Family Learning Center

Posts Tagged ‘Brightcove’

AIR For Android, And Adobe’s Plan To Deliver Apps Across All Mobile Devices

The bane of all mobile app developers is the need to rewrite the same app over and over again for different devices: the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Palm Pre, Nokia, Windows Mobile. Adobe is positioning its Flash platform (which includes the Flash player, AIR, developer tools, and media servers) as the write-once, deploy-anywhere solution for both the mobile Web and apps. Today at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, it will announce plans to bring Adobe AIR to mobile devices, starting with Android and Blackberry phones.

AIR is currently used to create desktop applications, but it will soon be used to create Android and Blackberry apps as well. These mobile AIR apps will be able store data locally on the phone, access other data on the phones such as photos, and be distributed as regular apps in the Android and Blackberry app stores. Not only that, but the same apps created with Flash developer tools will be exportable as iPhone apps. Adobe wants developers to create their apps using its developer tools and then output them as AIR apps for Android and Blackberry phones, native iPhone apps, or Flash apps on the Web.

With the upcoming Flash 10.1 player—which Adobe is publicly saying will come out in the first half of the year via an over-the-air update, and privately telling developers to expect by the end of April—it will extend the Flash runtime to mobile browsers. The Flash 10.1 player will run consistently across both the desktop and many mobile browsers (except the iPhone). No more Flash Lite (except for Windows Mobile, which initially won’t support Flash 10.1 but is working on a mobile browser plug-in).

Flash 10.1 will be great for mobile video. Brightcove, for instance, is announcing support of Flash 10.1 in its video players, which makes possible all sorts of custom video player skins, advertising, analytics, and other features such as share buttons for Facebook and Twitter. (See this video to see how Flash 10.1 will look in a Brightcove player on an Android phone).

Of course, the face-off with Apple continues over Flash on the iPhone, even though last December, 7 million iPhone users attempted to download the Flash player from adobe.com through their mobile browsers, up from 3 million requests in July, 2009. Apple might eventually have to cave if Flash becomes a standard feature of all other smartphones. Adobe execs cite numbers by Strategy Analytics which estimate more than half of all smartphones will support Flash by 2012 (click chart at right to enlarge).

Flash in mobile browsers seems like an inevitability. But whether apps built for Flash will be able to compete as standalone mobile apps outside the browser is still up in the AIR.

Read the whole story…

Brightcove Comes To Yahoo Connected TVs, But Web Video Is Still Stuck In Widget Hell

If you own an Internet-connected TV that is compatible with Yahoo’s TV widgets (AKA, a Yahoo Connected TV), you may soon start seeing video produced for the Web on your TV. Brightcove announced today that media publishers using its online video platform can now distribute their videos through Yahoo’s Widget Engine, which powers the widgets on Yahoo-Connected TVs. These TVs are made by Sony, Samsung, Vizio, and LG, which show widgets along the bottom displaying data and content from the Web. These include your Facebook and Twitter streams, stock quotes, the weather, Amazon on-demand videos, and now Web videos powered by Brightcove.

A lot of print publications use Brightcove to power video on their Websites, and some of these already have Yahoo Connecetd TV widgets. These include MyRecipes, Cooking Light, Real Simple, Southern Living, Sunset, AllYou and ThisOldHouse. There are a lot of Time Inc. titles in there. TheStreet.com, Wine Spectator, Slate, and The Hollywood Reporter now also have TV widgets through Brightcove.

Yahoo also announced a partnership with MIPS Technologies today, which makes processors for Internet-connected TVs and set-top boxes. The idea that you need a special TV to watch video content from the Web seems strange. As long as it’s a flat-panel TV, why should it matter, right? But these integrations are more about bringing data to TVs from the Web in a friendly format. I’m glad Yahoo is pushing this along, but at some point hopefully open standards will develop so that any widget, data, or content from the Web can be viewed on any TV. Why should it go through a Yahoo widget? I get widgets from Verizon FIOS TV on all my TVs, even my old CRT. I don’t believe those are Yahoo Widgets.

