Startups

Written by Chris Albrecht
Posted Thursday, July 2, 2009 at 4:26 PM PT

 

Dailymotion Names New CEO, Says Outgoing One Was Interim

Dailymotion announced today that Cedric Tournay has been named its new CEO. Tournay replaces Ian Brotherston, who had only held the post since April. Brotherston will stay on with the company but will move over to become executive vice president of international strategy.

MediaPost reports that Dailymotion always considered Brotherston’s appointment as CEO as an interim one, though that temporary status was not mentioned at the time. We dug up the April 21, 2009, press release announcing Brotherston as CEO, which didn’t say anything about his being interim:

Dailymotion names Ian Brotherston Chief Executive Officer

Paris – April 21st 2009 – Dailymotion’s Board of Directors has announced today that Ian Brotherston has been appointed to the role of Chief Executive Officer of Dailymotion…

“We are delighted to welcome Ian as new CEO. His strong management experience will help shape Dailymotion as we continue our growth and global expansion. Ian’s primary focus will be to lead Dailymotion in its next phase of development,” says Benoist Grossmann, partner at AGF Private Equity.

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Topic: Startups

Written by Chris Albrecht
Posted Thursday, July 2, 2009 at 9:26 AM PT

 

Vid-Biz: Krikorian, NewsMarket, Microsoft Vomit

Sling Founder Headed to DirecTV? Satellite company reportedly has reached out to Blake Krikorian to succeed Chase Carey as CEO. (paidContent)

The NewsMarket to Acquire MediaLink; NewsMarket will acquire all oustanding shares of MediaLink’s common stock for 20 cents per share in cash; move will combine NewsMarket’s digital video distribution platform with MediaLink’s professional services. (release)

Microsoft Dumps Vomit Ad; viral spot for Internet Explorer featuring a woman vomiting over the web sites her husband visits is pulled. (CNET)

1Cast Signs Fox Business News and Al Jazeera; two networks will provide “up-to-the-minute” clips to the news aggregator. (Multichannel News)

Yesterday Was Supposed to Be a Tru2Way Milestone; July 1 was the day the large cable cos agreed to be ready to support tru2way enabled CE devices; while deadline was missed, cable companies are making good faith efforts. (ZatzNotFunny!)

HD Streams Still a Dream; measly megabit-per-second connections, superior Blu-ray video quality and limited content add up to high-definition video streaming to the TV not taking off for a while. (Variety)

Study: TV More Effective for Ads than Online; research from Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing and NeuroFocus TV gives high marks for recall, intent to purchase and emotional engagement (ed. note: What if the emotion people are engaging in is anger over all the commercials?). (MediaWeek)

Written by Liz Gannes
Posted Wednesday, July 1, 2009 at 4:00 PM PT

 

Dabble (Still) Down

After reading an informative post about the history of real-time search by guest author Mary Hodder on TechCrunch today, I was reminded to check on her social video search startup, Dabble. Founded in 2005, Dabble had undertaken the challenge of organizing the universe of web video with metadata and community-created playlists.

dabblenoteIt appears that the site hasn’t been up in months — at least nine months, in fact, because I remember specifically talking to Hodder about it being down in October. None of the search and share functionality is available, with the whole of the site replaced by a note with the headline “Dabble is having a make-over.” The Internet Archive isn’t much help in pinpointing the date the note was put up; it hasn’t posted a fresh save of the site since February of 2008.

In October, Hodder told me that the site had to be taken offline due to problems with her hosting company and a lack of funding. Today via email Hodder said she’s still working on the technology behind the scenes, but without funding the site won’t be back up anytime soon.

