The Weather Channel's blue box

Weather videos with ads for you!

From Lost Remote:

"The Weather Channel’s weather.com launched a new video player today they’re calling “Blue Box.” (No, I didn’t get the name at first either, until I looked at their logo.) In a press release, the player is described as being powered by Brightcove and DoubleClick. The player itself has 5 “channels” of video: News/Breaking Weather, Local Forecasts, Lifestyle, Severe Weather, and On the Weather Channel. It also allows you to search by zip code, where I found the weather forecast for my own city."

From the comments:

"Well, speaking as someone who has used all sorts of video content systems, there is a reason why Brightcove is on dozens of sites.

It’s easy to navigate, and can be at least lightly personalized to match the web site. It’s easy to separate the videos into all sorts of channels, and you can easily share and embed any of the video clips (as well as syndicate a channel or your entire player)."

Fox picks Brightcove

Fox has partnered with Brightcove to provide its network with ad supported internet video channels.

From Paidcontent:

"The pact will also give Fox the ability to target its broadband video directly to specific demos. Fox will able to use Brightcove’s social net functions, including the ability to solicit fan-submitted videos and add them to its individual network and studio websites. FX Networks, SPEED and the Fox Broadcasting Company are the first. Each network will manage its own monetization strategy through the Brightcove service. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Release"

Hearst partners with Brightcove

A big day for Brightcove.

From the press release:

"Video is a crucial piece to an online news and information presence today," said Lincoln Millstein, senior vice president & director of Digital Media for Hearst Newspapers. "We are excited to roll out Internet video channels and vlogs using Brightcove on our newspapers' Web sites and across the Web. The video will enhance offline content and will also build an entire experience and community around this new content."

"Hearst Newspapers includes some of the most respected and widely read publications in the news business today," said Jeremy Allaire, chairman and chief executive officer, Brightcove. "We are excited to be working with Hearst to engage readers with new video offerings and encourage community involvement. The Internet video channels will not only expand the reach of individual newspaper brands, but will also foster new revenue opportunities through online advertising."

Brightcove: For pro users

Brightcove could be the Cold Fusion of video;)

From NewTeeVee:

"The content management features are quite robust, allowing for lots of control over media assets, meta information, broadcast and display mechanics such as home site linking and embedding, and a templating system that makes it relatively simple to pull together backgrounds, logos, multiple episodes and even user-generated content into cohesive branded viewing experience.

For those looking to make money off their video efforts, Brightcove shines admirably. Besides the standard ad-supported model, Brightcove also offers a new pay-per-view beta — something that only Brightcove and Veoh are offering, currently. This dovetails with Brightcove’s agreement to offer content to TiVo’s fledgling on-demand service, and long-form shows like Showtime’s The Tudors feel like a natural fit, making a la carte purchases of premium television network shows seem a natural trajectory.

On a scale of one to ten, I’d give this service an eight. Not what I’d recommend for up-and-coming vloggers, but definitely worth considering if you’re a publisher trying to decide between going third-party or developing a video solution in-house."

Barack Obama + Brightcove = Obamavision

Andy Plesser at Beet.tv reveals that Barack Obama and Brightcove have partnered to create a channel for Barack's presidential campaign.

From Beet.tv:

"Beet.TV has learned that Brightcove's arrangement with Obama will be multifaceted. It will include ongoing publication of campaign videos, the creation of a Obama "channel" on Brightcove and a syndication function which will allow bloggers and Web sites to have campaign clips published directly on their pages."

Video Search: CastTV, Dabble, Pixsy and Nexidia

Bambi Francisco has a nice article on Always On about video search companies.

From the article:

"CastTV doesn't search inside the video, but does a good job identifying files associated with Flash, Javascript and media plug-ins, such as the video players from Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows Media Player, Apple's Quicktime and RealNetworks'(RNWK) media player as well as the more recent players from Brightcove to VideoEgg.

Dabble.com doesn't crawl the Web for videos, but rather receives video feeds from around the Web, including bookmark services, such as del.icio.us, and community sites. As for relevancy, Dabble is ranking the videos based on how often they are included in the most channels or playlists, and how much authority the channels or playlists have.

