In This Update:
• AOL Buys News/Blog Contextual Search Firm Sphere
• Ubisoft Buys India Video Game Development Studio
• Nokia Launches New Phone with Electronic Wallet
• Local TV Station Owners Push Mobile TV
• Google TV Ads Set to Launch Soon
• Hulu Partners with Signiant for Content Management Software
• Twitter Testing Advertising In Twitter Streams
• YouTube Increases Dominance, Up 32% Year-over-Year
• Video Streaming Firm Move Networks Raises $46 Million Third Round
• Visible World Gets $25 Million Series C for Targeted Video Ads
• Google Maps Adds YouTube Video
• Mobile Social Networking Service Mobango Raises $5.7 Million Second Round
• PermissionTV Takes $3 Million In Venture Debt
• Revision3 and VideoClix Partner for Hyperlinked Video
• Tremor Media Launches ‘Acudeo’ Video Monetization Platform
AOL Buys News/Blog Contextual Search Firm Sphere
PAIDCONTENT
AOL (NYSE: TWX) has bought out Sphere, a blog and news contextual display service, for an undisclosed amount. The startup operates in a crowded contextual content display space with competition from the likes of Inform, AggregateKnowledge and many others. Sphere will be part of the company’s programming division, under Bill Wilson. The company, co-founded in 2005 by Tony Conrad, raised about $4 million in venture funding from the likes of Hearst Publishing, Trident Capital, True Ventures (where Conrad remains a partner) and About.com founder Scott Kurnit. Since its start, it has refreshed its business model a few times, from being a blog search engine (a business blackhole till now) to a contextual content service provider for bigger sites such as WSJ.com, Time.com and others.
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Ubisoft Buys India Video Game Development Studio
REUTERS
Ubisoft Entertainment SA, Europe’s largest video games publisher, said on Tuesday it has agreed to acquire an India-based video game development studio from Gameloft. The studio, which is based in Pune, India, has a team of 120 developers and testers. Ubisoft aims to raise that headcount to 200 developers in a year’s time and to 500 in the coming years, it said in a statement. The company gave no financial details of the deal.
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Nokia Launches New Phone with Electronic Wallet
REUTERS
Nokia, the world’s top cellphone maker, said on Tuesday it would start selling a new handset, the 6212 Classic, with integrated Near Field Communication (NFC). NFC allows users to share content by connecting two phones which can receive audio files and other downloads from service providers simultaneously. The phone can also be used for payments. The 6212 Classic, which includes a camera and a music player, is expected to launch in the third quarter for about 200 euros ($316) before subsidies and taxes, Nokia said.
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Local TV Station Owners Push Mobile TV
AP via PHYSORG
Owners of more than 800 local TV stations where ad revenue has plunged recently said they’ve formed a group that’s testing three standards for sending local digital TV signals to cell phones, laptops and other mobile devices. The Open Mobile Video Coalition said at the National Association of Broadcasters meeting in Las Vegas that it will push for an open standard by next year that would allow members to bypass cell phone companies and tap into what they think will be a $2 billion market for mobile advertising. The station owners say transmitting directly to mobile devices would give them a third means of delivering local programming – and capturing revenue – along with broadcasting to TVs and streaming it on station-owned Web sites.
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Google TV Ads Set to Launch Soon
MULTICHANNEL
Soon, anyone with an Internet connection will be able to buy a TV spot – on any one of 94 networks, including A&E Network, Bravo, CNBC, CNN, Discovery, ESPN, Fox News Channel and MTV – delivered to any of Dish Network customers’ 14 million set-top boxes. Google has been running its TV Ads service in a closed trial, with advertisers by invitation only, since last June. The service sells 15- and 30-second slots in Dish’s local advertising inventory, in online auctions that close 24 hours before air. Now in the next few weeks, the search giant will make the service publicly available to anyone who signs up online, said Keval Desai, Google TV Ads product-management director. “We want to open up the floodgates,” Desai said, adding the actual launch date is still a moving target.
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Hulu Partners with Signiant for Content Management Software
BROADCASTING & CABLE
Signiant, a provider of software-based systems that manage the distribution of digital-media content over diverse networks, announced that Hulu, the Web-video joint venture of NBC Universal and News Corp., is using its software to aggregate TV shows, feature films and clips. Signiant, which has already been used for more than one year by NBC to manage the flow of news and entertainment content between its multiple properties, is now used by Hulu to manage fast, automated uploads of content from its network of content providers. Hulu first began using Signiant prior to its beta launch in November 2007 to move its premium digital content into its library, and it now uses the software on a daily basis. The Signiant software allows Hulu to prioritize bandwidth utilization based upon available network capacity and the time-sensitivity of the content, and also provide automated notification of delivery to interested parties.
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Twitter Testing Advertising In Twitter Streams
TECHCRUNCH
Twitter was down tonight, nothing really unusual for the San Francisco based startup, but what was different is some reports of users spotting ads in their Twitter stream during the service difficulties, which may indicate testing only in preparation for a broad-scale rollout Twitter has long been the poster child for the often controversial Valley mantra of build an audience first, and the business model will follow that has been copied by Seesmic and others.
