Showing posts with label Unicorn Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Unicorn Media. Show all posts

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Online Video Conversations: AJ McGowan, Unicorn Media (now Brightcove)

The online video platform leader Brightcove acquired Unicorn Media on January 6, 2014 for $49 million, consisting of approximately 2.9 million shares of Brightcove stock and approximately $9 million in cash. Unicorn Media is a leading video technology platform company specializing in dynamic ad insertion in the cloud. Unicorn Media's key technology is a product called Unicorn Once, that enables dynamic optimization of video content, either live or VOD, across any Internet-connected device through a single URL, and monetize video content by dynamically inserting and analyzing targeted ads through its patented video cloud technology. Unicorn Media was founded in 2007 and made a name for itself within the online video platform space with more than 50 customers in the broadcast TV sector and $5 million in revenue in 2013. Boston-based Brightcove established itself as the first online video platform (OVP), founded by Jeremy Allaire in June 2005, and went public (NASDAQ: BCOV) in February 2012.

I spoke with AJ McGowan, Chief Technical Officer of Unicorn Media at OTTCON 2013, where he discussed Unicorn's product roadmap and customer experience, its perspective on the state of the online video industry, the challenges within the fragmented market, and where Unicorn would be in 2014. With the acquisition,  McGowan will assume of the role of CTO at Brightcove, and Unicorn's video team and its Once technology joins Brightcove's Video Cloud and App Cloud platforms, and Zencoder, a cloud-based encoding platform and open-source HTML5 video player Video.js, acquired by Brightcove on July 26, 2012 for $30 million.



According to McGowan, the online video industry is at a tipping point. "If you were to compare this, for instance, to the conversion from terrestrial broadcast to cable broadcast, we're probably roughly 1978 or maybe the early 80's, so we're definitely in the early days," says McGowan. "There's massive opportunity that's still in front of us and people are experimenting. There's a lot of fragmentation in the marketplace. There's a lot of complex problems, and we solve a lot of those problems."

McGowan admits that all the complexity is actually great for business, and that throughout 2013 we'll continue to see growth. "Particularly now that we're allowing our customers to monetize their content effectively on all platforms," says McGowan. "That spurs those folks forward to actually putting that content on more platforms. I think we'll continue to see lots and lots of organic growth, and I think we're going to see a lot of different models being applied and we're really excited as a back-end technology vendor, because we make it a lot easier for people to experiment and try different things as they build those audiences."

Some of the challenges facing the industry as a whole, as McGowan points out, is in the friction of the monetization process on the business side. A lot of the hard technical problems have been solved, but one of the biggest problems yet to be solved is how to make an optimal experience, from the brands buying the ad all the way out to the consumer and all constituencies in that value chain. But a lot of smart people are working on solutions now that there's real money flowing into the space.

"I think that a big theme that you're going to see in the next 12-18 months, is as more dollars are being added to this business, as it starts to scale up, how do you make it dial tone? There's this expectation from users whether they're paying for content or whether they're consuming it in an ad-supported way, in either case when we're talking about premium content delivered out to massive audiences, it's go to just work," says McGowan.

So looking into the future, it's going to be all about scale. "Scale, scale, scale," McGowan emphasizes. "How do I get to more users in more places in a consistent high-quality broadcast experience."

This interview was recorded at OTTCON March 19-20, 2013.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Online Video Platform Showcase: Kaltura, ClickstreamTV, Unicorn Media, Limelight Networks

As part of the Online Video Platform Summit, six of the leading online video platform providers showcased the features and capabilities in two sponsored sessions over the two-day event. This session features presentations by Ron Yekutiel, Chairman, CEO of Kaltura, Kevin Yahl, President of ClickstreamTV, AJ McGowan, CTO of Unicorn Media, and Edgardo Nazario, VP of Products for Video Platform Solutions of Limelight Networks. While each of these providers have similar offerings, they all differentiate themselves by their video publishing platforms, analytics and monetization features, scalability, integration, pricing, strategy and market presence.

