Brightcove Launches Web Video Hub
By Steve Donohue -- Multichannel News, 10/30/2006 12:01:00 AM
Internet-video distributor Brightcove is expected to unveil a Web hub Monday featuring programming supplied by everyone from major media companies such as MTV Networks to independent producers.
The beta site will contain a new video-search engine capable of returning thousands of video clips available on the Internet, including videos available on major Web sites such as AOL.com (www.aol.com) and YouTube (www.youtube.com), the latter of which is merging with Google (www.google.com).
While Brightcove rival YouTube allows Web surfers to sort videos by date or the number of times other users have viewed particular clips, Brightcove’s consumer site will contain a “buzz index.” The index will rank videos by a formula that combines the number of views, how frequently videos are shared with other Web surfers and “what the attention span is to that media,” CEO Jeremy Allaire said.
Brightcove will feature videos from several large and small media companies on its Web site, including National Geographic Channel, MTVN’s TV Land, The Independent Film Channel, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, British Sky Broadcasting, Oxygen, TMZ.com (www.tmz.com), The New York Times, Reuters, About.com (www.about.com) and Sony BMG Music Entertainment.
Brightcove also plans to launch a new advertising network called Brightcove AdNet Monday that will allow both large and small video producers to drive ad revenue from Internet video. Allaire said Brightcove will offer to sell the advertising inventory and give 50% of the revenue to the content owner.
The company is also rolling out a “pay-media service” that allows content owners to sell video clips via the Internet for fees, with a $0.99 minimum.
And through a deal previously announced with America Online, Brightcove said it is now allowing video producers to distribute pay video clips through AOL.com.
For more on Brightcove, please see Steve Donohue’s story on page 10 of Monday’s issue of Multichannel News.
