Paris and Madrid based startup vpod.tv will open its doors in the next few hours. We covered Vpod.tv back in May at Zaragoza Innovate conference while it was still is closed beta.
vpod.tv is a new online video service, aiming to simplify the technical barriers to working with video online and to enable consumers and corporations to create their personal online and mobile TV channels. The service will open in the next hours in English Spanish and French.
The first release tomorrow will include mainly upload and publishing functions and the company will roll out progressively other features such as footage editing, playlist creation, mixing and broadcast features. Vpod’s service takes video from almost any source and, more importantly, transcodes for almost any device. All you have to do then, is pick your device and download the video.
As we already said, this is a massively competitive space but vpod.tv will take advantage from its European presence where it has a chance to become a local player in video publishing and editing. Other European online video services are already present (like Dailymotion or Sevenload) but with a focus on online video sharing. Vpod.tv approach is more comparable to what BrightCove is doing in the United States. Rodrigo Sepulveda, founder and CEO of vpod.tv precises however that his business model is closer to what Revver is doing when they share ad revenues with contributors.
In case this is not a good reason enough for you to try this video service, vpod.tv is organizing a sweepstake offering one Panasonic video camera every week, during the first 10 weeks. All you have to do is register. I hope this will not be the best reason they have to get new users :)
Vpod raised 5.1 million dollars from Innovacom and our previous screenshots are here . More on their blog.