The other issue is just getting people to use these widgets. I have yet to even set up my Twitter or Facebook widgets on my TV. I think I looked up the weather once. But if I really want to do all that Web stuff, I have my iPhone or my laptop. There is a reason WebTV failed. Widgets are not going to fare any better. However, if they can be used to put Web video on your TV, I could see that gaining traction. Except that you have to remember to click on the widget button, which is still an unnatural act, instead of just surfing through the regular channels. Once these additional Web channels can be incorporated into the digital guide through which people surf TV, then Web video can be treated just like anything else on TV. It shouldn’t matter where it’s coming from.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Read the whole story…

Executive Shuffles At The Top For Opera And Brightcove

New year, new faces as two of the most innovative technology companies on the planet are making some changes in their management team.

Norwegian developer of desktop and mobile browsers and related technologies Opera Software has appointed a new Chief Executive Officer, while Brightcove has managed to steal away a long-time Adobe and Macromedia exec to become its new President and Chief Operating Officer.

Opera Software has replaced Jon S. von Tetzchner, who co-founded the company in 1995 and has served as CEO since that time, with Lars Boilesen as head honcho. Boilesen previously worked for Opera from 2000 to 2005 as Executive Vice President, Sales. In 2005, Boilesen joined Alcatel-Lucent as CEO of the Nordics and the Baltics only to rejoin Opera a year ago as Chief Commercial Officer. Formerly Vice President of Opera’s Board of Directors, he will be leading the company from this point forward while von Tetzchner will continue to serve Opera full-time as a strategic consultant.

Online video platform provider Brightcove announced earlier this morning that it has appointed David Mendels as its new President and COO, assuming responsibility over driving Brightcove’s global expansion strategy and operations. Mendels comes to Brightcove most recently from Adobe where he was served as Executive Vice President and general manager of Adobe’s Enterprise Software and Business Productivity division, a billion dollar business that includes Adobe Acrobat, Acrobat Connect, LiveCycle and Flex. Mendels will also continue to be a member of the Brightcove Board of Directors, which he joined in late 2008.

(Image credit: Flickr / ccarlstead)

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Read the whole story…

Brightcove Teams Up With TubeMogul To Power Its Analytics

When Brightcove released a major upgrade to its online video platform last month, one of the new set of features was better analytics. It turns out that Brightcove’s new video analytics suite is powered TubeMogul. Professional video publishers who use Brightcove can now measure things like the geographic distribution of their viewers, how many seconds they watch each video, their drop-off rate, number of unique viewers, number of new viewers, as well as total video plays.

The two companies have also signed a joint R&D pact to develop new video analytics products exclusively for Brightcove. TubeMogul will also become a marketing partner for Brightcove’s paid video hosting, streaming, and advertising services. About 125,000 people use TubeMogul’s free video analytics. Many of them are online video professionals Brightcove is hoping to turn into paying subscribers for its new “low-end” $99/month plan.

Analytics are an important part of the video equation, especially for advertisers and marketers who need to demonstrate the ROI of spending money on online video. TubeMogul already has an advanced analytics package Brightcove can plug into its latest release. TubeMogul adds Brightcove as a customer and will receive both R&D payments and marketing fees for each new Brightcove client it helps to sign up.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Read the whole story…

Brightcove 4 Adds Support For The iPhone, Facebook, Live Video, And More

It’s been about a year since Brightcove released the last upgrade to its professional online video platform with Brightcove 3. On Monday, it’s going to release Brightcove 4, and it’s a massive upgrade.

Brightcove 4 now supports a native video player on the iPhone, in Facebook, and live video streaming on the Web. It’s got Twitter integration for sharing videos, faster-loading video players, the ability to switch between Flash streaming and HTTP, adaptive streaming based on a user’s device and bandwidth, behind-the-firewall video delivery, support for most major ad servers, better analytics, and a new, cheaper, entry-level subscription service called Brightcove Express.

The biggest new feature is the iPhone player. Instead of clicking off into the Quicktime player, Brightcove uses the Quicktime APIs to render the player within an app. Developers are going to love this because they can skin the player any way they want, tie it into the same ads served through a publisher’s Brightcove player on the Web, add email and Twitter sharing, and Coverflow-style browsing.

