Three online video startups announced a partnership this morning that will allow users to edit their videos on Eyespot and publish with a single click to Blip.tv and Veoh. This sounds like a smart move for all involved as editing and remixing ups the ante on features for video sharing. Partnering with another startup already providing the service may make more sense that building it into an existing feature set. Hopefully the partnership will mean a deep integration between Eyespot and the other companies; more than a distribution partnership, a technology partnership would be really interesting.
New York City’s Blip.tv was selected to provide the underlying technology for CNN’s user generated video section, CNN Exchange, launched last month.
San Diego based Veoh provides 10 minute flash previews of long videos that can be downloaded in their full length through the company’s peer to peer desktop client. The company announced an undisclosed amount of funding from Shelter Capital Partners last week and has also received funds from Spark Catial, the Torante Company and Time Warner.
San Diego’s Eyespot allows drag and drop video editing online and positions its site as a community for remixing videos uploaded for that purpose. Competitor JumpCut offers similar functionality and has a small promotional partnership with Fox Atomic, an arm of Twentieth Century Fox. The company has received angel funding from Michael Robertson, the man behind MP3.com, Gizmo Project, Ajax Launch and countless other projects.
Eyespot currently limits file upload to 50 MB and it will be interesting to see if when these partnerships take form that limit is lifted for Blip and Veoh users. The prospect of contributors to CNN’s Exchange being able to quickly edit their submissions before submitting them is interesting, though CNN may be more interested in unedited footage.
This is a smart move that will help each of these companies offer a fundamentally compelling feature that the big sites simply hosting video do not.