New York based video platform Blip.tv announced today that the company will now host and serve all episodes of the long-running variety show video blog Rocketboom. Rocketboom is famous for distributing its content officially on a large number of platforms and looking the other way when it’s distributed illicitly. Basing itself at Blip puts the show in good company and could shore up revenues from in-house high-end ad sales that, despite producer Andrew Baron’s remarkable intelligence and savvy, have presumably not gone as well as Baron would like.
Rocketboom first made its mark with first host Amanda Congdon, who incidentally was released from her subsequent job hosting video at ABC just last week.
The deal was discussed on Rocketboom today, about two thirds of the way through the show. The new embed code, you’ll note, is shockingly long.
With the announcement Blip has also said that the company is now offering an innovative Flash overlay placed on top of Quicktime video files. While such advertising technology may seem mundane to some, innovation in this department will be essential if video blogging is to prove economically viable. Is the ad technology truly ground breaking? It’s hard to believe that it is when competitor Castfire, for example (the new home of Ask a Ninja, among others) offers advertising technology infrastructure that’s miles ahead of Blip’s in terms of sophistication and Blip’s fellow New Yorkers The FeedRoom seem capable of anything in online video, provided that there’s enough money on the table. One thing’s for sure – the short era of video advertising relying on pre and post roll clips is over. Technology like these interstitial partial screen overlays is here to stay. Some would assert that VideoEgg owns the idea, but such an assertion probably fails the test of non-obviousness. (Update: Jackson West reports that this ad overlay uses technology from Aweli.)
Blip has long been the independent video blogging industry darling, thanks in large part to the company’s model engagement with community gathering places like the Yahoo! Video Bloggers List, but as options proliferate and standards are raised – that position can no longer be taken for granted.
In other online video news, live steaming video service Stickam announced cross promotional partnerships with major radio stations across the US today. While Stickam has been tied to online porn and lacks the geek cred of live competitors BlogTV, UStream and others – the company has seen considerable success in building partnerships with major media brands.
