Viral Videos are one of the most popular mediums on the
Internet at the moment. The rage is to share and embed your favorite
video on to other sources such as blogs, and social networking sites
like MySpace.
Now, bloggers and social addicts have an all new place to
catch the latest
videos…
but this time, they are not comedic or user-generated. They are news
and current event videos.
Today, the NewsMarket,
launched VideoCafé,
a new service that will give bloggers the ability to embed video from
leading companies in their posts.
With this service, bloggers will now
have practically the same ability as other media companies to acquire
free video content to provide for visitors. The first round of videos
available on VideoCafe are from Google,
AOL, Dell, and Intel among other
major companies.
Bloggers will be able to obtain video by retrieving the video
embed code for the content, similar to the method used on YouTube
as well as other viral video communities.
The player will be able to
play content either directly on a blog or by downloading the content
using VideoCafe’s delivery system. The NewsMarket has announced that,
currently, the service will run as a beta and will be available on an
invitation-only basis.
Shoba Purushothaman, CEO of The
NewsMarket says:-
“VideoCafé meets the rising demand for video from
bloggers looking
to increase their relevance and influence by providing multimedia
content to their posts,”“As our video archive has grown, we’ve seen a sharp
increase in requests from bloggers for access to the content. We now
have new capabilities in our technical infrastructure designed to
support the needs of bloggers who are keen to be able to link to and
embed video within their posts.”
Free To Journalists & Bloggers
As of now, The NewsMarket receives 30,000 requests per month
for
video clips from the global news media alone, and they expects to
receive similar traffic from bloggers who use the service. All video
clips will be free to journalists and bloggers.
According to the press
release,
the service will generate revenue “from the organizations that want to
ensure access to their content as part of their communications and
marketing strategies.”
With internet video as popular as it is on the internet, I am
sure
this service will succeed. My only concern deals with the invite-only
status. Isn’t the main point of viral video to share with as many
people as possible?
I think the service might be hindering itself by
limiting access to only a select group of bloggers. Who knows? Maybe
The NewsMarket wants to start out by building a buzz (similar to Joost
and Pownce) by getting
everyone interested and slowly letting more and more people in.
Also, it would be nice to see a way for bloggers to join in on
the
money-making process. After all, they will be the one’s doing the
primary promoting of this service and the content that it provides.
That’s just my opinion though, as a blogger. Who’s with me?
If you get a chance to test VideoCafe out, or if you have your
own thoughts, be sure to share by leaving a comment.
Michael Garrett is a contributing author discussing the social networking world, his work can be found on Profy.com