Kaltura is an open source video platform with both a free self-hosted community edition and an enterprise management system and considered one of the top three OVPs in the space along with Brightcove and Ooyala. ClickstreamTV offers an easy to use Do-It-Yourself streaming platform with an affordable entry package starting at $59. Unicorn Media offers scalable solutions that center around simplifying video workflow and syndication. Limelight Networks offers both an online video platform (OVP) and content delivery network (CDN) through its acquisition of Delve Networks. Like many others OVPs, the Limelight Video Platform offers a cloud-based end-to-end solution to manage, deliver, publish and measure viewership.

Watch the video below to and learn about their features and capabilities and visit their websites for more information and a free trial.



Online Video Platform Company Profiles

About Kaltura

Kaltura provides the world's first Open Source Online Video Platform.  Over 100,000 media & entertainment companies, enterprises, SMBs, educational institutions, service providers, platform vendors, and system integrators use Kaltura's flexible platform to enhance their websites, web-services, and web-platforms with advanced customized video, photo and audio functionalities.  Kaltura's features and products enable easy deployment of custom work-flows involving video creation, ingestion, publishing, management, syndication, engagement, monetization and analysis.  The free community-supported self-hosted software and source-code is available for download at www.kaltura.org.  A commercial version of the software can be obtained at www.kaltura.com along with Kaltura services such as streaming, hosting, transcoding, analytics, ad serving, support and maintenance packages, and professional development.  Founded in 2006, New York based Kaltura is a founding member of the 'Open Video Alliance' (www.openvideoalliance.org), a coalition of organizations dedicated to fostering open standards for online video.  For more information: www.kaltura.com, www.kaltura.org and http://exchange.kaltura.com/. Follow Kaltura (kaltura) on Twitter

About ClickStreamTV

The ClickStreamTV system streams On Demand, Live, Pay-2-Watch and Mobile from the same platform. ClickStreamTV, an automated DIY (do-it-yourself) video delivery solution, is a product of Digital One Internet Services Inc., Orland Park, IL. Find out more at www.clickstreamtv.com. ClickStreamTV has emerged as the industry leader in enabling small and medium sized businesses to add video to their web sites. What makes ClickStreamTV different from the competition is how simple it is to use. Using ClickStreamTV enables small to medium size businesses to optimize their marketing dollars and reach new markets with streaming video. The most revolutionary aspect of ClickStreamTV is in our just added 'Mobile Phone Delivery' which allows your video to now be streamed to iPhones and BlackBerry's worldwide. Find out more at www.clickstreamtv.com. Follow ClickStreamTV (ClickStreamTV) on Twitter

About Unicorn Media 

Unicorn Media, Inc. is a digital media management provider that offers solutions that change the way content owners deliver their media assets online. With a focus on publisher profitability, Unicorn lowers the costs of video management and improves revenue generation capabilities through actionable real-time information. Unicorn’s flexible platform architecture enables customers to choose the services that best suit their needs by allowing them to augment their existing system with individual components or by utilizing the entire end-to-end suite of services. With real-time cloud analytics for understanding audiences and dynamic media syndication for delivering content to any Internet-connected device, Unicorn Media has revolutionized the process for running a profitable online media property. Founded by Limelight Networks founding CEO, Bill Rinehart, and headquartered in Tempe, AZ, privately held Unicorn Media, Inc. has offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. For additional information, please visit: http://www.unicornmedia.com. Follow Unicorn Media (UnicornMedia) on Twitter,

About Limelight Networks, Inc.