The Facebook integration will also be popular. Brightcove 4 offers a template which allows for Facebook Connect logins with realtime comments which appear in each commenter’s Facebook stream. Brightcove videos shared on Facebook will also be playable within the stream, just like YouTube videos.

Brightcove 4 will also support live video streams for the first time. Live videos of events can be scheduled, archived, mixed with on-demand videos, and tied into the same advertising backend. If a publisher has a huge event and would rather use their own CDN, they can do that as well. Why now? “We waited until there was sufficient market demand,” says CEO Jeremy Allaire. Yet more evidence that live video on the Web may be finding its legs.

So far Brightcove is mostly used by media companies and professional video publishers who can afford to pay at least $500 a month for the service. But with this release, Brightcove is also trying to broaden its appeal with service plans which now begin at $99 a month. It’s still not a consumer platform, and probably never will be. But for professional Web video publishers and companies with video marketing budgets, the new entry point should help to expand Brightcove’s market.

I am not sure why Brightcove holds all of this good stuff back until they can package it in a new, numbered release, since it is a Web-based service, which could just as easily upgrade on a rolling basis. But doing it all at once like this does highlight all the changes to the code-base, and shows why Brightcove is considered the leading Web video platform for professional use. Brightcove boast 800 customers which use its players across 2,500 different Web sites. Collectively, they reach 135 million unique viewers per month, according to Allaire.

He won’t disclose exact revenues other than to say that it is in the “tens of millions” of dollars a year, and growing at a 50 percent annual rate. But he does say that the company, which has raised a total of $91 million in venture capital, isn’t burning any more cash. “During the first half of this year we were profitable and cash flow positive,” he says. Like everyone else, Brightcove cut back on expenses last year, and even went through layoffs of 13 percent of its workforce. The fourth quarter was the low point, but demand started picking up again at the beginning of the year, especially from branded goods companies, marketing departments, and even manufacturers looking to add video to their sites. Last quarter, Allaire hired 30 people, and currently employs 180. Next quarter he is looking to hire 30 more.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Read the whole story…

Failblog, Engadget, and Joystiq Now Selling Video Ads Through Viddler AdWorks

Did you know that Failblog serves up 22 million video views per month, and Engadget gets at least 2.3 million monthly views for its gadget videos, while Joystiq gets another 2 million? All three blogs use Viddler, which is now selling ads directly for its top content providers though its just-launched Viddler AdWorks. Advertisers can see a directory of the top three dozen video producers on Viddler and buy ads on their videos (overlay, pre-roll, and post-roll).

Viddler is selling ads against 30 million views a month collectively from those top producers, out of a total of 36 million views for all the videos uploaded to Viddler. Failblog, which puts up videos of pratfalls and people acting stupidly, on its own accounts for 73 percent of Viddler’s video ad inventory, and is a big reason Viddler’s total views have gone from 10 million in January, 2009 to 36 million in August, 2009. After that, the most popular Viddler producers are Engadget and Joystiq, which are both owned by AOL, followed by niche video like WineLibraryTV (142,424 monthly views) and Gary Vaynerchuk’s personal marketing videos, which get only 27,070 views per month).

It quickly dwindles down to very small numbers per show, but Viddler is hoping to change that with its new ad network, and get more of its partners to put more of their best videos on Viddler instead of on YouTube or Blip.tv or Brightcove. For ads that it sells directly it is offering video partners ad rates starting at $3 per thousand views (CPMs) for overlays and $10 for pre-rolls. A video show that attracts a highly-focused, affluent niche audience like WineLibrary.TV can command a $10 CPM for overlays. These rates compare to about 80-cent CPMs that video producers currently get for the Google AdWords ads Viddler places in their videos today, and will continue to use for any inventory it can’t sell.

The other attractive element of Viddler’s AdWorks is that video publishers can choose to sell their own ads if they think they can get a higher rate than Viddler. In that case, they pay Viddler a flat $2 CPM for overlays, and $4 CPMs for pre-rolls. So if AOL’s (or Engadget’s) salesforce can get better than a $5 CPM for overlay ads, it is better off selling ads itself ($5-$2=the $3 CPM they would get from Viddler selling the ads).