Pixsy launched its first video search engine in July 2005, and it's similar to Dabble in that it relies on feeds. Pixsy is licensing its database to other destination sites, such as PureVideo, Info.com, and Ritzcamera.com, that want to enhance their content by giving users access to video content from around the web.

Nexidia has been around for a while and is different from the aforementioned engines because it uses phonetics. Phonetics relies on the study of sounds and the human voice and deals with the sounds themselves rather than the meaning of the words or the contexts in which they are used in languages. It works pretty well. It's also fast. It took 4 to 5 minutes to make an entire baseball game searchable."

Brightcove for Independant Producers

Brightcove released information about a new offering to help independent producers make money from their work.

Brightcove press release:

"In the last six months we've seen explosive growth in the online video market, especially in consumer sharing, but this is only the beginning of the Internet TV era," said Jeremy Allaire, chairman and chief executive officer of Brightcove. "Now content producers, from serious amateurs to major studios, are looking for an approach to Internet video that gives them commercial opportunities with their content as well as control over their distribution, and that's exactly what we're delivering with the launch of the Brightcove Network."

TechCrunch:

"By participating in the Brightcove Network, video publishers will be able to manage video posted on their own web sites, showcase their channels for syndication and subscription on the Brightcove website, take 50% of advertising revenue from videos wherever they play and take 70% of revenue from pay-per-download videos, including videos purchased on partner site AOL Video.

Ads will appear in several different formats: pre-roll, post roll, overlays and synced banners appearing next to the video player. Free Brightcove Network accounts will have ad placement decided for them, premium Publisher accounts will be able to select their own ad format."

AdAge:

"Evan Fleischer, director-marketing and promotions at the Rainbow Media-owned IFC, said the model is a practical one for his small cable network. "Syndication is what's going to make or break companies like IFC," he said. "We can't all be YouTube. We can't all be MySpace. ... Brightcove's a mirror of how we work in cable industry. We provide content to [cable operators], they send that content out."

"It's increasingly clear in a market dominated by YouTube and its focus very much on consumer-generated content, there's also a big emerging opportunity with semiprofessional and professional media companies that might not have the scale or expertise to build a self-made online-video initiative," said Joe Laszlo, senior analyst at Jupiter Research.

"There's going to be so much slicing and dicing," said Mitch Oscar, exec VP-Carat Digital. Asks Jupiter's Mr. Laszlo: "How big is the advertising pot going to be and when all these people take their slices out of it is it enough for a content creator to make a real business?"

Brightcove Marching Forward

On the heals of the recent Code.tv release, today Sony and Brightcove annouce the launch of Musicbox Video.

From the press release:

"The broadband video initiative, currently named "Musicbox Video," will show content from across the entire SONY BMG library. The "Musicbox Video" players have been customized with specialized video content for individual label and artist sites. Consumers will be treated to a rich-media Flash experience featuring playlists with top videos and genres, "share with a friend" functionality, and RSS syndication feeds.

SONY BMG plans to use broadband video to generate advertising revenues. Advertisers will have a variety of options for reaching their audiences and achieving their marketing objectives - from video pre-roll to innovative video overlays, sponsorships, and other integrated packages. Brightcove will sell and deliver these advertisements."

From a recent interview with Jeremy Alliare:

"What the Internet presents is the potential to be different and to be potentially more valuable to the sponsor and to the consumers. And we think it will be much more valuable to the content owners as well. These new types of engagement with sponsorship and advertising can yield higher value.

We've talked about some formats that are interactive and allow the consumer to engage more deeply. As you introduce longer programming, I don't think the video commercial will come over to the Internet very cleanly. I don't think that's what consumers are looking for. They're not looking for a replication of a broadcast.

Marketers have to think about how to involve themselves with the content without interrupting the content. Overlays and adjacent rich media units will become more prevalent and important."

Brightcove and Limelight Networks Partnership

Brightcove is on fire this week!

