Tony Dunaif, VP of content partnerships at Brightcove, has no opinion, really, about Blip.tv. If you don’t believe me, just ask Tony, who told the audience at the New York video 2.0 meetup last night “I have no opinion, really, about Blip.tv.” To which the audience responded “booooo!” and to which MC Yaron Samid (pictured) added “Careful now, New York loves its Blip.”
That much is true. Found out the other day my accountant is also the accountant for Blip. Seriously. What a small, small island of 8 million people I live on.
But this post isn’t about Blip, it’s about the other four companies that presented last night at the meetup. First up was Payoneer which, despite having a cheesy, pun-ful name, also has an interesting biz model: Using prepaid MasterCard debit cards to help Web sites pay its users. Payoneer’s example du jour last night was Metacafe which, with its Producer Rewards program, is paying video uploaders $5 per 1,000 views. With Payoneer, Metacafe can send producers a debit card preloaded with their winnings.
Following Payoneer was On2 Technologies, which demonstrated its Flix Publisher — a browser plug-in that lets you transcode video to flash before you upload the file to a video-sharing site. The plug-in — an ActiveX control if you use Internet Explorer — also allows you to clip out and transcode only a portion of the video for upload. There’s no server-side GUI for site owners, just (as I understand it) a few javascript files that let you modify bit rate, video size and other options. On2 is also planning to release a webcam plug-in that will allow you to live transcode video to Flash. It expects to release that plugin within the next 60 days.
After On2 came Kenny Miller, creative director for global digital media at MTV, who demonstrated the-n.com, a social media and video site for 13-to 19-year-olds. Cool app #1: The Masher, a drag-and-drop tool that lets you splice together video, stills, graphic and music to create show promos. Use it once, it’ll show you how easy it is to create that patina of professionalism (provided you have access to professional media).
Cool app #2: Community-based pop-up video, an unreleased feature for the-n.com that will let you comment in real-time, with your friends, while watching a video. Miller said the site will let you limit your interaction to everyone in the chat room watching the video, or just to people on your friends list. If I’m not mistaken, Joost will offer that kind of chat experience as well.
Brightcove’s Tony Dunaif was the final presenter, and he ran through how to build a channel on Brightcove. Not much new information in the presentation, the same stuff Jackson covered earlier this week.
Concerning advertising, however, Dunaif did say that an independent producer channel needed to have views in the “hundreds of thousands” before it would be considered an option for Brightcove’s larger advertisers. Dunaif also said his company is finding that video ad pods, in which an ad is both overlaid on the video and appears as a banner beside the video player, are quickly becoming the most effective advertising option.
If you’re interested in attending the New York video 2.0 meetups, check them out here.
{"source":"https:\/\/gigaom.com\/2007\/03\/29\/nyc-video-scene-blip-you-you-blippin-blip\/wijax\/49e8740702c6da9341d50357217fb629","varname":"wijax_95bd387bee8aa1eac11ca15d77265fec","title_element":"header","title_class":"widget-title","title_before":"%3Cheader%20class%3D%22widget-title%22%3E","title_after":"%3C%2Fheader%3E"}