Content Management Systems
Bebo, Open Media & Its Broadband Advantage
Bebo, another one of the fast-growing social networks out there, might be a U.S. company, but its roots are firmly planted in broadband-heavy Europe. Taking advantage of faster broadband in its core markets — the UK and parts of Europe — the company has announced a smart new Open Media platform strategy.
While it might seem that Bebo is partnering with old media, the fact of the matter is that people like TV. So Bebo is giving them old TV — via a new distribution channel. Launch partners include CBS, MTV Networks, ESPN, the BBC, Channel Four, ITN, Yahoo! and BSkyB, as well as emerging media companies like Music Nation, Next New Networks, Crackle, Ustream, Last.fm and JibJab.
Read the full story on GigaOM.
BitGravity Jumps Into CDN Biz
Akamai (AKAM), the Cambridge, Mass.-based content delivery network company, has enjoyed a near monopoly of the lucrative CDN business for a very long time. But now that lead is coming under pressure from all sorts of competitors, many of them upstarts that are desperate to carve out a niche.
BitGravity, of Burlingame, Calif., is the latest to join the party and is focusing mostly on video. Since video files tend to be larger and need more hand-holding, it makes sense for BitGravity to take a focused approach. Move Networks is taking a similar tact, and has signed up some big names. Of course, Akamai has its own plans for HD video.
EdgeCast Ready To Take On Akamai, Limelight
Paying less for bandwidth to serve-up streaming media and downloadable video clips on websites could become the bait that hooks the customer. At least that’s what James Segil, co-founder and president of content delivery network EdgeCast Networks, hopes.
On Monday, the Los Angeles-based company plans to introduce a flexible bandwidth pricing model to the CDN business. Most CDN companies charge fixed bandwidth prices along with other services. These are annual contracts, and can cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, and large media sites spend many, many millions, depending on the volume.
Brightcove Gets a Bigger Piece of FOX
Brightcove, an online video infrastructure provider, says it has signed a deal with Fox Entertainment Group (FEG) which will be used for various different Fox properties to go online, and build ad-supported Internet video channels. includes the Fox Studio, Fox Broadcast Network, and Fox’s 9+ cable channels. They have already recently launched channels around shows on FX, Fox, and SPEED TV (sports channel).
Brightcove, which has raised huge amounts of money is slowly becoming an infrastructure provider of choice for large content providers, mostly because the company has developed tools that integrate with their existing production tools.
It also raises the question: should Jeremy Allaire and his crew even bother going after the consumer/independent video creator market? Why not focus entirely on the large media companies?
Vidmetrix: Epidemiology for Viral Videos
On Monday, San Diego based Holt Labs launched Vidmetrix 2.0, making available to everyone a powerful video tracking tool. Building on its suite of online video management applications (previous coverage of the Vidmeter billboard), the new Vidmetrix system tracks the views and interactions viewers are having with videos on the web.
Vidmetrix does a great job of visualizing the traffic your videos are getting over time. The tool is best for videomakers who have content scattered across a variety of sites. Vidmetrix, like Vidmeter, watches fifty-one different video sites, recently adding big sites from the European (Kewego.com) and Asian (YouKu.com) markets. However, you can track any videos (not just your own) so it’s also useful to see how popular videos “go viral.”
Ensequence scores $40 M, more MLB stuff
Interactive video enabler Ensequence announced Tuesday a $40 million “C” round of venture funding, moolah that the firm will use to expand its operations, including the opening of offices in New York and LA.
By putting down solid roots in Madison Ave. and Tinseltown, the Portland, Ore.-based Ensequence is showing (or betting) that it is ready to start doing bigger and better deals for its On-Q software, which enables interactivity (a.k.a. user feedback or control) in traditional cable or satellite offerings, or on web platforms like baseball’s MLB.TV site. In another announcement Ensequence and MLB said that this year their partnership will let MLB.TV customers watch up to six games simultaneously, just part of a whole bunch of new features that should keep baseball junkies from productive use of their computer until October.
Akamai Targets Corporate Video
Is the corporate world of online video expanding to the point where enterprises feel a need for robust command-and-control systems? That’s what content management giant Akamai is hoping, announcing Monday a “rich media management solution” called Stream OS to give enterprise users a single-screen interface from which to manage distribution of various forms of digital content.
Whether or not most enterprises have the online distribution demands of the NBA — one of the early customers of the technology — is probably a remains-to-be-seen question. But there is little doubt that as production and dissemination costs continue to plummet for digital content assets, more will be created — so invariably enterprise IT managers will want to find some way to wrap their hands around what gets distributed, and where it happens. The Akamai Stream OS is the first branded Akamai product to come out of Akamai’s acquisition of streaming-video expert house Nine Systems late last year.
What’s Next for Democracy Player?
It’s been a year since the first official release of the Democracy player and podcast client, and the Democracy team is celebrating this birthday with the release of version 0.95. So what’s new, what’s coming up, and when will we see Democracy version 1.0? I checked in with Democracy co-creator Nicholas Reville to find out the scoop.
Democracy is an open source, multi-platform podcast client with integrated video player, program guide and Bittorrent support. Wired magazine called the client “the future of net video” back in May 2006. The present of net video still seems to be closely tied to YouTube and iTunes though, leaving little attention for an outsider like Democracy. So how does one compete with the likes of YouTube?
Move Networks Makes Web TV Watchable
Move Networks, which has developed some interesting streaming video technology over the last two-and-a-half years, is finally starting to talk about itself. The company helps TV networks get their shows online using its techniques for high-quality in-browser streaming. We had previously written about Move when word got out it had closed $11 million in funding.
American Fork, Utah-based Move signed some impressive customers while flying under the radar: Fox Network, the CW, Televisa, and E! Online. You can check out examples on MySpace and the CW website As of the last month, Move works on Macs as well. So we can say from personal experience, the quality is most excellent. Really — web TV from the networks that’s actually watchable!
Roo Rolls in MyVideoDaily
Roo Group, an entrant in the online hosted video space, said Tuesday it would purchase an online video startup called MyVideoDaily in a deal mostly meant to obtain MVD’s personnel and software technology. 
If nothing else, the terms of the deal — $350,000 and a half-million shares of Roo stock — shows what the market price is these days for online development teams like MVD’s five-person outfit. According to Roo CEO Rob Petty, MyVideoDaily will remain alive as a sort of testbed for new online video technology (like its current user-ranking feature), which may then be also rolled out to Roo’s customers, a list that currently includes Verizon and several News Corp. entities.
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