NewTeeVee’s Next Big Thing List for 2009
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DEMAND STUDIOS
HQ: Santa Monica, Calif.
Founding date: 2006
Funding: Parent company Demand Media has more than $355 million from investors including Oak Investment Partners, Spectrum Equity Investors and Goldman Sachs
Employees: 500 total at Demand Media
A well-oiled freelance machine, Demand Studios churns out content like nobody else. The profitable young company uses search and domain name data to dictate assignments for its vast network of freelancers, thereby ensuring in advance that their videos and articles will be highly trafficked. Paying out $200-$300 per video (it has a similar though lower-paying system for text), Demand posts more videos by volume to YouTube than anyone else. Its ExpertVillage how-to channel on YouTube is among the top 25 most-subscribed on the site, and the company says it makes “seven-figure” revenue through its YouTube partner agreement. And Demand does share the wealth, in thousands of small but important payments; across text and video, it has altogether paid out nearly $18 million to creators so far. While Demand’s concept can be unsettling for those who value more intensive and personal approaches to content, there’s no doubt that the economics work. (Written by Liz Gannes)
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Quite surprised that this list doesn’t include any credible Live Streaming player ! Let’s look back next year :)
Actually I know that Ooyala does live streaming – they have been doing a lot lately with the Vans surfing competitions and and some MMA fights
So these are the guys we have to thank for the crappy Postseason.tv
http://mlbsupport.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=72
The Philies game was unwatchable today. I already submitted my refund request. Every playoff game is nothing but constant buffering. Today during the 7th inning the video went out! These guys should watch Sunday Night Football on NBC.com to see how it’s done.
The few minutes that the SNF player was on one 1 bar it was superior to Postseason’s player on 4 bars. 95% of the time I was able to watch the SNF game in HD.
Boxee has what 1000 or 2000 users? total?? it gets way more hype than it deserves. bittorrent 2.0… with a lot less users. this thing will flash out.
@gonzo90017:
the technology for both Sunday Night Football on nbc.com and mlb.com is the same. Inlet powers both. infrastructure may vary, but both begin as HD signal.
I just got an invite to Clicker.com and think it’s the most impressive new site I’ve seen since Hulu. The interface is beautiful and it makes it extremely easy to find shows all over the Web.
I also wanted to comment on Clicker, they’re not making content, but they’re making content a whole lot easier to find.
What about Tubemogul? They have been killing it lately with in-stream analytics.
I’d also include Kaltura. They appear to be the leading open source video management platform, at least in the U.S., and they’re getting a lot of design wins. They integrate well with Drupal and WordPress, and the price for the software starts at zero.
Great list, Liz!
A company I hope you’ll also eyeball for future lists like this is Retrofit Films, digital production company, directors of the recent Sprint/NBC Heroes “tagged media” integrated web series campaign who also produced and directed the teaser web series for The CW’s Vampire Diaries and the animated web series for the The CW’s Smallville entitled Kara & The Chronicles of Krypton, among many others.
We’ve worked pretty closely with the major networks and studios to date, although we wouldn’t say that’s our only niche.
Thanks!
Thanks Todd — I’ll ping you on email.
Life sure would be simpler if there was 1 breakout winner… after years of Tivo doing my thinking it’s hard to remember which shows are hulu or netflix or network sites or… sigh. I know it’s the content providers all wanting their cut and afraid of change but I can still whine can’t i? :)
@Scott, Robert, Len and Whit — Thanks for the suggestions, we definitely considered all of those. I’d say they are each a little earlier in the process than competitors we chose for the list. No doubt they are promising companies, but perhaps next year they will get their due.