Topic: Startups

Written by Chris Albrecht
Posted Tuesday, June 30, 2009 at 10:50 AM PT

 

Vid-Biz: YouTube, TV Apps, Adobe

YouTube Launches Call-to-Action Overlays; Promoted Videos can now feature links that take traffic off the video site. (YouTube Biz Blog)

Will TV Get an App Store Moment? The pieces are in place, but there is no clear winner yet, though Microsoft, Apple and Nintendo have the edge. (GigaOM Pro)

Adobe to Shut Down N. American Operations This Week; move made to cut operating costs; similar closures are planned for the third and fourth quarters as well. (Bloomberg)

DCN Studios Gets Funding to Create Web Series for College Kids; David Salzberg and Christian Tureaud will be the studio’s co-presidents, content will be distributed through the Digital College Network, which provides programming directly into colleges, online and via live events. (paidContent)

6Rounds Launches Video Chat Service; company looks to add layers of fun and social on top of the standard vid chat. (TechCrunch)

BBE Renews Jen and Barb, Mom Life; female-targeted web series featuring moms talking about tough issues returns July 15. (MediaWeek)

Written by Chris Albrecht
Posted Tuesday, June 30, 2009 at 9:09 AM PT

 

Joost to Become a White-Label Provider, Volpi Steps Down as CEO

Joost announced today that it is shifting business strategies and it “will focus on providing white label online video platforms for media companies, including cable and satellite providers, broadcasters and video aggregators.” As part of this transition, Mike Volpi will step down as CEO and Matt Zelesko, who is currently the senior VP of engineering, will take over while still leading the engineering team. Volpi will remain chairman of the board.

What makes this move seem all the more doomed is that Joost is already enlisting another white-label video provider, Ooyala, to manage its ingesting, transcoding and metadata management. How exactly will Joost pitch itself as a competitor to Ooyala (where Volpi is also on the board) when it uses Ooyala itself?

Joost said it will maintain a core team in New York and London to work on the new white-label biz, as well as operating Joost.com. The company will “wind down” operations in its Leiden development center. According to a statement attributed to Volpi, Joost “will say goodbye to many of our colleagues and friends,” which seems like it could not mean anything other than layoffs, but Joost wouldn’t elaborate further or provide specific numbers.

In April, it was rumored that Joost was looking to sell itself and had even talked with Time Warner Cable.

We used to joke here at NTV that becoming a white-label video provider was what a business did when all other strategies failed. And it looks like Joost is no exception. After starting off as a P2P-based app, the company found that requiring a download hampered its ability to gain traction. It then moved to a plug-in and eventually moved completely to a Flash based method for watching web TV.

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Written by Liz Gannes
Posted Monday, June 29, 2009 at 9:21 AM PT

 

Digitalsmiths Flexes Video Search Muscle

Digitalsmiths, in an attempt to stand out from the far-too-many white-label video vendors out there, today launched an update to its video publishing platform that brings out the company’s roots in video search. The company now calls its platform “VideoSense” and its time-based metadata framework “MetaFrame.”

freeformResearch Triangle Park, N.C.-based Digitalsmiths, which powers video for many Time Warner sites including Warner Bros. and TMZ, has already shifted some of its customers to this new platform. CEO Ben Weinberger said the company has signed additional unannounced studios, and plans to build on its business of indexing and providing TV and online video by adding films.

VideoSense uses a combination of factors such as facial recognition, scene classification and object identification to associate any given aspect of a video with a time stamp. The platform also makes connections between aspects like actor names, locations and dialogue and the particular frame in which they occur. So visitors to a video site could use the search functionality to pinpoint their vaguely remembered television moments — say, a certain actor visiting a venue, or a character joking about a particular topic.

That kind of powerful search seems like it would be especially useful if applied on a web-wide video search engine rather than locked into single-studio content libraries. However, Digitalsmiths is firmly focused on its white-label video program rather than a consumer service.

Digitalsmiths raised a $12 million Series B funding last fall and said it added strategic funding from Cisco in January.

Topic: Startups

Written by Liz Gannes
Posted Friday, June 26, 2009 at 1:41 PM PT

 

Seesmic: No Business in “Video Conversations”

We haven’t written about Seesmic on NewTeeVee in a long time, and it sounds like this may well be the last time. The company is deemphasizing — though at this point not removing — its video conversation service in favor of supporting its social aggregation tool, Seesmic Desktop, and associated products. CenterNetworks had the news this morning after noticing that video was pushed way down to the bottom of Seesmic’s site in a redesign.

Seesmic CEO Loic Le Meur posted a video on his site (at least he still uses the service!) saying that the video community was not growing and he needed to direct his company towards something more promising. He asserted that competitors like 12seconds are not seeing growth, either. It can only be a matter of time before San Francisco-based Seesmic shuts down video entirely.

