ScanScout, a Boston startup oft described as providing “AdSense for video”, will announce this morning that it has received a strategic investment from Time Warner.
The size of Time Warner’s investment has not been disclosed. However, CEO Doug McFarland claims that many of the benefits for ScanScout will come from the connections and opportunities created by its partnership with Time Warner, aside from the financial gains.
We covered ScanScout back in May. The two-year-old company’s software displays contextual in-video advertisements that are determined by three factors: surrounding page information, audio patterns in video, and imagery patterns in video. ScanScout’s software analyzes and weighs all three sources of information to determine which advertisements are most appropriate for a given online video.
With its investment, Time Warner joins First Round Capital, Angel Investment Partners, and General Catalyst Partners. ScanScout also announces today the formation of its board of directors, which includes representatives from First Round Capital, General Catalyst Partners, Time Warner, and Digitas.
McFarland cites YuMe and AdapTV as ScanScout’s most direct competitors.
How does this really add value? I am watching a video or the ads surrounding it? vdo on a computer?
I think how this would ad value is it would give advertisers a way to insert their advertisers into Internet videos in a way that works like Google adsense. What’s that you say? You don’t see that many advertisments in Internet Video? That’s going to change, but it will likely take a while.
I think Google will figure it out, but for now it looks like ScanScout is still ahead of them..
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007.....l-lagging/
ads can be provided in the video like most of the cable tv operators do . I wonder if ad sense make any sense as most of the videos have tags with them and ads can be based on those tags instead of video objects .
All that investment in video ads - and so little return…..
It’s not about context, it’s a lot about format, but it’s mainly a lack of power from the buying points. Context isn’t going to change that, but sustained sales representation from muliple media owners will.
Peter
Nishu: Tags on video are often not reliable sources of information to determine the its meaning. Like all user generated content it is open for being gamed (Spammed), may be incomplete, and inconsistent quality.
uh will they gonna get sued by videoegg ?
Blinkx adhoc can also deliver in context video ads in multiple formats.
Contextual video ads sounds great,but still being a interruption kind isn’t it gonna annoy viewers?
It’s great to see that ScanScout garnered another round of cash and a new client. Contextual advertising solutions are just one of the latest innovations in the advertising industry and based on the press release, their solution is “positioned” exactly like every other offering in the marketplace. Obviously, there is a great deal of confusion as to what each vendor offers and I’d like to address that question. After all, you are looking for a way to monetize your video content and create stronger offerings for your ad inventories, so how do you identify the solution that will work for you?
One way to learn more is to join me at Digital Hollywood in Los Angeles, California on Thursday, November 1, 2007 and attend the “Contextual Media & Advertising Applications in Social Networks and User Generated Media - Broadband and Mobile” Panel starting at 2:15 PM. There you will have the opportunity to hear from Eyespot, VideoEgg, ScanScout, adap.tv and Digitalsmiths.
Until then, ask vendors the following six questions.
1. Does your solution have a way to target ads? What are they?
2. Does your solution analyze the video itself, rely on subjective user generated meta-tags or page targeting?
3. If it does analyze video, how many of the following recognition solutions does it include: Video, Audio, Speech, Text? If not, which solution are you going to integrate to improve your offering?
4. Does your solution support ALL available advertising formats?
5. Are your customers restricted to using only your ad network?
6. Does your solution work ONLY with video available on your ad network or destination site?
When you have the answers from your vendors, take a moment to consider VideoSense. It is the ONLY solution available in the marketplace today to incorporate Video Image Recognition, Audio and Speech Recognition in addition to Traditional Web Targeting.
•Video Image Recognition - VideoSense analyzes each frame of video and applies a proprietary suite of image interpretation tools including facial recognition, object recognition, scene classification and other contextual algorithms that identify the video environment and other specifics.
•Speech Recognition – VideoSense uses multiple filters to identify a wide range of cues including speech and subject matter that guide the contextual interpretation process.
•Traditional Targeting - VideoSense starts with widely adopted web targeting techniques and then applies the video and audio elements detailed above to deliver superior contextualization.
VideoSense functions as a plug-in for content publishers or ad networks seeking to better monetize the ad inventory in and around video content. Digitalsmiths also provides fully integrated ad targeting, ad serving and ad inventory for clients seeking a one-stop contextual video ad solution.
You can say that this is a shameless plug for VideoSense - and it is.
No product can be all things to all customers, and knowing what questions to ask will help you to identify the best solution for you.
Digitalsmiths is here to help you find the right fit, or support you as an integration partner.
Feel free to share your thoughts or contact me via email at ben@digitalsmiths.com.
Sincerely,
Ben Weinberger
CEO and Founder
Digitalsmiths