VIDEO SITE REVVER HAS STRUCK a deal to work with Creative Artists
Agency, the companies announced Monday. Revver is powering submissions
for CAA client Independent Feature Project's online competition, "What
is the IFP?" which calls on users to submit short-form video clips to
the IFP Web site. Revver also is working with CAA client Fangoria,
which offers news about horror movies, to enable user-generated
content to be shared virally via its Web site. Revver splits ad
revenue equally with content creators.
Tuesday, November 7
Revver, CAA Forge Alliance
Thursday, November 2
Web Video Viewers Annoyed by In-Stream Ads
A study by Forrester Research discovered that 80% of web video viewers
said in-stream ads - those placed before and after video clips - were
"annoying," and 75% said they ignore them, AdWeek reports. The study
also found that viewers were much more likely to accept ads placed
alongside clips, or text-based ads.
In-stream ads are popular with advertisers because they make messages
easier to convey to viewers. But those viewers are used to viewing
video clips on sites such as YouTube without these placements, which
they now view as intrusive.
"When you see what's going on with YouTube and short form content,
using the old mode of inserting ads into content when you're looking
at a three-minute video is not going to work as well," said Forrester
Research analyst Brian Haven.
Dow Jones Using Brightcove's Ad Network
Brightcove's new video syndication and ad network has picked up
another client, as Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal
Online, MarketWatch.com and Barron's Online, has begun using its
services.
Hurley: YouTube to Go Mobile
YouTube hopes to have a mobile offering within a year, according to
its cofounder; the announcement comes a month or so after an analyst
said News Corp.'s MySpace would soon be going mobile.
Brightcove central
Here's an interesting post from Bambi Francisco's blog:
Brightcove, a rising star in the sizzling-hot online video sector, is morphing into a promising contender in the heated battle to be the uber-television network for the Internet generation.
Brightcove is expected on Monday to unveil a host of services including a distribution platform for content owners as well as Brightcove.com, a central repository to access the aggregated works of its big-to-small media customers.
The Manhattan-based company, which burst onto the scene with high-profile venture backers, such as Accel Partners, Hearst and InterActiveCorp. (IACI), started two years ago as a Web-based publishing toolmaker to help media companies or professional individual producers create broadband channels.
Brightcove is pursuing a two-pronged strategy that puts this young upstart in the midst of a war against video aggregators or distributors of movies and television shows, such as Google (GOOG), YouTube, Apple Computer (AAPL), to Amazon.com (AMZN) and next year, Netflix (NFLX).
No doubt, it's a fluid space, with future outcomes as varied as the business models of the companies now competing in it. The opportunity to deliver tomorrow's video has called forth many unlikely rivals from one with roots as an online bookseller, to a PC-maker, a search engine and a site where anyone could share their favorite cat-in-the-bathtub home videos. Now, Brightcove, the toolmaker, wants in.
Perhaps it's not surprising to see many companies with variegated pasts collide as they iterate their way into promising new business opportunities. But, while they may be eyeing the same goal today, their motivations are certainly different.
It seems to me that one possible fate of this publishing toolmaker to the media stars, with increasing reliance on ad-revenue scraps, would be the path journeyed by DoubleClick, an ad-serving company which went private last year. Despite the booming online advertising market, DoubleClick's general ad-serving business seemed to commoditize.
Brightcove's open-distribution approach
Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire is too smart for that. Or, he's got excellent advisers.
"We're the next generation of 'television operators' or 'platform operators' as they're known, which includes the kind of role that cable and satellite operators have provided in the past," Allaire, who came to MarketWatch studios for an interview with me, boldly claimed. (Full disclosure: MarketWatch is a client of Brightcove).
"However, we've designed our model to reflect the way the Internet operates, which is, of course, radically different than the closed systems of past distribution," he said. "On the Internet, content owners can have their own brands, their own 'spoke' destination sites, and relationships to consumers and affiliates, and that's very much what we've enabled with the launch of the Brightcove Network and our consumer and syndication marketplaces." (Please visit my MarketWatch blog for my interview with Allaire.)
Translation: Allaire's approach is to be the platform layer for content publishers across the Web; the distributor across the Web for smaller content owners; and at the same time be video central as Brightcove.com becomes the one central destination site for the content produced by all its partners.
The network
The Brightcove Network is essentially the name for the company's combined distribution and advertising solutions for content producer needs. Brightcove's distribution platforms range from Brightcove.com's destination site, Time Warner's (TWX) AOL Video, and video search portals. Content owners can also generate advertising by using Brightcove's AdNet or Pay Media service.
While certainly advertising relationships and a broad distribution strategy is a good structure to have, Brightcove.com could be the biggest beneficiary in the future.
