Online video site Veoh is laying off 20 people, or 18% of its staff of 110. The move comes a month after Paidcontent reported layoffs in Veoh’s Russian office in St. Petersburg, which CEO Steve Mitgang says was a strategic decision rather than a financial one, as Veoh wanted to move its development staff to San Diego (where it has hired a replacement team).
This round is more of a financial move, given the new economic reality. The company insists that it is still strong on a financial front, and expects to be profitable next year, although CEO Mitgang admits profitability could be pushed out a quarter. Despite the somber news, he is confident Veoh will emerge as one of the few surviving video sites in what will no doubt be a coming shakeout.
According to comScore, visitors to the Veoh.com in the U.S. have come down from 4.5 million people in June to 3.8 million in September. And total minutes spent on the site has similarly dropped from 99.6 million minutes in June to 66.8 million in September. That drop in visitors is more than made up for in the growth in its standalone video app, Veoh TV, which reached 2.3 million people in the U.S in September. Globally, 16 million people watched videos on the site in September, and another 12 million watched via the app (see chart below).
The company has raised $70 million, including $30 million just last June. We are adding this announcement to our Layoff Tracker.
reading techcrunch is too depressing now.
Their career page still has few openings….
http://www.veoh...orate/jobs.html
Two stories dealing with layoffs in a row, when did you become the grim reaper Jason?
I’m glad to see that Veoh is making the smart move that some other video sites haven’t made yet. There’s no way other smaller aggregation sites are going to last in this market unless they make some tough decisions (chop chop!).
how does veoh differentiate themselves?
seems like a site that’s a mashup of about 5 others.
barely any good original or exclusive content.
@Crash Override: Not sure about other sites, but Veoh seems to have more stuff to watch than anyone. Which is nice, since I’m incredibly lazy and hate to “channel surf.”
All these layoffs, ouch, I liked veoh, and jadsters.com. The sites today are simple, I just wish the economy was big enough to support them. Good luck guys.
Veoh is crap anyway.
Who cares? Veoh’s only model is embedding everyone else’s content and wrap ads around em. Don’t think Hulu has enough ads, Veoh’s the site for you. Way to change the game!
Very interesting to read all these comments, especially those related to the “too many ads” on Veoh or Hulu. Some Web TV users want free content but are not accepting the fact that an advertising model has to work for the free stuff to be available. Would you prefer to subscribe to the service and avoid the ads? That’s probably why cable operators are still making so much money and Web TV shops are hurting…
I agree 100%, we as users need to stop being so greedy sometimes about wanting everything free. If you want it free, put up with the ads, if you don’t want it free PAY FOR IT! With quality-comes a price. I agree we are a community online, but we also have to give back to the community in some sort of payment structure if we want quality. I’d pay for good quality with no ads, just so I can enjoy my shows and movies.
Of course Veoh’s traffic is dropping. That’s what happens when you are forced to build a business model not reliant on copyright infringing on other people’s content.
Who’s next in the pipeline …Hulu ??
http://vidsonly.blogspot.com
They should change their name to D’oh!