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YouTube Increases Dominance, Up 32% Year-over-Year
NEWTEEVEE
YouTube grabbed 73.18 percent of all U.S. visits to online video sites in March, representing a 32 percent year-over-year increase, according to new data from Hitwise. Also gobbling up our eyeballs during March was Hulu, which made climbed to number 22 despite it being public for just half of the month. While YouTube continues to ride high, the online video category overall slumped from 7 percent of all U.S. Internet visits in March of 2007 down to 1 percent in 2008.
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Video Streaming Firm Move Networks Raises $46 Million Third Round
PAIDCONTENT
Move Networks, the heavily-backed provider of high quality online video streaming, has raised a huge $46 million third round led by Benchmark Capital, as well as Cisco (NSDQ: CSCO), Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA) Interactive Media (a division of Comcast Corp.), and Televisa. Previous backers Steamboat Ventures (Disney) and Hummer Winblad Venture Partners also participated. The raise includes some previously reported funding, biring the total haul to about $68 million. The American Fork, Utah-based company touts a higher level of quality than other video providers, including HD, and it claims to be able to eliminate buffering. Among its customers are ABC and ESPN.
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Visible World Gets $25 Million Series C for Targeted Video Ads
MEDIAPOST
With all eyes on targeting and monetization, technology provider Visible World has secured another $25 million in a series C round of financing. Led by new investors Adams Street Partners and AllianceBernstein, Visible World will use the capital to support new demand following a year of strong growth and first-class partnerships. Existing investors Comcast Interactive Capital, Dawntreader Ventures, Grey Ventures, Leucadia National, Marketing Services Risk Surety, Time Warner and Viacom all participated fully in this latest funding round. Since its founding in 2000, the New York-based Visible World has grown on the strength of its IntelliSpot system, which enables advertisers to simply and inexpensively create custom versions of TV commercials targeted to discrete cable viewers.
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Google Maps Adds YouTube Video
NEWTEEVEE
Google Maps now offers embeddable videos from YouTube, giving local businesses a new way to show off their goods. Companies listed in Google’s Local Business Center can upload a video to YouTube and have it associated with their expanded listing in Google Maps. Now, local businesses can offer virtual tours of their facilities, post product demos, or any small company can essentially put up its own TV commercial. Google Earth added YouTube video last year, so this expansion to maps is no surprise.
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Mobile Social Networking Service Mobango Raises $5.7 Million Second Round
VENTURECAPITAL UPDATE
Mobango received $5.7 Million in series B funding from Innogest Capital and Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures. Mobango is a mobile social network. They claim almost 3 million registered users coming from countries such as the UK, USA, India and South Africa. The service lets users create, upload, store, convert, share and play all sort of content for mobile devices. The service can be accessed both by PC and by mobile phone.
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PermissionTV Takes $3 Million In Venture Debt
PAIDCONTENT
PermissionTV, the provider of online video services, has taken $3 million in venture debt from BlueCrest Capital Finance. The Waltham, MA-based company has previously raised at least $18 million through traditional VC investments. The company offers customers, like FHM Magazine and the Boston Symphony Orchestra a platform for bringing their video content online. It’s not clear why the company opted to go the venture debt round, or what the funding is for, other than vague “(to) gain more ground in the rapidly growing enterprise digital video distribution market.
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Revision3 and VideoClix Partner for Hyperlinked Video
MASHABLE
Hyperlinked, interactive video hasn’t been fully immersed as a branding or advertising tool with larger (or small) video networks just yet, but Revision3 is hoping to change all that, with a new partnership with VideoClix.tv. The Revision3 video network is launching its new clickable content with Diggnation. VideoClix is another to emerge into the exploratory realm of hyerlinked videos for branding and advertising purposes, more similar to Overlay.tv than most of the other emergents in this field. The result of a VideoClix-enhanced clip is like PopUp Video-on a sidebar. Click on any object in the video and you’ll see additional information to the right, which is presented in a semi-transparent sidebar. It’s within this sidebar that you can also place an ad.
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Tremor Media Launches ‘Acudeo’ Video Monetization Platform
MEDIAPOST
Tremor Media will let web publishers deliver in-stream and overlay video ads from multiple sources in a single dashboard through the latest version of its video ad platform. Sites in Tremor’s network of 800 mostly mid-tier properties, therefore, will be able to run ads sold not only through Tremor, but by their own sales forces and other ad networks. Through its new Acudeo ad system (formerly Ad-inStream), the company aims to offer the same kind of efficiency in selling video ads publishers are accustomed to in selling display ads. Tremor still plans to sell the bulk of video advertising on sites in its network, but will let publishers use Acudeo to place unsold inventory through other ad networks. Sites that don’t use Tremor’s media player can also use Acudeo just to serve ads into their own media players.
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