Yottio, a video streaming start up, is hardware-based and charges a monthly fee. FOLD is an open source reading, authoring and publishing platform. 

Yottio technology enables multiple smartphone users to stream live videos to a studio control room. It’s different from Periscope and Meerkat in that producers in a broadcast studio can monitor the live feeds while at the same time be in direct communication with smartphone video contributors. Yottio requires hardware installation and is a license subscription-based service.

Jon Lawrence, CEO and a co-founder of Yottio, explained the different features useful for newsgathering in RJI Futures Lab Report #107.   In April, Yottio was one of five recipients of the first Best of SPROCKIT awards at the National Association of Broadcasters show in Las Vegas.

FOLD, launched in April, describes itself as an open-source reading, authoring and publishing platform that allows storytellers to structure and contextualize stories. Users create modular, multimedia stories and can add “context cards” that can include videos, maps, tweets, music, interactive visuals and more.  

FOLD also allows authors to link stories together by remixing context cards created by other writers, according to Alexis Hope, a MIT graduate student who took on development of the platform as her masters thesis.  FOLD is a project of the MIT Media Lab and the Center for Civic Media.