Online video will continue to be the big story this year, and companies like Veoh Networks are finding success with user-generated content and pop TV favourites. To find out how Veoh competes with YouTube and others, we spoke to founder Dmitry Shapiro.
Digital Journal — YouTube gets the lion’s share of attention in the online video market, but several upstarts are luring eyeballs to their sites. Chief among the rising online-vid stars is Veoh.com, run by Veoh Networks in San Diego, Calif.
Comparing December 2007 to December 2006, its monthly visits increased by 1,540 per cent. Most importantly, Veoh isn’t just relying on user-generated content; its deal with major media giants, as well as some wily strategies, is propelling Veoh past the competition.
MTV Networks, Showtime and CBS are among Veoh’s partners to bring popular TV shows to the site. Want to catch the latest CSI? Veoh’s got it. Interested in what David Duchovny likes about Californication? Veoh’s Showtime channel includes exclusive clips. And Veoh embeds shows and clips from NBC Universal and Fox via the Hulu venture, although no formal agreement is in place. Veoh says that it does not need permission to list and play other companies’ videos. It’s a smart move for a site hoping to attract TV fans moving away from the boob tube to the desktop.
Not to be ignored is its renowned independent content, such as the Ask a Ninja series or the Music Nation channel. Veoh is also housing a variety of manga and anime shows that enjoy high viewership and lengthy comment threads.
Veoh.com is not the only property for the company. It is heading in a new direction with VeohTV, a piece of software that acts like a Web browser but displays Internet video. A TV-style guide allows you to watch and record video from a variety of sources. Connecting your PC to a TV turns the VeohTV experience into a home-theatre luxury, which Apple and others are hoping to capitalize on as well.
To learn how Veoh Networks is changing the online-video market, DigitalJournal.com interviewed Veoh’s Chief Innovation Officer and founder Dmitry Shapiro. Find out how Veoh began four years ago, how its free content is not what you’d expect and why you should care about its meteoric rise.
Veoh is a website that allows users to collect, publish and watch a wide selection of TV and video programming.
DigitalJournal.com: How did Veoh start, and what were some of the stumbling blocks in the beginning stages?
Dmitry Shapiro: Veoh was conceived in November of 2004, and the first iteration of the product was launched into beta in September of 2005. Some of the stumbling blocks we encountered in the early days were due to the then-unproven appeal of online video. For example, in the early days of our existence, some potential investors didn’t believe that people were going to want to watch video on their computers. Others didn’t believe that people would actually watch content that wasn’t produced by major studios. With the advent of YouTube, those doubters were quickly proven wrong , and we’ve enjoyed significant viewer growth and investor interest ever since.
DigitalJournal.com: Explain how Veoh has grown, using the most recent stats possible. To what do you credit that growth?
Shapiro: Veoh has grown exponentially — primarily through word of mouth — since we first launched our site. During the course of 2007, Veoh’s audience grew to 21.5 million unique monthly viewers from 2.5 million, representing an average increase of 20 per cent per month and a total year-over-year increase of 760 per cent. Veoh viewers also demonstrated high levels of engagement in 2007, consuming a total of more than 30 million hours of content in November. We think this tremendous performance is a result of our consumer-focused approach and our ability to deliver a comprehensive, easy-to-use experience to our viewers.
DigitalJournal.com: There are hundreds of online video sites like Veoh available on the Web. What makes Veoh stand out from the crowd?
Shapiro: Veoh is different because it takes an open, hyper-aggregation approach in order to give viewers access to the best of network television plus the best of independent studio productions and user-generated content. Veoh features an extensive array of shows from CBS, NBC and Fox (via Hulu) and MTV Networks, as well as high-quality content from thousands of independent producers and Internet studios. With Veoh, viewers can get all of their favorite online content in one place and have the option of viewing it on our site or downloading our VeohTV beta application to view it in a TV-like, remote-controllable experience.
DigitalJournal.com: Why did Veoh decide to host Hulu videos on its site?
Shapiro: To clarify, we do not have a formal agreement in place with Hulu. Hulu makes its video content freely embeddable, so we are supporting their open approach by enabling Veoh viewers to easily find and watch videos hosted by Hulu. The benefit here is that it allows us to provide a more comprehensive experience to our viewers and, in turn, we drive a large and valuable audience to Hulu’s content and advertising partners.
Video website Veoh.com recently added videos from traditional TV networks, including The A-Team, The Office, Heroes, The Simpsons, Family Guy, 24 and Battlestar Galactica.
DigitalJournal.com: For some of its content, Veoh blocks by country. That can be very frustrating. Are you going to change that policy?
Shapiro: Veoh believes that content should be accessible from all over the world. That said, some of Veoh’s partners only have rights cleared for U.S. distribution, and therefore Veoh helps those partners make sure that they are able to enforce those policies.
DigitalJournal.com: I’m quite familiar with Veoh because I often watch films online from aggregator sites like Quicksilverscreen.com. Is that a position Veoh is OK to be staking? Is being associated with downloaded films online an area of pride or shame for Veoh?
Shapiro: Veoh is a copyright-friendly company and strives to be the video content partner of choice. We currently have relationships with thousands of content owners and are committed to supporting a service where consumers get access to the video content they want in a manner respectful of our partners’ copyrights. We maintain ongoing, diligent compliance with the DMCA and have worked with industry groups such as the MPAA and content holders to implement state-of-the-art technologies that include filtering and special compliance tools for copyright holders. We know that this is an area that’s always evolving, but our goal is to stay one step ahead of those who aim to perpetuate illegal distribution of content.
DigitalJournal.com: In 2008, what are some of the online video trends Veoh predicts will reach a tipping point?
Shapiro: More people will connect their PCs to their TVs, more traditional TV broadcasters will begin broadcasting online, advertisers will continue to embrace online video, and amateur-produced video will get more and more sophisticated.
