Written by Liz Gannes
Posted Wednesday, December 20, 2006 at 12:42 PM PT

Two Revver founders leave

AdAge has the scoop that two of online video startup Revver’s founders are leaving the company. Steven Starr will remain CEO, but co-founders Ian Clarke and Oliver Luckett and other members of the staff will depart (though apparently some will have consulting roles).

Revver pioneered the revenue-share aspect of online video sharing, but is regularly whined about for being overexposed in the media as well as not actually paying its creators all that much. We’ll check with our sources about internal reasons that might have contributed to the departures.

It appears that the company is gearing up for a change in direction, because it has also brought in new executives from the media, marketing, and advertising worlds. In an official statement to AdAge, Revver maintained the “personnel changes are intended to advance the company’s infrastructure and bolster its marketing and advertising efforts in 2007.”

Revver has raised about $13 million from Comcast Interactive Capital, Turner Broadcasting, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Bessemer Venture Partners, Draper Richards, and William Randolph Hearst III.

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Topic: Online Video, Startups

Comments (5)

They need the change as media is their hope. The viral game is lost on them although their widget is by far the best and we have had great success using it for Wallstrip.com

howard Lindzon — 2:02 PM on December 20, 2006 Reply
I’m not surprised here. The rev-share w/people who post popular content looked good on paper, but in practice everyone is discovering that only .0000001% of users who post on sites like this (and the other 28 copy cats) end up making more than 12 bucks.

Looks like it’s back to the drawing board on how to monetize User-generated video sites.

TeddyTuner — 7:17 AM on December 21, 2006 Reply
Nise site!

anatol — 9:12 AM on May 31, 2007 Reply
July — 7:28 AM on March 15, 2008 Reply
It is very important

Serg — 6:37 AM on June 15, 2008 Reply

Linkbacks (3)

[…] We’ve previously covered executive departures at Revver, Guba, two other online video sites struggling to gain a foothold. Topic: Online Video, Startups, Money Power Tags: Metacafe, Arik Czerniak […]

NewTeeVee » Metacafe Demotes CEO — 3:25 PM on February 6, 2007
[...] Run this by me again — I am paying a boatload of dough to get fiber to the home, and I’m going to use it to watch… user-generated Internet content? From a site that recently went through executive shakeups and may not even be around independently long enough to consummate this deal? [...]

NewTeeVee » Revver on FiOS —… — 3:29 PM on February 22, 2007
[...] following a late start at the two-year-old company. He joined last fall in conjunction with the departure of founders Ian Clarke, Oliver Luckett, and other members of the [...]

NewTeeVee » Revver CEO Starr Steps… — 10:00 PM on June 7, 2007