Marcellus, a startup out of Berkeley, California, announced its Software-as-a-Service model for helping video publishers build their own online video networks.
The model is simple -- sign up for a publisher account, choose the tools that are relevant to your streaming needs, design your own custom service and launch.
There is no need to invest in any infrastructure, either for content delivery or application hosting.
"We believe this is how online video will evolve," says Preetam Mukherjee, CEO at Marcellus. "People are still out there wondering how they can build viable businesses around their media assets, and we're here to lead the way. We have a team that has dabbled in Internet video right from the late '90s, when it used to be called 'streaming media', and we know that quite a few things haven't changed. It's still expensive to own and manage your own streaming infrastructure. Delivering quality user experiences is still key to survival."
He goes on to elaborate that delivering quality video is only a part of the user experience puzzle. The Internet is about interaction, and any video platform needs to address that with a comprehensive set of tools/services that give audiences an avenue to express themselves as well.
"And it's not just about enabling expression, either," adds Preetam. "You have to understand that audiences are not just giving you feedback because they want to. If you're not listening carefully, and if you don't respond to that feedback in near real-time, then you're toast. In near real-time."
The Marcellus Video Platform helps you develop different feedback mechanisms, and integrates them with their smart content provisioning engine: Mia (Media, Intelligently Available).
"We're doing things very differently. 'Mia' is a service that is able to assimilate viewer feedback, and help you tweak your content strategy accordingly. The business of information is critical, especially in the media space, and a simple analytics toolkit doesn't solve anything. Serious publishers need far more sophisticated tools that observe, analyze, and then react. In a world of micro-audiences, you have to be able to respond to individual demand, and it's simply not possible for a human being looking at pretty graphs to do that."
The biggest shift, of course, seems to be from building Internet TV channels, to building Internet TV networks. It takes little to realize that the most successful players in the Web 2.0 space have been the ones that have been able to successfully build and harness collaborative networks, and Marcellus seems to be heading in exactly that direction.
"Ah, yes. The network!" exclaims Rifaquat Khan, VP of Application Services at Marcellus. "Well, it's quite simple, actually.
You can create your channels, your users can create their channels, and you build an entire network around the multitude of channels that your content enables. What ends up happening is that your audiences find a lot more content, there is a sense of ownership and participation within your network, and at that point, you syndicate. Imagine the potential.
You're not just syndicating the 10-channels/100 videos that you originally had, but also the 1000 channels/15,000 videos that your network of 10,000 users created. Oomph!
People ought to stop talking about value creation, and think about opportunity capitalization, because right here is an opportunity for publishers to fully realize their potential.
And yes, we offer all these capabilities as part of the Marcellus Video Platform."
The company has released pricing information for long tail publishers, and announced that it's free to publish the first 10 hours of video. Thereafter, depending on content volume, pricing models begin at $150/month.
By adopting a multi-tenant SaaS architecture, Marcellus is going to make it increasingly economical for publishers to host and stream their content.
"After all, when you buy hosting space and bandwidth in bulk, you save money," says Preetam. "So we figured, why don't we help create those savings, and pass them along directly ... entirely ... to our customers? And looking back, we're surprised, even shocked, that no one has been able to do this before."
Marcellus re-launched its web site on January 19, 2008. Going for simplicity and candor over lengthy product descriptions, it hopes to convey one glaring message to content studios, independent film makers, production houses, advertisers, and other corporates looking to jump into online video: "We understand online video, and we understand networks. And we'll help you go beyond publishing, to building successful online video ventures."