From the press release:

"Internet TV pioneer Brightcove and Limelight Networks, the world's leading Internet content delivery network for digital media, today announced a strategic partnership to bring advanced services and next-generation business models to the growing Internet TV industry.

• Brightcove will use Limelight's massively scalable, high-performance digital media content delivery network to distribute Internet TV content published through Brightcove to audiences worldwide. Using Brightcove, content owners of any size will automatically have access to Limelight's industry-leading delivery infrastructure--ensuring a high-quality media experience for their audiences.
• Through the Limelight content delivery network, Brightcove will support distributing broadband video in a variety of formats (including Adobe Flash streaming video, Windows Media video, and MPEG-4) to a wide range of Internet-connected devices, including PCs, handheld devices, and home-networked TV sets.
• By working together, Brightcove and Limelight will accelerate the adoption of innovative Internet TV business strategies including both pay media sales and the next-generation of broadband video advertising--providing aggregated, targeted audiences to advertisers, great experiences for consumers, and new revenue opportunities for content owners.

Using Limelight's ultra-scalable broadband content delivery services, Brightcove can reliably deliver interactive, rich-media experiences that go well beyond what traditional broadcast and cable TV can offer. To that end, Limelight provides over 200 gigabits per second of Adobe Flash Media streaming delivery capacity online to enable Brightcove to meet the broadband publishing and distribution needs of its growing customer base of video content producers."

About.com Launches Brightcove Channel

I have another post about Brightcove on the way, but first, About.com launches a Brightcove channel.

From the press release:

"About.com today announced the launch of a new streaming video player that will support expansion of the amount of high-quality broadband video content offered and enhance the viewing experience on the site. The new player developed by Brightcove - an Internet TV pioneer - offers advertisers new opportunities via contextual advertising and bundled syndication packages targeting niche audiences.

"Our partnership with Brightcove is an important aspect of our strategy to extend our deep text and pictures content into the broadband arena," said Scott Meyer, president and chief executive officer of About.com. "About.com's new player marks our latest move to scale our high-quality online video offering and to offer advertisers unique and compelling ways to reach our consumers."

"About.com is a leading new media company that is creating the type of content that is in demand, and it's innovating to take advantage of the new opportunities being shaped by Internet TV and broadband channels," said Jeremy Allaire, founder and chief executive officer of Brightcove.

TiVo and Brightcove Partner for Broadband Content

This is a fairly big move for both companies.

From the press release:

"TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVR), and Brightcove, an Internet TV pioneer, today announced an agreement that will enable broadband video published through Brightcove to be distributed directly to TiVo subscriber set top boxes.

"TiVo has revolutionized television viewing and Brightcove is bringing about major changes in consumer viewing of broadband-delivered video," said Tom Rogers, President and CEO of TiVo. "Through this new partnership the process of delivering Internet based video to TiVo users will be significantly facilitated."

The partnership will provide a method for almost any publisher of broadband video using Brightcove's Internet TV services to distribute content to TiVo subscribers. It also opens the possibility of monetizing the distribution through advertising, subscription plans, or pay-per-view. Initially, all content will be offered for free to TiVo subscribers and may carry advertising within the content.

"TiVo has been a powerful factor increasing consumer choice and control over television viewing experiences. The Brightcove partnership will further empower consumers by allowing TiVo subscribers to find broadband video content via their TiVo or PC and send that content directly to their TiVo box where they can view it whenever they choose," said Jeremy Allaire, founder and CEO of Brightcove. "TiVo subscribers will gain access to the largest, most powerful content platform ever offered - the Internet. If it's on Brightcove, you'll be able to watch it on your TV using your TiVo box."

WSJ on Brightcove

There is a good article (subscription required) in today's WSJ about Brightcove.

From the article:

"Reuters is moving faster than other media companies partly because it doesn't have to worry about cable- or satellite-TV operators. Its video footage and reports are sold mostly to TV networks and online sites. "That gives us a little more latitude in the consumer media space," says Stephen Smyth, a Reuters vice president.

