Tennis anyone? You have to love this. Realtime event coverage startup Livestream recently brought commercial-free, streaming coverage of New Year’s Eve in Times Square to the Web. If you caught more than a few minutes of network TV coverage of NYE, you would have been subjected to the ungodly number (and frequency) of ads. Livestream’s commercial-free coverage was a welcome respite.
This morning, Ooyala, one of the biggest web video and analytics providers, is volleying back with some live coverage of its own. The startup has partnered with Tennis Australia (the governing body of tennis within Australia) to bring free live coverage of the first major tennis tournament of the year to people around the globe. → Read More
It may come as no surprise, but Americans are watching more and more online video. In fact, they’re practically jonesin’ for it. According to comScore’s numbers, 182 million Americans watched online video content in September (for an average of 19.5 hours per viewer), while the U.S. video audience tallied a total of 39.8 billion video views. But what may be a bit more surprising is the extent to which people are now watching their video on tablets.
From Ooyala’s study comes a number of interesting interesting conclusions. First and foremost, tablets are seeing a significantly higher level of engagement in online video viewing, as tablet viewers watch longer than viewers of desktops or mobile devices. For each minute watched on a desktop, tablets recorded “1:17 in played content”, which works out to 28 percent longer than the desktop average. → Read More
After announcing a slew of new features on Facebook, video publishing platform Ooyala is announcing another bit of news today—a new investor. The venture arm of Motorola Mobility, which Google is in the process of acquiring for $12.5 billion, has made a strategic investment in Ooyala. Financial terms of the investment were not disclosed.
Ooyala specializes in hosting videos for large corporate and media clients, such as the Telegraph Media Group, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Dell, General Mills, ESPN and TechCrunch. In total, Ooyala has more than 1,000 customers that are delivering over one billion streams to over 100 million consumers per month. → Read More
Video publishing platform Ooyala is adding a social component to its videos today with the launch of Ooyala Social, a new HD-quality Social TV experience that brings video sharing and and viewing to Facebook.
Ooyala specializes in hosting videos for large corporate and media clients, such as the Telegraph Media Group, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Dell, General Mills, ESPN and TechCrunch. Now these content owners can use Ooyala Social to make premium on-demand and live video available on Facebook via rentals, subscriptions, purchases, and and more. → Read More
Today, Mountain View-based Ooyala, the fast-growing online video services provider, is announcing that it has landed a big content partner: The so-called “worldwide leader in sports”, ESPN. Those avid sports fans among us may have noticed some changes in the look and speed of videos on ESPN.com. Over the last few weeks, Ooyala has begun integrating its video technology into ESPN’s website, and is now officially powering all of the sports media behemoth’s streaming video content. → Read More
If you have been watching TechCrunch TV interviews lately, you may have noticed the videos are much sharper, crisper and much higher quality. The reason: we’ve gone HD. We are now using a new workflow with HD cameras and HD video switcher. Our shows from New York (Fly or Die and Founder Stories) have always been produced in HD at AOL Studios. But, now our San Francisco studio has gotten the upgrade.
You might be saying, “Wait a minute, high definition today means 720 or 1080 lines of resolution. I’m only watching the videos on a smaller-than-HD window on the TechCrunch website or smartphone. That’s not HD, so what’s the point.” Well, there is a big point. → Read More
I loathe press releases like this one from Ooyala, who I must say is our trusted video platform provider in the interest of full disclosure. I’m singling the company out today, because I’m quite fed up, but this is an honest plea for every company that loves to tout growth without saying anything substantial to, please, stop doing that.
So apparently Ooyala “grew revenue by nearly 200%, its customer base by over 50%, and delivered a record number of video technology innovations”.
Sounds impressive, except the statement says absolutely nothing about its revenues, the size of its customer base or what the company has done to innovate video technology. → Read More
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. → Read More
Advertisers are not the only ones plowing money into the online video space with gusto, you can add large, international investors to that growing list.
This morning, Ooyala announced a $22 million Series D round, led by the CID Group (Shanghai-based venture capital firm) and ITOCHU Technology Ventures (venture unit of the Tokyo-based ITOCHU). The round, which includes previous investors like Sierra Ventures and Rembrandt Venture Partners, puts the video publishing platform at $42 million raised since its 2007 launch. And according to CEO Jay Fulcher, the company is not done. In order to accommodate robust demand (the latest round was over-subscribed), Ooyala will take on additional investors later this year in a second closing.
Impressive numbers but it’s not just about the money. For Ooyala, saddling up with CID and ITOCHU also represents a highly strategic move, as the company tries to expand its footprint in Asia. “It was a conscious point on our part to chose investors who had great ecosystems to leverage throughout Asia,” Fulcher told TechCrunch. “We are doubling down in Asia.” → Read More
Premium streaming video service Ooyala, serving such influential media properties as Fremantle Media, Vice Magazine, Glam Media, Electronic Arts as well as yours truly, today announces its plan to expand its operations to Australia. To helm this initiative, the company has appointed former Adobe executive John Treloar as Managing Director for the Australia and New Zealand region.
