Online video platform Brightcove is upping the ante in the battle for a broader segment of the marketplace. The company has launched a major upgrade of its platform that -- for the first time -- includes support for live streaming and for the iPhone, and also includes a $99-a-month “Express” version that will appeal to users further downmarket than its current crop of media and professional online video clients.
Brightcove 4’s new features should more than satisfy the OVP’s high-end clientele. It’s improved its cloud encoding, offering higher-quality default encoding and more formats, and now offers adaptive streaming over any connection.
The software also will provide more options for monetization, improved analytics, and -- in a nod to the increasing importance of social networking to businesses -- facilitate the sharing of video across Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.
Brightcove says it will release its iPhone SDK later this year and will follow up with upgrades for other mobile platforms in coming months, giving it true three-screen functionality, which has become increasingly important across all market segments.
But it’s the Express service that may give its smaller competitors fits. The $99 pricetag, and Brightcove’s reputation for working with the big boys, gives it a little extra panache and could exert even more pressure in an already competitive marketplace.
That service offers users a pay-as-you-go approach that is likely to appeal to smaller online video producers, and businesses looking to get their toes into the online video waters on the -- relative -- cheap. Brightcove Express gives a single user 50 videos and 40GB of bandwidth.
“As video becomes pervasive on the Web, publishers face increasingly complex and demanding requirements that often span multiple use-cases and devices,”Brightcove chairman and CEO Jeremy Allaire said in a prepared statement. “Brightcove 4 provides a powerful and extensible suite of new services that make it easy for customers to execute three-screen strategies and generate additional value from online video through new distribution and monetization opportunities.”
For more:
- see this release
- see this TechCrunch article
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