Video partners also have the option to sign up for a business account, where they pay per gigabyte and can either opt out of ads entirely or participate in AdWorks to offset their subscription costs. So Viddler straddles the video hosting space between a free ad-supported model (like Blip.tv) and a hosted subscription model (like Brightcove). A video producer will have to weigh that flexibility and the guaranteed CPMs Viddler is offering against the broader reach of a YouTube or even Blip.tv, which is about twice the size of Viddler in terms of videos streamed and can now place ads in YouTube as well.

Viddler remains a niche player in the online video hosting industry, but it’s never taken VC money and seems to be carving out a nice little business for itself.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Read the whole story…

Rumor: Google In Talks to Acquire Brightcove for $500-$700 Million

According to a tweet by Mark Glaser from PBS’s MediaShift, Google is in talks with the white-label Internet video provider Brightcove and wants to acquire the company for up to $700 million. Brightcove’s customers include a large variety of large enterprises such as the New York Times, Showtime, Universal Music, AMC, AOL, and the Weather Channel. If this rumors turns out to be true, this acquisition would easily turn Google into the dominant commercial Web video provider.

Sponsor

While Brightcove started out as a consumer video service, the company’s half-hearted attempts at convincing consumers to host their videos on Brightcove.TV came to an end when Brightcove shut down that site in November 2007. Last November, Brightcove also shut down its free Brightcove Network, which featured content from roughly 40,000 publishing partners.

This June, Brightcove’s CEO Jeremy Allaire told Sillicon Alley Insider that the company was now profitable and that he expected the company to see a 50% revenue growth in 2009.

Is Google Buying Brightcove’s Tech or Its Customers?

While Google could obviously offer the same kind of services Brightcove currently offers on its own YouTube platform, Brightcove has already locked in most of the customers that Google would also be competing for. Also, while YouTube was designed as a consumer platform (even as Google is slowly moving to featuring more commercial content on the site), Brightcove has set up a platform that gives enterprise customers the flexibility and metrics they need. In the end, though, if this rumor is true, Google is most likely more interested in Brightcove’s customer base than in its technology.

We asked both Google and Brightcove for a comment about this rumor and will update the post when/if we hear from them.

Update: as Dan Rayburn points out in the comments below and on his blog, Brightcove’s setup requires its customers to use third-party content-delivery networks like Limelight to stream their videos. If Google really acquires Brightcove, this could turn out to be a problem, as it would keep Google from being able to use YouTube’s (cheap) infrastructure.

Discuss

Read the whole story…

Ooyala Hits Profitability In A Crowded Market, Looking For A New CEO

Silicon Valley based Ooyala, a service that manages video streaming for websites, hit an important milestone last month – positive cash flow. The company was founded by ex Googlers Bismarck Lepe, Sean Knapp and Belsasar Lepe in 2007 and has raised just $10 million in funding.

And now they’re considering the hire of a new CEO, we’ve confirmed. Bismarck Lepe, the current CEO, says he’s actually been looking for his replacement for the last year. This isn’t being driven by the venture investor, Sierra Ventures, he says. And in fact the founding team retains stock and board of directors voting control, making their consent a requirement of any CEO change. Lepe just feels as though he isn’t necessarily the guy to take the company to the next level, whatever that may be. So he’s retained a search firm to find someone better than him to run Ooyala.

The company is certainly doing well. We first covered them in late 2008 and they already had big name customers like National Geographic, TV Guide, AOL, and Warner Brothers. Today, Lepe says, they stream 250,000 – 350,000 hours of video a day through partners. One Michael Jackson video last week racked up 70 million views in just 36 hours.

The company has a software as a service model that charges users to set up accounts and manage video. There is an additional fee based on hours of content streamed as well.

This is a crowded space. Brightcove has raised nearly $100 million in capital, for example. Yahoo paid $160 million to acquire competitor Maven Networks and then killed the business line 17 months later. And most recently Joost announced a strategic shift to focus on this space as well.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Read the whole story…