MADISON, Wis. — December 19, 2011 — Sonic Foundry, Inc. (NASDAQ: SOFO), the
trusted market leader for enterprise webcasting and lecture
capture, is pleased to announce that Medill Northwestern University in
Chicago used the Mediasite webcasting platform to showcase media tools students
have created.
Founded in 1921, Medill offers programs in journalism, media and integrated
marketing communications, and its courses focus on the ongoing evolution of the
media industry. Journalism necessitates not only the ability to write, edit and
take photos, but also new skills like the ability to imagine and build automated
systems for gathering and distributing news and information. For its Journalism
and Technology class, Medill uses Mediasite to webcast student presentations to
the public, not just to students and faculty at the university.
The class is a joint program at Northwestern involving Medill and the
McCormick School of Engineering, including both graduate and undergraduate
students. This quarter, 19 students created five, one-of-a-kind news apps, such
as HamTracker, an
extraction engine and search interface that locates earmark spending by the
federal government, and TwitterDebate, which pulls and presents opposing tweets of the
current presidential candidates on various topics.
“Many of the people interested in these projects might not be in Chicago.
Using Mediasite is a great way for them to watch live or archived versions of
the presentations,” said Jeremy Gilbert, a Medill assistant professor of media
product design who taught the class, along with Dr. Larry Birnbaum, co-director
of the Intelligent Information Laboratory. “We also pull up the archived
Mediasite presentations from last year’s event to teach students who are
starting the class how to do this kind of business presentation,” said
Gilbert.
Students most recently gave presentations on November 30 and the archived
Mediasite recording can be found here.
“Sonic Foundry is proud to support the convergence of technology and
education at Medill,” said Gary Weis, CEO of Sonic Foundry. “By using webcasting
to distribute their projects, the journalism and computer science students are
bridging time and distance, sharing their projects with a much larger audience,
and ultimately connecting with newsrooms across the country.”
About Medill
Medill was founded in 1921 and offers programs in journalism and integrated
marketing communications. It teaches new techniques essential in today’s digital
world. Medill is leading the way in training a new generation of multimedia
journalists and integrated marketing communications professionals. The school is
named after Joseph Medill, a newspaper man and former Mayor of Chicago.
About Sonic Foundry®, Inc.
Sonic Foundry (NASDAQ: SOFO, www.sonicfoundry.com) is the trusted
market leader for enterprise webcasting and lecture capture, providing video
communication solutions for education, business and government. Powered by the
patented Mediasite webcasting platform and Mediasite Events group, the company
empowers people to transform the way they communicate online, using video
webcasts to bridge time and distance, accelerate research and improve
performance. Product and service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of
Sonic Foundry, Inc. or their respective owners.
Certain statements contained in this news release regarding matters that are
not historical facts may be forward-looking statements. Because such
forward-looking statements include risks and uncertainties, actual results may
differ materially from those expressed in or implied by such forward-looking
statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially
include, but are not limited to, uncertainties pertaining to continued market
acceptance for Sonic Foundry's products, its ability to succeed in capturing
significant revenues from media services and/or systems, the effect of new
competitors in its market, integration of acquired business and other risk
factors identified from time to time in its filings with the Securities and
Exchange Commission.
