Ooyala Launches Video Paywall Powered By PayPal


Video publishing platform Ooyala is launching a new product today, called Ooyala Paywall. The feature is exactly what it sounds like. Ooyala Paywall, which is powered by PayPal, allows publishers to implement a payment system to allow visitors view their videos.

Ooyala, which just raised $22 million in funding, specializes in hosting videos for large corporate and media clients, such as the Telegraph Media Group, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Dell and General Mills. Now clients can turn on a paywall for videos, allowing viewers can use PayPal to pay directly in their browser screen. A number of Ooyala customers, including LATV Networks and Sportfive, are already testing the PayPal-powered paywall.

Bismarck Lepe, President of Product at Oooyala, says the experience aims to be similar to paying for videos in the iTunes and the YouTube video store. It doesn’t appear that the company is using PayPal’s new Micropayments product, which is set to launch next week at the payment giant’s developer conference. The new product will include specialized payment support for micropayments for online video, music, games (including the sale of virtual goods and currencies), paid content, books and software.

Ooyala’s paywall is integrated directly within the video player. Publishers can set a free preview duration before the paywall appears to give viewers a taste of content, set the price per view, set the rental period and set the number of times a view can watch a video after the payment is made. Publishers can also choose to syndicate content to other sites.