Clearspring Partners with Brightcove for Enhanced Online Video Distribution
Brightcove online video platform customers gain the power of viral video sharing across the Social Web
McLean, Va. - Dec. 8, 2008 — Clearspring Technologies, the leading widget and sharing network connecting publishers and advertisers to audiences on the Social Web, today announced it has formed a distribution partnership with Brightcove and has joined the Brightcove Alliance, a global ecosystem of partners developing solutions and services with the Brightcove online video platform. The partnership integrates Clearspring's Launchpad sharing services with the Brightcove online video platform to enable simplified video sharing across dozens of social networks and blogs. Most of the world's leading publishers use Clearspring's universal sharing service to extend their audience to the Social Web.
Bringing together the quality of the Brightcove online video platform and the reach of the Clearspring sharing menu benefits viewers, content providers, and advertisers. Online video enthusiasts can easily share their favorite content with friends on sites such as their blogs and social networking pages. Through viral sharing, video publishers attract more unique visitors across the distributed Web and advertisers reach a larger and more targeted audience.
Clearspring, which already distributes and manages widgets and sharing services for premium content sites including MTV Networks, Fox Television and NBC Universal, will provide video publishers using Brightcove the opportunity to add the Clearspring sharing services to their video players. This will make sharing video with friends and social groups across popular sites like Facebook, MySpace, iGoogle, Twitter and Digg quick and simple, encouraging sharing among video buffs all across the Web.
"A growing number of Clearspring's widgets are video-driven," said Hooman Radfar, Clearspring's chief executive officer and co-founder. "Our integration with Brightcove will markedly increase that number, clearly illustrating not only the popularity of online video, but the intense desire people have to share it."
Exponential viral growth of online video is what publishers and advertisers alike depend on. Watching and sharing video online is quickly growing in popularity. comScore reported that in July of 2008, Americans watched as many as 11.4 billion online videos for a total of 558 million hours of viewing time.1 For advertisers, online video may be the Internet's sweet spot - especially considering that as many as 82 percent of online video watchers agree that it is very reasonable to have advertising in free video content, according to market research company Ipsos.2
"Online video is pervasive, but the requirements for success have become increasingly complex," said Chris Johnston, Brightcove's director of technology partnerships. "One size doesn't fit all, which is why we've opened up our platform to a wide range of partners like Clearspring who can extend the success of online video with new sharing and distribution capabilities. This will open up new business opportunities for our partners while also greatly benefiting our existing customer base."
The Brightcove video player is top of its class, with a smart delivery system, high definition capabilities, and customizable player framework that helps video publishers extend their brand. With the addition of the Clearspring sharing menu, which allows content to be shared across more than 80 social networking, blogging and bookmarking services, the viewing audience of Brightcove-based content will increase dramatically, as will Clearspring's already extensive reach. According to comScore, Clearspring is the clear widget leader with unique monthly visitors totaling 332 million3 - a number comparable to the fourth largest Web property.
The Brightcove Alliance comprises an ecosystem of technology, solution and channel partners that together enable a comprehensive set of solutions for professional video publishers. The Alliance consists of partners spanning a variety of online video needs, including ad networks, search and discovery, distribution, analytics, social media and audience measurement.
About Clearspring
Clearspring Technologies is the leader in connecting publishers, services and advertisers to audiences on the social web. Ranked #1 by comScore, Clearspring’s AddThis platform enables leading publishers like AOL, Demand Media, MySpace, and NBC to distribute and track digital content such as web pages, widgets, and videos to social networks, bookmarking sites, blogs, and more. AddThis is used by over 1.5 million unique domains reaching over 1 billion unique users monthly. Clearspring's Audience Platform leverages aggregate data from AddThis to allow advertisers and publishers to reach these audiences by influence, interest and intent in real-time. Founded in 2004, the company is privately held. Visit www.clearspring.com.