ScreenToaster is simpler than Camtasia: To record a screencast with ScreenToaster, you just need to register then click “Record” and you are ready.

You don’t need to download (and understand) any software to start recording. We’ll never be Camtasia and do not want to copy what they are doing.  Camtasia is a really good tool made for specialists. It includes lots of editing functionalities that you’ll probably never use if you are a simple user.

ScreenToaster is faster than Jing: You don’t need to be in front of “your” computer to publish your screencast with ScreenToaster (Jing needs to be downloaded).  Once you published your video online, the video is immediately online on screentoaster.com, ready to be streamed, uploaded on YouTube in HD, shared, embedded, tweeted…

ScreenToaster is free: Jing Pro costs 15$ (more or less) and Camtasia 300$.  ScreenToaster is free and offers more than Jing and less than Camtasia.

What’s your business model?

Partnerships (thanks to our API) and Premium accounts will be the basis of our business model. I’ll let you know more about it soon as we are still working on packaging the commercial offers.  You can already Beta test the API simply asking us at contact@screentoaster.com

What sort of editing features do you provide?  How powerful is the editing compared to CamTasia or ScreenFlow?

ScreenToaster offers the possibility to capture your screen, add subtitles, audio and an embedded webcam.  For the moment, we do not offer advanced editing tools such as Camtasia.

ScreenToaster enables downloads in .swf and .mov to export your video in third party editing tools. This will be the next step (rework audio, cut, add some music…).

Can videos recorded in ScreenToaster be used commercially to demo web-apps and desktop software?

Bloggers in our community love to use ScreenToaster to review a service or a software.

Does it record at a lower frame-rate compared to desktop tools like CamTasia?

ScreenToaster records high quality screencasts and optimizes the frame rate for the best ratio “fluidity/quality” for  optimal streaming online.

Are users able to collaborate on-line, for example one might make video, one might add audio, another might edit the result and a fourth might add subtitles?

This functionality doesn’t exist yet. Thanks sharing it with us.

Do you have any plans for the future that you’d like to share?

What’s hot ? Our API is being Beta tested, it will be useful for collaborative projects, professional tutorials, users’ support and feedback management, bug tracking and reporting.  We are preparing a new player with new functionalities (rewind/fast forward, gadgets embedded on the video itself…).

Rudy – thanks for your participation.  If you provide something interesting in the world of screencasting and would like to be interviewed, get in contact.

Become a better screencaster – read The Screencasting Handbook.  We’re distilling 4 years of experience into our book, the book will tell you everything you need to know to screencast faster, better and more efficiently.

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