TokBox, a Sequoia-backed startup that offers tools for quickly integrating video functionality into apps and websites, is launching a new feature today for its OpenTok suite of video APIs: video recording and archiving.

You may remember TokBox as the service that let users quickly jump into live video chats with each other, sort of like a web-based Skype video. But that changed this past February, when TokBox shuttered its struggling consumer-facing products and decided to focus exclusively on a set of video-focused APIs, storage, and streaming features collectively called the OpenTok platform.

Obviously giving users the ability to record, save, and share video clips isn’t a new idea — people do it every day on sites like YouTube and Facebook — but the new video archiving API makes it relatively easy for other sites to integrate their own custom solutions. You can see a live implementation on Causes here, where the site is using the OpenTok platform to let users add video introductions to their Wishes (screenshot above).

TokBox is also launching TokBooth, which is a plug-and-play version of this video record/archive functionality, for sites that don’t need the same level of customization afforded by the API.

This is the second major set of features to launch on the OpenTok platform; the first is a live video chat API, which lets sites integrate their own video conferencing services. Video archiving will also be TokBox’s first paid feature — it’s free for now (and likely through the end of the year), but will later cost $20/month and up, depending on your bandwidth and storage usage.

Crunchbase

• TOKBOX

Company: TokBox

Website: tokbox.com

Launch Date: May 2007

Funding: $26M

TokBox is a leading multi-way Web video communications provider. The company has two products: OpenTok API, and OpenTok Plug-n-Play apps The OpenTok API is a game-changing new platform that enables anyone with a Web presence to weave live, group video conversations into their online experience. OpenTok Plug-n-Play apps are off-the-shelf solutions that allow you to quickly embed video chat in your Web site, blog, or favorite social network.

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