Limelight Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: LLNW) provides on-demand software, platform and infrastructure services that help global businesses reach and engage audiences on any mobile or Internet-connected device, enabling them to enhance their brand presence, build stronger customer relationships, optimize their advertising, and monetize their digital assets. For more information, please visit http://www.limelightnetworks.com. Follow Limelight Networks (llnw) on Twitter


The Online Video Platform Summit is a two-day event designed to help organizations of all types, not just those for whom video is their core business. Held on November 2-3 in conjunction with
Streaming Media West in Los Angeles, the Online Video Platform Summit is designed for video publishers of all types and sizes, whether small businesses looking to publish content for the first time, independent entertainment content creators, large media organizations, or anywhere in between.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Streamy Awards 2010 Craft Award Winners

UPDATED: Last night the Streamy Awards kicked off the first of its 2010 awards season at the Barnsdall Theatre in Hollywood, California for the 2010 Streamys Craft Awards which was short and sweet and over in 45 minutes. Liz Shannon Miller commemorated the spirit of the event through giving a rundown of the the event through a series of bullet points on NewTeeVee. The Streamy Awards ceremony on Sunday kicks off with a live online Red Carpet Pre-Show starting at 4:00 p.m. PT, broadcast exclusively on Ustream.tv and streamys.org.

The live online broadcast of the Streamy Awards Ceremony, hosted by actor/comedian Paul Scheer, begins at 5:30 p.m. PT on streamys.org. Or, you can download the FREE 2010 Streamy Awards iPhone app and watch it live on your iPhone. The app was developed by Metranome, the Official Mobile Apps Partner of the 2nd Annual Streamy Awards. Check the Streamy Awards blog for updates and be sure to vote for your favorite Audience Choice Award finalist. A full list of all the nominees is here, a big congratulations to all the nominees.

UPDATE 4/10/10: Here's The Web.Files #35 – Streamy Craft Awards, which Web Files’ host, Kristyn Burtt, who is also a Best Web Series Host Streamy Award nominee, gives a NY shout out to the nominees and winners of the craft categories for the 2010 Streamy Awards hosted by Jim Festante.  The Web.Files is a weekly entertainment talk show that exclusively covers the "web celebs” involved in creating the best, most-watched, highest-rated, and most talked about series on the web. The show is created and hosted by entertainment reporter and media host Kristyn Burtt and produced and directed by Sandra J Payne.



Without further ado, here are the 2010 Craft Award winners...

Overall Series

Best Reality or Documentary Web Series
The Secret Life of Scientists

Best Foreign Web Series
OzGirl

Best New Web Series
Odd Jobs

Best Companion Web Series
The Office: Subtle Sexuality

Best Experimental Web Series
Auto-Tune the News

Technical Categories

Best Editing in a Web Series
The Bannen Way (Zack Arnold)

Best Cinematography in a Web Series
Riese (Christopher Charles Kempinski)

Best Art Direction in a Web Series
Green Porno (Rick Gilbert)

Best Sound Design in a Web Series
Fear Clinic Fear Clinic (Kunal Rajan)

Best Visual Effects in a Web Series
Fear Clinic (Jason Bergman, Nicholas Onstad, Bethany Onstad, Jason Knetge, Erik Porn, Ikuo Saito, David Dang)

Best Animation in a Web Series
theGoob (Magnus Jansson)

Best Original Music in a Web Series
Auto-Tune the News (Evan Gregory, Andrew Gregory, Michael Gregory)

Best Live Production in a Web Series
Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show

Best Interactive Experience in a Web Series
Valemont

Best Product Integration in a Web Series
Easy to Assemble (IKEA)

Best Mobile Experience in a Web Series
Valemont U

In other Streamy Awards news, Chad Hurley, co-founder and CEO of YouTube, has been selected by the International Academy of Web Television to be the inaugural recipient of the Streamy Visionary Award. Also, Streamy Awards technology partner Unicorn Media has announced that they will provide their Media-as-a-Service™ solution to power both the live and video-on-demand (VOD) broadcast of the 2010 Streamy Awards. For the Streamy's, Unicorn Media is integrating with PLYmedia for multiple language subtitling in support of a global viewing audience. Unicorn's dynamic media synchronization technology will also enable the management of live and VOD iPhone streaming.