Platform addresses new reality of pervasive video on the Web
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., October 14, 2008-Brightcove Inc. today announced the general availability of the Brightcove 3 online video platform, which transforms the way video is published and consumed on the Web. Built from the ground up, the new platform empowers website producers to be successful in the era of pervasive video.
"Video has gone from being a consumer-driven entertainment experience on the Web to being a basic feature of any professional website across all media and corporate sectors," said Jeremy Allaire, Brightcove chairman and chief executive officer. "While online video is becoming ubiquitous, one size does not fit all. Built as an extensible SaaS application, Brightcove 3 provides tremendous flexibility to online publishers to meet the needs of the full spectrum of different end-user scenarios."
Today, online media businesses and marketers need to do more than just put video on websites. Organizations need scale, efficiency, reach and audience engagement to operate successful online video initiatives. To address this, Brightcove 3 has four major new areas of functionality that provide tremendous flexibility to online publishers:
- Workflow - New media management and publishing tools that can be used by everyone from small businesses to the largest media companies in the world to vastly accelerate the publishing workflow
- Player Framework - Breakthrough new way to create and publish Flash-based online video players that are easily customized and tailored to the needs of a website and brand and are further extended through third party technology and services
- Media APIs - Rich suite of APIs that enable a new contextual publishing model, allowing producers to tightly integrate video with other editorial content and social media for improved SEO and increased viewer engagement and ad inventory
- Dynamic Delivery - Powerful new way of dynamically adjusting the bit rate of the video streams to ensure the highest quality video given the user's bandwidth conditions
Brightcove 3 is an open platform designed to ease integration with third-party Web technologies. The company plans to fuel further innovation in online video and rich media publishing through its fast-growing ecosystem of development partners and services. These companies add to the flexibility of Brightcove 3 by giving customers more ways to address their unique challenges and needs.
Brightcove 3 has enabled Showtime Networks to launch ad-supported video clips as well as offer full-screen, broadcast-quality access to its award-winning programming on Sho.com.
"We were one of the earliest users of Brightcove 3, as we are constantly looking to evolve our online video offerings to create the best user experience possible," said Rob Hayes, senior vice president and general manager of Showtime Digital Media. "We immediately recognized the value of infusing video throughout all the components of our website to help improve SEO and increase viewer engagement. This strategy has paid off, with a 200 percent growth in page views within two months of launching and continued strong results."
Lifetime Networks was another early Brightcove 3 beta customer and has seen solid results since rolling out the new platform in June.
"Since launching phase one of our video platform with Brightcove 3, our video streams have increased 158 percent," said Evan Silverman, senior vice president, digital media, at Lifetime Networks. "The new platform makes our video content more visible to search engines and we are looking forward to phase two of the project and leveraging more of Brightcove 3's APIs to continue to grow our online video business."
FEARnet, a Video on Demand service owned by Comcast, uses Brightcove 3 to publish clips and feature-length movies on its website.
"Brightcove provides an exceptional platform for FEARnet.com to maximize the user experience and provide our extensive community of fans with the highest broadcast quality video available online," said FEARnet president Diane Robina. "With this recent partnership, Brightcove further enables us to offer a scalable, flexible and commercial grade video platform to increase our engagement with consumers."
Canoe Inc., which is owned by Quebecor Media, is launching a new video initiative across many of its online properties, including its Internet television portal, Canoe.TV.
"We truly believe we chose the best technology partner to support our online video needs," said Dominique-Sebastien Forest, general manager, digital media and e-commerce at Canoe. "Brightcove 3 is simply in a different class from other platforms when it comes to user experience, ad formats and search engine optimization."
Rainbow Media is leveraging Brightcove 3 to extend its online video capabilities across its wide range of network websites.
"We're always looking for ways to enhance the online user experience and are excited by the Brightcove 3 platform, particularly the Dynamic Delivery capabilities which support our ability to provide broadcast-quality online video across all of our websites," said Rainbow Media's Michael Cagnazzi, VP, Product Development, Digital Media.
Sun Microsystems has also tapped Brightcove's platform to provide Sun's corporate website producers with full access to the Brightcove online video platform for managing video content, publishing video players and accessing reports on viewing behavior.
"Using the network to market and to bring a richer content experience to our customers and communities is what we strive to do. We are continually looking for new and better ways to build our community interactions and to enhance the online experience of our developers, customers, partners, students and employees. Sun uses online video extensively for product education, corporate communications, and product launches through Channel Sun, our newly launched multimedia online experience," said Ingrid Van Den Hoogen, senior vice president, Brand, Global Communications and Integrated Marketing, Sun Microsystems. "Brightcove 3 has enabled Sun to bring new video content to market quickly, while also giving all of our audiences a framework to extend the video experience with other website applications that help us build community and drive traffic."
Brightcove 3 will be offered in three different pricing and packaging options: Basic, Pro and Enterprise to meet the online video publishing and distribution needs of any size organization or business strategy. For more information, visit http://www.brightcove.com.
About Brightcove
Brightcove is an online video platform. Media companies, businesses and organizations worldwide use Brightcove to publish and distribute video on the Web. Founded in 2004, Brightcove is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business with offices across North America, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit http://www.brightcove.com.
Press Contacts
North America
Erika Shaffer
SutherlandGold Group for Brightcove
206-972-5514
erika@sutherlandgold.com
Nate Hermes
SutherlandGold Group for Brightcove
415-706-5678
Nathan@sutherlandgold.com
Europe
Stephen Orr
AxiCom for Brightcove
+44 20 8392 4056
stephen.orr@axicom.com