Seesmic’s video service enabled users to post public threaded asynchronous video comments on its own site and in the comments sections of participating sites. At times the company had experimented with producing original shows and hosting chat sessions with famous people, but those petered out. We can’t think of a video service offering an exact alternative with the same global and public emphases, but quick-upload video from phones and webcams is definitely growing on larger sites like YouTube and Facebook.

Seesmic had raised significant funding — $12 million — but has also made multiple rounds of layoffs.

Topic: Startups

Written by Chris Albrecht
Posted Friday, June 26, 2009 at 10:30 AM PT

 

Vid-Biz: FCC, Qik, Totlol

Julius Genachowski Confirmed as FCC Chairman; Senate also confirms Robert McDowell for second term; two spots remain open on the five-member commission. (GigaOM)

Qik Offers Live Video on iPhone 3GS; live-casting app not sold through the official App Store because Apple and AT&T won’t allow video streaming from the phone. (TechCrunch)

Totlol Tries to Keep the Kid Vids Going; economic pressures forced the site to initially close down, but audiences implored to keep it up; site now features obtrusive ads and registration before they can go any further. (CNET)

Five Launches Broadband Soap Channel; the UK terrestrial broadcaster’s new Holy Soap consolidates the individual sites for shows like Neighbours and Home & Away. (itvt.com)

Gigantic Group Launching Online Movie Service; will focus on indie fare, movies will cost $2.99 and can be watched over three days. (Variety)

BitGravity Partners with Veeple; BitGravity to offer Veeple’s video content management services, Veeple to standardize its offering on BitGravity’s network. (MediaPost)

CinemaNow to Power Movie Streaming for Zip.ca; Canada’s top DVD-by-mail company to offer online service by the end of the year. (Video Business)

Stickam Develops StreamAPI for Facebook; application allows customers to stream live events on the popular social network. (emailed announcement)

Topic: Legal, Mobile, Startups

Written by Chris Albrecht
Posted Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 9:18 AM PT

 

Vid-Biz: Brightcove, Move, Truveo

Brightcove CEO Says Company is Profitable, Cash-Flow Positive; Jeremy Allaire credits the revenue growth, in part, to traction in the enterprise and government verticals. (Business Insider)

What’s Going on With Move Networks? After keeping quiet for a couple of months, company plans to shift strategy to become a wholesale provider of IPTV video services that will be delivered over open broadband networks. (VideoNuze)

Truveo Relaunches in 17 Countries; video search engine goes with a more Google-like look, strikes deal with Univision. (paidContent)

Pirate Bay Founders Sent Court Summons Via Twitter; Dutch entertainment industry group used the micro-blogging service and Facebook because they didn’t know the exact locations of Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Netflix Adds Streaming Availability Dates; now users can see when a movie in their queue will be available to “Watch Instantly.” (Hacking Netflix)

Turner and PGA Re-Up Through 2019; Turner to continue to manage PGA.com, and to launch mobile and new media offerings. (Broadcasting & Cable)

MTV Streams The Maxx; cult comic cartoon from the 90s goes online. (The Beat)

Written by Liz Gannes
Posted Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 12:10 AM PT

 

Nokeena Raises $6.5M for Video Appliance

Nokeena Networks said today it has raised $6.5 million in funding in a round led by Mayfield Fund that’s intended to supplement the startup’s marketing and sales efforts. Nokeena makes an appliance called the Media Flow Director that takes a server-side approach to ensuring a smooth video delivery experience by managing changes in demand, end users’ connection speeds, and network conditions.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nokeena, which was incubated at Clearstone Venture Partners, says it can lower the cost of video delivery since it runs on commodity hardware while making video more TV-like (read: reliable and high quality, at least as far as the stream goes). The company was founded in 2008 and has now raised a total of $15 million. We first wrote about Nokeena last summer when it was just emerging, then covered its launch in April. We can see why Nokeena would want to bump up marketing and sales; the company has so far announced only one customer, Break Media, which says it uses a combination of Nokeena servers and CDNs to deliver video.

Alongside the funding, Navin Chaddha, who had previously co-founded VXTreme (which became Windows Media) and is now a managing director at Mayield, joined Nokeena’s board of directors.