Founded by former Googlers, Ooyala’s “killer app” is the simplicity of its “Backlot” video platform as well as its souped up analytics for content managers and advertisers. → Read More
Ooyala, a video platform for publishers, is testing a pay per view product with ABC for at least one show, we’ve learned. ABC’s 10 things I hate about you currently shows a 2 minute preview on the ABC Family website, and then displays a message that the full episode can be purchased for $0.99.
Paypal is the only pay option. If you click on it, a confirmation page pops up clearly showing that the payment is being made to Ooyala, not ABC. There are no commercials during the episode.
This is not a product that Ooyala currently offers that we know of, and we’ve reached out to the company for comment. Screenshots below: → Read More
When Steve Jobs tells the technology industry to get in line, it gets in line pretty quick. All the initial hair-pulling and angst surrounding Apple’s decision to not support Flash on the iPad is already mattering less and less. At least for video, most of the major online video platforms such as Brightcove and Ooyala are supporting HTML5 playback in the iPad browser. YouTube might eventually get there as well.
Now Kyte is jumping on the HTML5 bandwagon. Kyte videos will stream in an HTML5 player in the iPad browser using the same embed code that triggers a Flash player on other computers. But Kyte is also going to release a software developer kit (SDK) which will let its media partners create apps specifically for the iPad. The SDK will also let them create versions of the same apps for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. This will replace the iPhone framework Kyte released last year. → Read More
Just because the iPad won’t support Flash doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to watch any videos on the highly anticipated Apple device. Video platform company Ooyala, for one, this morning said it will support full video delivery to iPad when it launches on April 3rd.
The company added that its integration with iPad will help newspaper and magazine publishers create engaging experiences for their readers. → Read More
Which online video companies will get bought in 2010? Venture capitalists are desperately looking for exits while the usual suspects are sitting on more than $80 billion in cash: Microsoft ($20B), Apple ($40B), Google ($15B), Amazon ($3B), and Yahoo! ($3B) just to name the cash positions of a few potential acquirers. Theoretically, it should be a match made in heaven, but the sheer number of venture-backed video startups is staggering so when the music stops, not everyone will find a dancing partner.
Once you assess what drives companies to merge or acquire one another, however, it seems like we’re about to enter a period of mergers between video competitors and see a series of acquisitions by larger companies looking to accelerate their video strategies, with a common theme being increasing both monetization and margins.
With that in mind, let’s look at those 10 potential deals. → Read More
I sat down with Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week to talk about his business.
Brightcove isn’t the sexiest startup out there. They’re a video platform – giving websites the tools they need to host and stream video, for a fee ranging from $100/month to “six figures per year” for the largest customers. For the most part users never see the Brightcove brand. And Allaire is just fine with that. He just wants happy customers.
The company launched in 2005, has raised just over $90 million in venture capital, and is approaching profitability, he says. Allaire says he wants to build a public company, and is happy being based in Boston.
The full video is below. → Read More
Ooyala, a US-based provider of video platform applications and services, and Telegraph Media Group (TMG) are today announcing that they have signed an agreement for Ooyala to power online video on the publisher’s websites, which includes news site Telegraph.co.uk.
In addition, Ooyala and TMG’s “Euston Project” team will co-develop new technologies to improve the way information is delivered and consumed online. → Read More
Reality Digital, a provider of white-label social media platforms for brands, is introducing a new spin-off service today called Spotlight. With the new offering, the company makes its entry into the market of online video management and distribution platforms.
This is growing into quite a saturated field with players like Ooyala, Brightcove, MIG69 and Swarmcast fighting hard for pieces of the pie. → Read More
Last month we reported that Silicon Valley based Ooyala, a service that manages video streaming for websites, was looking for a new CEO to take the business to the next level. Today they’ll be announcing that new CEO – former Agile Software CEO Jay Fulcher is now the CEO of Ooyala, and his first day on the job was today.
Founding CEO Bismarck Lepe will remain on board as President of Product Strategy.
From my post last month: → Read More
Silicon Valley based Ooyala, a service that manages video streaming for websites, hit an important milestone last month – positive cash flow. The company was founded by ex Googlers Bismarck Lepe, Sean Knapp and Belsasar Lepe in 2007 and has raised just $10 million in funding.
And now they’re considering the hire of a new CEO, we’ve confirmed. Bismarck Lepe, the current CEO, says he’s actually been looking for his replacement for the last year. This isn’t being driven by the venture investor, Sierra Ventures, he says. And in fact the founding team retains stock and board of directors voting control, making their consent a requirement of any CEO change. Lepe just feels as though he isn’t necessarily the guy to take the company to the next level, whatever that may be. So he’s retained a search firm to find someone better than him to run Ooyala.
The company is certainly doing well. We first covered them in late 2008 and they already had big name customers like National Geographic, TV Guide, AOL, and Warner Brothers. Today, Lepe says, they stream 250,000 – 350,000 hours of video a day through partners. One Michael Jackson video last week racked up 70 million views in just 36 hours. → Read More
