Patented Indexing and Ad Targeting Combine to Transform Audience-Posted Videos Into Advertising Revenue Opportunities for Content Owners
LOS ANGELES & PALO ALTO, Calif. – MySpace, the world’s premier social network, and Auditude, a new provider of patented online video advertising technology, today announced that they have partnered with MTV Networks, a division of Viacom (NYSE:VIA) (NYSE:VIA.B), to enable advertising opportunities within audience-uploaded videos across MySpace. Through this relationship, Auditude provides the opportunity for advertising to be inserted across a suite of MTV Networks’ most popular video content uploaded to MySpace, including clips from MTV and COMEDY CENTRAL, among others. This agreement enables all parties – publishers, content owners, advertisers, and fans – to benefit from the organic distribution of premium video on the Web.
“Auditude is opening the floodgates for users to program video on MySpace and ensure copyright holders get paid,” said Jeff Berman, MySpace President of Marketing and Sales. “In one fell swoop, Auditude and its partners are empowering consumers and building a better business model. That’s a good deal all around.”
MySpace is leveraging a patented technology developed by Auditude that pairs automatic identification of virtually any professional video uploaded across the Internet with an ad platform that enables content owners to serve targeted ads within that content. With more than a billion minutes of professional content already indexed — including more than 250 million videos, and 4 years worth of 100 channels of television — Auditude is creating the opportunity for content owners to harness the power of audience-uploaded content and distributed video to activate an otherwise untapped revenue stream.
“Auditude’s mission is to grow the market for premium online video by unifying all aspects of distribution and advertising. We embrace the fact that online video is fundamentally social and created the identification technology and advertising platform to include the power of audience syndication – fans uploading content to the Web – as a form of content distribution. Our partnership with MySpace allows us to help content owners, like MTV Networks, reach their fans where they are most active,” said Adam Cahan, CEO of Auditude. “We hope to grow the market for monetizing online video by simplifying ad targeting and providing scale through audience participation.”
“As one of the leading providers of online video in the world, we give our fans the power not only to consume our content, but also to share and interact with it across the Web,” said Mika Salmi, President of Global Digital Media, MTV Networks. “With Auditude’s solution, we can continue to give users the freedom to take our content wherever they go online, while ensuring that we can monetize it as well.”
As part of the solution, Auditude announces the launch of the ‘Attribution Overlay’ which automatically identifies content informing viewers about details of shows being viewed online. The attribution also enables the content owner to integrate information about the video clip being played and provides an opportunity for the viewer to watch additional relevant content or have access to commerce links – for instance “buy show” – or merchandise related to that content. Video advertisers now have a usable channel to target audiences of premium content across the Web.
About MySpace
MySpace, a unit of Fox Interactive Media Inc., is the premier lifestyle portal for connecting with friends, discovering popular culture, and making a positive impact on the world. MySpace has created a connected global community by integrating web profiles, blogs, instant messaging, e-mail, music streaming, music videos, photo galleries, classified listings, events, groups, college communities, and member forums. MySpace’s international network includes more than 30 localized community sites in the United States, Brazil, Canada, Latin America, Mexico, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, India, Japan, and New Zealand. Fox Interactive Media is a division of News Corp. (NYSE:NWS) (NYSE:NWS.A) (ASX:NWS) (ASX:NWSLV).
(1)Among the top 2000 domains comScore Media Metrix, September 2008. For more information on comScore Networks, please go to www.comscore.com.
About Auditude
Auditude enables content owners, publishers and advertisers to harness the power of online audiences and organic distribution of content for targeted video advertising opportunities. Auditude Connect™ helps content owners scale their premium assets and simplifies video monetization allowing publishers to benefit from significant incremental revenue with little to no effort—regardless of whether the video is syndicated by partners or audiences. Auditude’s technology has been widely validated as highly accurate with no false positives and no false negatives with fingerprint generation speeds of greater than 300x real time. Auditude’s database today reflects the largest index of professional content with over one billion minutes, including more than 250MM user videos, 4 years of 100 channels of television, 10,000’s of films and more than 1.5MM minutes added daily.
Auditude is funded by Greylock Partners is based in Palo Alto with offices in Los Angeles and New York City. For more information, please visit us at: www.auditude.com.
