Online Video: 2007 Year In Review

According this post, YouTube.com continued to lead the field of video contenders in December, commanding 52.3% market share with 238M Visits on 59M Unique Visitors, up 6.1% from November and 40% since December, 2006. The overall online video market, which consists of Compete’s classification of over 50 sites and subdomains serving video to US-based visitors, grew 7.4% for the month.

I assume 2008 will have more new competitors, especially from all those interactive videos providers like Asterpix, VideoClix, Viddler, Overlay.tv, Ooyala, etc. (Although some of those are not in the end-user online video space)

Original post here

Ooyala raises $8.5M for new way to advertise in video

Ooyala, a platform for video delivery and advertising, has raised $8.5 million in second-round funding led by Sierra Ventures, the company announced on its blog this week. That brings Ooyala’s total funding to $10 million, according to founder Bismarck Lepe.

More profoundly, though, Ooyala analyzes the video for recognizable objects – famous actors, for example, or sports players, or things as banal as a chair or a piece of fruit. Ooyala can then offer up to the viewer other clips or information about the objects — such as other movies the actor may have played in, or the game statistics of an athlete. Similarly, targeted advertisements can be shown, embedded directly within the video. Ooyala can detect what parts of a video are fast-forwarded through by a viewer or which parts are rewound and watched again. This behavioral data can also help direct advertising to viewers based on their interests and habits. More of Ooyala’s features can be found in this article from BusinessWeek.

Ooyala charges eight cents per hour of video it processes for viewing. Backlot was launched last November.

In an interview with VentureBeat today, Ooyala co-founder Bismarck Lepe claimed that Backlot has more than 4,000 customers and about 200 active users that make daily posts. This includes sites like Comedy.com and VOIG.com. Lepe also stated that Ooyala will soon be announcing major deals with several studios and “a couple of networks.”

(quoted from VentueBeat and newteevee)

Asterpix Pro, Ooyala & the Interactive Video Marketing Market

Great post about couple startups in the interactive video marketing segment. Asterpix, Ooyala, VideoClix, Viddler, SeenOn had been mentioned.

“Asterpix and Ooyala are undoubtedly ahead of the rest of the hypervideo or interactive video services, like Videoclix, Viddler, SeenON, etc.”

You could click here to view more details.