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Dailymotion.com takes stronghold for video-sharing sites in the U.S.

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comScore today released a study from its comScore Video Metrix service of U.S. video streaming activity at a selection of up-and-coming video-sharing sites. The study examined six video-sharing sites that did not make comScore’s ranking of the top 10 U.S. video properties for the month and reveals that French site Dailymotion.com had a particularly strong position in the U.S. video-sharing market in April 2007.

Dailymotion.com has taken hold in the U.S., drawing more than 4.7 million video streamers in April. The average video streamer at Dailymotion.com viewed more than 10 videos and nearly one hour of video content in the month. Metacafe.com also generated substantial activity, as 3.7 million streamers viewed 33 million video streams, while Break.com saw 3.1 million streamers view 32 million video streams. Veoh.com, which attracted the smallest video-viewing audience of the group, had the highest level of user engagement with more than 104 minutes per streamer, benefiting from the many full-length videos hosted on the site.”

comScore also examined the demographic composition of video streamers at these sites, revealing some interesting differences in the age of the
audience each site attracts. The coveted 18-34 age segment represented 41 percent of Break.com’s audience, followed by Dailymotion.com (37 percent) and Veoh.com (37 percent). Heavy Networks drew the largest share of its video streamers from those younger than 18 years of age (18 percent), while Revver.com and Metacafe.com drew the largest share among people age 35-44 (24 percent).

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Originally posted on June 25, 2007 @ 2:06 pm

Friendster deploys highly scalable six-degree social networking graph server

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friendster.jpgFriendster announced the successful deployment of its proprietary, next-generation, highly scalable graph server that tracks the connection relationships among its 45 million users around the world. Friendster’s graph server is the first in the industry to manage in real time how any two users are connected up to six degrees away. Traditional social networks only keep track of basic first-degree connections in the form of a “friends list.”

This technology has been deployed for the sole benefit of Friendster users, providing user control over who can view their profiles and who can contact them through a variety of communications features. In addition, Friendster users find information about how they are connected to another user to be both useful and entertaining. Friendster users can precisely control access to profile information and inbound communications based on the degrees of separation connecting users.

“In this age of spam and unsolicited e-mails and communications, this is an excellent way that Friendster enables our users to control who views their profiles and their inbound communications,” said David Jones, vice president of marketing. “Friendster offers the greatest control in the industry over who can view your profile and who can contact you.”

Originally posted on June 22, 2007 @ 6:16 am

3dutch.com acquires Second Life Amsterdam

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amsterdam.jpg3dutch.com, a 3D-platform of the Dutch-based company Boom BV, today announced that it has acquired the virtual city of Second Life Amsterdam. The site, formerly owned by Kevin Alderman or better known as Stroker Serpentine, placed the virtual city on sale two months ago.

“I am pleased we found a good company for my Amsterdam baby. Amsterdam started off 3 years ago and grew to one of the more busier places of Second Life. 3dutch will be able to bring Amsterdam another step forward in the virtual world of Second Life yet keep its identity in Second Life,” Alderman said.

“We acquired Amsterdam to gain experience with the virtual 3D environment on the Internet which is a completely new addition to our existing Internet activities. With the acquisition of Amsterdam, we can expand and built further one of the most exciting and entertaining platforms already out there on Second Life,” Stefan Rijkaart of BOOM BV said.

Originally posted on June 20, 2007 @ 1:13 pm

Balihoo, advertising industry’s vertical search engine, launches beta

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balihoo1.jpgBalihoo, developer of the advertising industry’s first and only vertical search engine for advertising media, announced that it has launched a broad Beta Program involving a group of companies representing more than $25 billion in U.S. media spending annually. Participants in the program include media buying firms, advertising agencies and major national advertisers.

The Balihoo search engine enables advertisers and agencies to search for media properties that are most relevant to their advertising campaigns, gather and analyze information about those properties, and interact with media owners to build and execute media plans. Balihoo works across geographies and on any media type including TV, radio, print, interactive and out-of-home.

Additional participants will be invited into the beta program as they sign-up on the Balihoo website. “Input from participants in our recently concluded demo trial stage indicates that Balihoo will provide significant time and cost savings to the media buying and planning community,” said Pete Gombert, Balihoo’s chief executive officer.

Originally posted on June 19, 2007 @ 4:47 pm

Openads secures $5 million financing

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openads.jpgOpenads, developer of a free, open source adserver designed for and used by publishers worldwide, announced that it has secured $5 million Series A financing led by Index Ventures. The London-based company plans to use the funds to accelerate product development and expand its team.

Openads allows publishers to have complete control of their advertising campaigns, offering sophisticated targeting, inventory optimization, rich media and inventory forecasting from a simple yet powerful interface. Openads also allows for integration with more than 30 leading ad networks worldwide. Embraced by more than 20,000 publishers across 140 countries in 20 languages, Openads powers more publishers than all competing solutions combined.

Popular Web sites such as Federated Media and Stardoll are among those relying on Openads’ servers. “Open source has made an impact in market after market. How could we expect advertising to be otherwise,” adds Tim O’Reilly, publisher and Openads user. “Openads has quietly become a major player in the web 2.0 ad scene via its open source adserver.”

Originally posted on June 13, 2007 @ 2:09 pm