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Movieclips.com Raises $3 Million Series A Round
Movieclips.com, which offers access to over 14,000 licensed movie clips, is announcing its Series A round of $3 million from Shasta Ventures, First Round
Capital and angel investors. In addition, the company is releasing new curated top 10 lists across categories as well as mashups.
I last wrote about Movieclips.com in March when it opened up for general use and began making available its APIs. One of the reasons I was a fan was that the site showed how new value can be mined from archived long-form content, especially when repackaged in web and social media-friendly short-form bites.
Categories: Deals & Financings
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SubPLY is Mining Value of Captions for Online Video
SubPLY, a captioning technology provider, is finding that captioning, a long-mandated feature in television, is also quite valuable in online video. Whereas in TV captioning has largely been a regulatory-driven requirement, captioning in online video is strategic as well, as VP of Business Development Matt Knopf explained to me recently.
For example, captions generate a written transcript of the video content, which is far more search-engine friendly and therefore helps drive discovery. In addition, as the Internet incents global distribution of content, the need for language localization is growing. But the cost of dubbing multiple languages and then managing all the files is expensive, so generating cost-effective captions is a great alternative. In addition, there's even a benefit to at-work viewership, allowing viewers to watch without risk of audio tipping off colleagues and supervisors.
Categories: Technology
Topics: SubPLY
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Tremor Media Acquires ScanScout, Creating Video Ad Network Giant
More consolidation among video ad networks, as market leader Tremor Media has acquired ScanScout, creating a new dominant player. comScore reported in its Sept. 2010 online video rankings that Tremor on its own was the #2 video ad network with over 525 million video ads served and reach to over 26% of the U.S. population. For its part ScanScout says it reaches 140 million unique viewers per month. Tremor most recently raised a $40 million round in April, bringing its total funding to $82 million, while ScanScout last raised another $8.5 million Oct. '09.
Categories: Advertising, Deals & Financings
Topics: ScanScout, Tremor Media
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Undertone Acquires Video Syndicator Jambo Media
Undertone, a large display ad network has acquired video syndication and technology provider Jambo Media. Both companies are private and terms were not disclosed. The deal comes on the heels of ad network Specific Media acquiring video manager/network BBE, and AOL acquiring video syndicator 5Min. All three deals - and no doubt others to follow - illustrate the consolidation underway between video advertising and other forms of online advertising plus the interplay between video syndication, branded content and advertising.
Undertone's CEO Mike Cassidy told me that Undertone has been fielding more calls from the agencies and Fortune 500 brands it serves who are interested in online video advertising as well. Mike believes that offering them an integrated approach between display and video so that they can buy, manage and measure their returns across formats will only become more important over time. So a key goal of the acquisition is to meld their publisher networks and and offer high quality reach for both display and video. Since display is more mature than video advertising, Mike also sees opportunities to leverage its underlying technology in areas like targeting.
Categories: Advertising, Deals & Financings
Topics: Jambo Media, Undertone
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Netflix Has Added 8 Times As Many Subscribers in 2010 As Top Pay-TV Operators, Combined
Here's a pretty amazing factoid to end your week: in 2010 Netflix has added nearly 8 times as many subscribers as 8 of the top 9 pay-TV operators have, combined (#3 cable operator Cox is private and doesn't report). In the first 3 quarters of 2010, Netflix has added nearly 4.7 million subscribers while the top pay-TV operators have gained 609K.
Breaking down the pay-TV industry net gain further, the 2 main telcos (Verizon and AT&T) have added over 1.2 million subscribers and the 2 main satellite providers (DirecTV and DISH) have added 563K, while the top 4 reporting cable operators (Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Charter and Cablevision) have lost over 1.1 million.
Categories: Aggregators, Cable TV Operators, Satellite, Telcos
Topics: AT&T, Cablevision, Charter, Comcast, Cox, DirecTV, DISH, Netflix, Time Warner Cable, Verizon
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Top U.S. Pay-TV Operators Post Narrow Subscriber Gains in Q3, Rebounding From Q2 Loss
Eight out of the nine largest U.S. pay-TV operators have reported their Q3 '10 results, gaining a slim 66,700 video subscribers, a rebound from a loss of 47,600 subscribers in Q2 '10. The Q2 loss was the first on record for the industry and fueled speculation that "cord-cutting" due to adoption of Internet-delivered video alternatives was rising. With only mildly positive subscriber adds - and 5 of the top 8 operators actually losing subscribers in Q3 - fears that cord-cutting is rising will surely accelerate.
The 8 operators (privately-held Cox Cable, the 3rd-largest cable operator does not disclose its results) represent more than 85% of all U.S. pay-TV households. Though they collectively showed a quarterly gain, if Cox and other cable operators lost subscribers at a comparable rate as the 4 large cable operators in the top 8 (Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Charter and Cablevision), the industry as a whole would have actually lost about 97K subscribers in the 3rd quarter.
Categories: Cable TV Operators, Satellite, Telcos
Topics: AT&T, Cablevision, Charter, Comcast, Cox, DirecTV, DISH, Netflix, Time Warner Cable, Verizon
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FreeWheel Unveils Version 3.5 of Its Ad Management Platform
Ad manager FreeWheel announced the 3.5 version of its Monetization Rights Management platform this morning, continuing to help drive online and mobile
video monetization for major media companies.
Included in the new features are an Android SDK, which allows great ad control within their Android apps, geo-based ad targeting to mobile devices based on current GPS coordinates, user targeting by mobile operating system, integration with 3rd party mobile ad networks AdMob and iAd and mid-roll/companion ads in HTML5 for iPhones and iPads. If you're interested in learning more about FreeWheel's online and mobile video monetization, come to the VideoSchmooze breakfast on Dec. 1st, where company co-CEO and co-founder Doug Knopper will be on the panel.Categories: Advertising, Mobile Video
Topics: FreeWheel
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VideoSchmooze:NYC Early Bird Discount Expires Next Friday
A quick reminder that the early bird discount for the next VideoSchmooze breakfast/panel expires next Friday, Nov. 12th. The event will be in New York, on Wednesday, Dec. 1st at The Samsung Experience, located in the
Time Warner Center, 10 Columbus Circle. As an added incentive, early bird ticket holders only will be entered to win a new Samsung connected Blu-ray DVD player (model BD-C6500; I have one and it's awesome).
The topic of our panel, which I'll moderate, is "How Connected and Mobile Devices are Transforming the Video Landscape." Panelists include:
- Charlie Herrin - SVP, Products and Technology, Comcast Interactive Media
- Doug Knopper - Co-CEO and Co-Founder, FreeWheel
- Olivier Manuel - Director of Content, Samsung Electronics
- Steve Robinson - CEO and Founder, Panache
- Jeremiah Zinn - SVP, Digital Products, MTV
Our panelists bring a range of perspectives to the connected/mobile debate which will be invaluable for helping understand the issues. As with past VideoSchmooze events, attendees can expect a high-impact, interactive, educational session.
The timing of our discussion couldn't be better, right in the middle of a holiday season where connected and mobile devices will be highly sought-after gifts. As these devices proliferate they are expanding the audience of users able to access video in fundamentally new ways, further fueling transformation of the industry.
There will be plenty of time for networking and audience Q&A. Samsung will also be hosting technology demonstrations of its connected devices for those interested. This VideoSchmooze breakfast is generously sponsored by Akamai Technologies, FreeWheel and Panache. It is being held in association with CTAM's New York chapter. The Fortex Group is providing marketing support.
I hope you'll be able to join us at this special event! Early bird individual and group rates are now available.
Click here to learn more and register for early bird discountCategories: Events
Topics: VideoSchmooze
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