As the main hub, Brightcove.com is a place where the company's large media customers - from studios, newspapers, music labels, etc. - can distribute some their shows for free, for rent or for purchase, will share shelf space with the productions of individuals or free agent producers. It's not much different than what we see on YouTube or Google, or the many smaller video-sharing sites, such as Gubba, that have struck deals with copyright owners of popular shows.
But it's hardly game over. And, Brightcove has one advantage. It already has relationships with some media companies since, well, it's had the pleasure of being the toolmaker to the stars. Among the companies it calls its broadband channel partners include Warner Bros. Telepictures, SonyBMG, Warner Music Group, Bravo (NBC Universal), Oxygen, and New York Times. Monster.com (MNST) is one of Brightcove's clients.
To accommodate its clients' interest in tapping into the user-generated video phenomenon, whereby the audience offers up videos to get recognized or to win a prize, Brightcove is launching a private-label video-upload service. This service is similar to the ones that launched last week. The difference is that those services overlay social network features on top of video.
Ambitious Allaire
Many might say that Brightcove is going in all sorts of directions to hit on all the popular themes of the year. Allaire's ambition raises the question of whether he can pull off so much at one time. It's no wonder Allaire is currently nailing down another round of venture financing, adding to the already $28 million he received in prior rounds.
Money helps, indeed. There are so many video-sharing sites that want America's video creations that the only way to win over the content owner, however big or small, is to offer economic incentives. After all, recognition as an incentive only works if there's a critical mass of people watching.
To provide incentive to content producers, Brightcove is going to give 50% of the gross advertising revenue to content producers who use its broadband channel platform. That's a nice premium over the portion that video-sharing site Revver offers to content owners, which is a split of ad fees net of certain costs.
But it's unclear whether Brightcove will top Metacafe's offer to pay $5 CPM (thousand impressions). After all, user-generated content may sell for only a $1 per CPM. Metacafe is one of the top video-sharing destination sites. It, too, plans to announce its economic incentives on Monday. (Go to my blog to watch my interview with Metacafe CEO Arik Czerniak.)
Another video site that pays for content is Break.com. Founder Keith Richman told me that his company has spent $280,000 for about 1,000 user-generated video clips.
So will Brightcove have a chance at being the top destination or marketplace for videos on the Web? He seems to certainly have sets his sights higher than companies that just want to be destination sites.
As I said above, it's a two-pronged strategy Allaire seems to be taking. In many ways, it's like Google, which seems to have figured out how to be a centralized repository for advertising, but the underlying provider of ads for sites across the Web. But in media, content owners always get a bit sensitive about aggregators for fear they'll lose their audience to them. Brightcove, though it will let its media partners decide whether video is played on Brightcove.com or the partner sites, faces a potential problem of being friend and foe.
Whether Allaire can prove to be more friend than foe will be one of his challenges next year.
Brightcove, a rising star in the sizzling-hot online video sector, is morphing into a promising contender in the heated battle to be the uber-television network for the Internet generation.
Brightcove is expected on Monday to unveil a host of services including a distribution platform for content owners as well as Brightcove.com, a central repository to access the aggregated works of its big-to-small media customers.
The Manhattan-based company, which burst onto the scene with high-profile venture backers, such as Accel Partners, Hearst and InterActiveCorp. (IACI), started two years ago as a Web-based publishing toolmaker to help media companies or professional individual producers create broadband channels.
Brightcove is pursuing a two-pronged strategy that puts this young upstart in the midst of a war against video aggregators or distributors of movies and television shows, such as Google (GOOG), YouTube, Apple Computer (AAPL), to Amazon.com (AMZN) and next year, Netflix (NFLX).
No doubt, it's a fluid space, with future outcomes as varied as the business models of the companies now competing in it. The opportunity to deliver tomorrow's video has called forth many unlikely rivals from one with roots as an online bookseller, to a PC-maker, a search engine and a site where anyone could share their favorite cat-in-the-bathtub home videos. Now, Brightcove, the toolmaker, wants in.
Perhaps it's not surprising to see many companies with variegated pasts collide as they iterate their way into promising new business opportunities. But, while they may be eyeing the same goal today, their motivations are certainly different.
It seems to me that one possible fate of this publishing toolmaker to the media stars, with increasing reliance on ad-revenue scraps, would be the path journeyed by DoubleClick, an ad-serving company which went private last year. Despite the booming online advertising market, DoubleClick's general ad-serving business seemed to commoditize.
Brightcove's open-distribution approach
Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire is too smart for that. Or, he's got excellent advisers.
