Sometimes it feels that the likes of Brightcove and Ooyala, and their myriad competitors, are something of a hammer to crack a nut in the world of enterprise video platforms. To small and medium sized firms these players can appear pretty expensive and complex in their pricing, so smaller businesses often grudgingly revert to cheap or free consumer platforms like YouTube where the the constraints don’t suit enterprises. It’s a little like the days when online publishing was ruled by CMS systems like Interwoven, before platforms like Typepad and WordPress came along. So a new video platform launches today with the aim of bringing a simpler, all-you-can-eat pricing and service package which could well attract a lot of firms.
The 23Video startup has come up with it’s own technology platform to allow companies to create a full, out-of-the-box video site, mapped to your own domain, with a branded videoplayer for $675 a month, which includes 1 Terabyte of traffic (equivalent to an average of 160,000 videos a month). Extra traffic is $250 per TB. While Ooyala offers a $500/month package, you need to contact their sales people. And the same sales process happens over at Brightcove, where your $99 / mo will get you just 50 Videos and 40 GB of bandwidth, though they do have a credit-card-driven Express option. With 23Video the process is pretty easy and cards are also accepted.
Co-founders Steffen Tiedemann Christensen and Thomas Madsen-Mygdal, came up with the idea after launching a Denmark focused competitor to flickr. You can imagine how that turned out, so he and his team have rightly realised that going international early is perhaps a better idea.
23Video has been busy setting up deals prior to launch, and it’s out of the gate with 100+ global partners, many of them agencies selling the service on to clients, although clearly the clients will soon cotton on how to do it themselves. Some examples include kgiteater, kilroy, and Carlsberg.
Will they end up with a lot of porn merchants? I doubt it. Online video is actually destroying the porn business right now.
The platform will deliver HD video, analytics, templates and design module, distribution (via Facebook, Twitter, podcasting or Youtube), optimisation for mobile phones and iPads/iPhones, paaywall and intranet integration, and a full API allowing easy integration with other systems such as sharepoint. Users will also be able to run their own adverts as 23Video comes intergated with video ad platform Videoplaza.
The company is privately held and has no venture backing right now.