To reach its audience in as many forums as possible, Reuters is syndicating through Brightcove 20 video news stories, which are rotated often, to bloggers, small newspapers and other Web sites. Each affiliate site plays the videos on an embedded Brightcove player that features the Reuters brand. Mr. Smyth says these smaller media properties are going to be an important way of attracting consumers as the traditional media audience fragments."

Brightcove previsously covered:
New York Times Picks Brightcove
Brightcove's Adam Gerber
Internet Video Services
Brightcove Gets Funding

New York Times picks Brightcove

From Broadcasting and Cable, The New York Times Company picks Brightcove for video distribution.

From the article:

"The New York Times Company has signed a multi-year deal with Internet TV firm Brightcove to enable the distribution of broadband video content across all of the Times Company’s online properties, as well as the syndication of content to other sites.

The first NYT business to use the Brightcove service is About.com, which already offers more than 1.2 million pieces of original content, including Video Guide series on the Style, Home & Garden and Gadgets channels.

"Brightcove gives us the ability to rapidly expand the amount of high-quality broadband video content we offer across our digital properties, and to easily syndicate selected content to Web affiliates, thereby making our consumer experience both richer and broader in reach, as well as financially attractive," said Martin Nisenholtz, senior vice president of digital operations, The New York Times Company."

Brightcove's Adam Gerber

iMedia Connection has an interview with Adam Gerber of Brightcove.

Gerber:

"Brightcove will drive advertising innovation in a number of areas:

• Most importantly, we will be delivering compelling web-based video opportunities to agencies and marketers to drive quality supply in an underserved marketplace.
  
  
• We are building a highly valuable network of content that offers advertisers both breadth in terms of reach, and contextual relevance through vertical channel opportunities.
  
  
• We'll be innovating how sites within the network are packaged, and how they are brought to market. That means everything from the level of control advertisers have in "building" their network, to the types of ad formats and integrations we innovate.

I think you are going to see a transition over the next 5-10 years by creative and media agencies to incorporate the flexibility and interactivity of the digital medium into their broad creative development processes and media planning and buying practices."

Internet video services

Brightcove keeps popping up in the news. From Steve Safran at Lost Remote:

"I've been beta testing the new Flash video production tool from fledgling company Brightcove. I gotta tell ya - it's terrific. The Flash video is outstanding, especially when encoded with On2 Flix software. Its all-web interface couldn't be easier. Brightcove is far more than a Flash or production tool, mind you. They are offering advertising, paid content and syndication, and will roll out other streaming formats next year.

Eric Elia at Brightcove tells LR: "It's our hope and intention for Brightcove to become an essential online service for building Internet TV businesses - with full choice and control for publishers over user experience, monetization and syndication." Nice to see "monetization" there, isn't it? Look for my beta to go public next week."

I have also been watching Veoh Networks:

"Using Veoh's free software, you can watch Full-Screen Internet Television, with access to shows that you could never find on traditional television networks. No matter what your interest or taste, chances are that you will find what you're looking for on Veoh. Give it a try, it's completely free.

Want to create your own TV show, or a whole TV channel? Veoh allows you to broadcast Full-Screen television shows to the world, free of charge, even if you get millions of viewers. Start broadcasting today, it's free and easy."

Veoh has an impressive team pulled together and provides updates about the company on its blog.

Brightcove gets funding

From the press release today: America Online, IAC, Hearst Corp., and Allen & Company Lead $16 Million Investment in Brightcove. More from the release, "Brightcove, an Internet TV pioneer, today announced the completion of a major strategic financing round, a groundbreaking video content distribution partnership with AOL, and the appointment of Barry Diller, Chairman and CEO of IAC/InterActiveCorp and Chairman of Expedia, Inc., to the Brightcove Board of Directors."

Internet video and mobile video is really coming of age this year. While 16m is not that much money the deal is very significant when you look at the players involved. ""America Online's partnership and investment with Brightcove builds on AOL's existing, industry-leading video offering," said Jonathan F. Miller, Chairman & CEO of America Online, Inc."

Big Don Dodge focuses (like all VCs) on the key player behind Brightcove, Jeremy Allaire. "Brightcove is a BIG idea from a guy who has proven he can execute."