"We're the next generation of 'television operators' or 'platform operators' as they're known, which includes the kind of role that cable and satellite operators have provided in the past," Allaire, who came to MarketWatch studios for an interview with me, boldly claimed. (Full disclosure: MarketWatch is a client of Brightcove).
"However, we've designed our model to reflect the way the Internet operates, which is, of course, radically different than the closed systems of past distribution," he said. "On the Internet, content owners can have their own brands, their own 'spoke' destination sites, and relationships to consumers and affiliates, and that's very much what we've enabled with the launch of the Brightcove Network and our consumer and syndication marketplaces." (Please visit my MarketWatch blog for my interview with Allaire.)
Translation: Allaire's approach is to be the platform layer for content publishers across the Web; the distributor across the Web for smaller content owners; and at the same time be video central as Brightcove.com becomes the one central destination site for the content produced by all its partners.
The network
The Brightcove Network is essentially the name for the company's combined distribution and advertising solutions for content producer needs. Brightcove's distribution platforms range from Brightcove.com's destination site, Time Warner's (TWX) AOL Video, and video search portals. Content owners can also generate advertising by using Brightcove's AdNet or Pay Media service.
While certainly advertising relationships and a broad distribution strategy is a good structure to have, Brightcove.com could be the biggest beneficiary in the future.
As the main hub, Brightcove.com is a place where the company's large media customers - from studios, newspapers, music labels, etc. - can distribute some their shows for free, for rent or for purchase, will share shelf space with the productions of individuals or free agent producers. It's not much different than what we see on YouTube or Google, or the many smaller video-sharing sites, such as Gubba, that have struck deals with copyright owners of popular shows.
But it's hardly game over. And, Brightcove has one advantage. It already has relationships with some media companies since, well, it's had the pleasure of being the toolmaker to the stars. Among the companies it calls its broadband channel partners include Warner Bros. Telepictures, SonyBMG, Warner Music Group, Bravo (NBC Universal), Oxygen, and New York Times. Monster.com (MNST) is one of Brightcove's clients.
To accommodate its clients' interest in tapping into the user-generated video phenomenon, whereby the audience offers up videos to get recognized or to win a prize, Brightcove is launching a private-label video-upload service. This service is similar to the ones that launched last week. The difference is that those services overlay social network features on top of video.
Ambitious Allaire
Many might say that Brightcove is going in all sorts of directions to hit on all the popular themes of the year. Allaire's ambition raises the question of whether he can pull off so much at one time. It's no wonder Allaire is currently nailing down another round of venture financing, adding to the already $28 million he received in prior rounds.
Money helps, indeed. There are so many video-sharing sites that want America's video creations that the only way to win over the content owner, however big or small, is to offer economic incentives. After all, recognition as an incentive only works if there's a critical mass of people watching.
To provide incentive to content producers, Brightcove is going to give 50% of the gross advertising revenue to content producers who use its broadband channel platform. That's a nice premium over the portion that video-sharing site Revver offers to content owners, which is a split of ad fees net of certain costs.
But it's unclear whether Brightcove will top Metacafe's offer to pay $5 CPM (thousand impressions). After all, user-generated content may sell for only a $1 per CPM. Metacafe is one of the top video-sharing destination sites. It, too, plans to announce its economic incentives on Monday. (Go to my blog to watch my interview with Metacafe CEO Arik Czerniak.)
Another video site that pays for content is Break.com. Founder Keith Richman told me that his company has spent $280,000 for about 1,000 user-generated video clips.
So will Brightcove have a chance at being the top destination or marketplace for videos on the Web? He seems to certainly have sets his sights higher than companies that just want to be destination sites.
As I said above, it's a two-pronged strategy Allaire seems to be taking. In many ways, it's like Google, which seems to have figured out how to be a centralized repository for advertising, but the underlying provider of ads for sites across the Web. But in media, content owners always get a bit sensitive about aggregators for fear they'll lose their audience to them. Brightcove, though it will let its media partners decide whether video is played on Brightcove.com or the partner sites, faces a potential problem of being friend and foe.
Whether Allaire can prove to be more friend than foe will be one of his challenges next year.
Wednesday, November 1
FT.com Launches Exclusive Video Interviews with Global Business Leaders Powered by ROO Media
The Financial Times has launched an exclusive series of video
interviews with global business leaders called View From The Top. The
interviews, hosted by ROO Media, the global provider of online video
technology and syndicated content, feature global CEOs giving their
views on the world of business today and predictions for the future of
their industries. Since launching View From The Top FT Video traffic
has quadrupled.
Each week, FT.com hosts new 5-minute interviews with global CEOs.
Interviews currently showing on the site include Citigroup's Robert
Rubin, Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP, Time Warner Chairman Richard Parsons
and John Thain, chief executive of the NYSE. Future interviews will
feature Jeff Immelt of General Electric, Tom Glocer of Reuters and
Fred Smith of FedEx. The interviews have been sponsored by Barclays in
the US and Landrover in the UK.
AOL and Brightcove Launch New Distribution Service for Selling Digital Video Downloads
AOL and Brightcove launched today a distribution service that can
enable video publishers to sell high-quality video downloads through
the AOL Video portal (http://video.aol.com) and receive up to 70% of
the revenue generated from their sales. The new service promises to
expand the distribution options for video publishers and the choices
for consumers.
Using Brightcove, any video publisher can easily have their video
downloads distributed and sold through AOL(r) Video. In addition,
videos can be automatically indexed in the AOL Video Search engine and
can be browsed through the AOL Video portal. Consumers will be able to
purchase and download the videos and watch them on their computers,
network connected TVs or other devices.
Microsoft Releases Windows Media Player 11 for Windows XP
Enhanced Capabilities Plus Seamless Integration With URGE Make for
All-New Digital Entertainment Experiences
Streaming Media West: AOL Video presentation
Tim Tuttle, VP AOL video, shared what he sees as the four contributing
factors to the massive surge in popularity and predicted continued
growth for online video. The first is that consumers love to watch
videos online. He said sarcastically that only the guy in the cubicle
next to you watches video online, but quickly came back to reality.
"Well, over half of internet users watch online video multiple times a
month", he said. Whether it's a video on the blog that an internet
surfer just stumbles across or an email link from friends, more and
more folks are sharing and watching video online.
The second contributing factor to the growth of online video is the
content creator who loves finding ways to share videos. New delivery
methods mean direct access to people who are interested in viewing
your video. Tuttle claimed that content producers are streaming seven
billion videos a month.
The third factor that has caused this growth is advertisers. Hungry
for new ways to interact with consumers, advertisers are paying huge
amounts--$25-35 CPM, according to Tuttle--and getting exact
measurements on who's watching and what they are watching. This is one
of the areas that is actually pumping revenue back into the R&D for
online video and showing a profit.
Fourth and finally, changes in technology are spurring the rapid
acceleration in online video. Cheap hardware, open-source software,
widespread broadband adoption, and a culture that is more open to
embracing new technology have all created a boom in internet-delivered
video. All this also leads to the proliferation of high-quality,
easy-to-use and easy-to-share online video.
And all these converging factors have led to the next wave of online
video: search. Tuttle is convinced that the next generation of online
video will be a one-stop shop website that will let you search and
find relevant content. Obviously, with the problem of effective,
personalized video search still very far from being solved, this
realization may be several years away, but he asserted that it will be
here sooner than later. There are issues still lurking with video
search, and several of the attendee questions revealed the industry's
desire for standards on how to tag, organize, and find videos. Until
this industry standard is formalized, we will still be struggling to
find our favorite clips of The Daily Show and Mentos/Diet Coke bottle
rockets easily.
ValueClick exceeds expectations; profit up 52%
ValueClick reported third-quarter profit rose 52%, exceeding
expectations, as it benefited from the growth in online advertising.
For the quarter ended Sept. 30, ValueClick said profit rose to $16.8
million, or 17 cents a share, from $11 million or 13 cents a share a
year ago. Sales rose to $137.9 million, a 69% increase from the $81.4
million reported a year ago. The results topped the expectations of
analysts, who expected ValueClick to report $134 million in sales and
earnings of 14 cents per share
TBS to Launch Comedy Broadband Network
Turner Broadcasting plans to launch a broadband comedy network in January.
Brightcove Debuts Free Internet TV Network
Internet TV mainstay Brightcove today flipped on the Brightcove
Network, a new service that emphasizes user-generated content by
letting content owners, no matter how small or large, launch their own
commercial Internet video channels at no cost while generating
generate revenue through advertising and video download sales.
IAC Has Strong Q3, Thanks in Part to Ask.com
IAC/InterActiveCorp reported increased revenues, with strong
performance in its media and advertising businesses, including
Ask.com and Citysearch.
Yahoo Wants AOL, Might Itself Be Acquired
Yahoo reportedly approached Time Warner recently about buying AOL; meanwhile, some analysts are speculating that it would make just as much sense if Yahoo itself were acquired.
Atlas Goes In-Stream
Marketing technology provider Atlas, an aQuantive company, has launched Atlas In-Stream Video, a platform to inject online advertising into web-based streaming video and round out the full range of banner, search and rich media advertising services already provided by the Atlas Digital Marketing Suite.
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