ExpoTV

Earlier this week was the NY Video Meetup. Somewhere around 250 NY'ers attended and viewed a variety of demos and a healthy video discussion. One thing rang true throughout -- online video is HOT here in the city. So many companies, so many ideas and a amazing level of excitement/passion around online video.

Here are just a few of the companies in the online video space in the NYC area. I certainly forgot a bunch, so please leave them in the comments.

• Magnify.net - providing video upload, encoding, storage, delivery, and rev share mainly for video clips (CN Coverage)
• Blip.tv - a leader in episodic content (CN Coverage)
• 5min - moving offices to NYC next month - knowledge sharing (CN Coverage)
• Rocketboom - daily video show about anything with host Joanne Colan (CN Coverage)
• For Your Imagination - creating a variety of online-only video shows
• WallStrip - filming in NYC about stocks with host Lindsay Cambell
• Vimeo - video hoster and community creator (CN Coverage)
• ExpoTV - video reviews (CN Coverage)
• Kaltura - video collaboration (CN Coverage)
• Joost - NYC office is North American HQ - television replacement (CN Coverage)
• SavoryNY - restaurants video reviews (CN Coverage)
• WineLibraryTV - ok, he's in Jersey but we will allow it since he lives in the city - daily wine video show

While other areas of the country and the world are creating online video, NY is where it's at. Innovation, technology, people, community, it's all here. And Madison Avenue and Google are here to monetize it all.

A quick update regarding ExpoTV, a company we have written about several times over the past week. They sent over two important pieces of information today. First, DFJ Gotham has been added to their current round of venture capital. No amounts were disclosed.

Daphne Kwon, CEO of ExpoTV said, “We are excited to expand our investors to include such a proven and active partner like DFJ Gotham Ventures. The
New York region has become a nexus for innovative media startups, and DFJ Gotham Ventures’ deep involvement with the entrepreneurial community here, along with their track record of success, make them the perfect addition to our investor group. We’re proud that DFJ Gotham Ventures has claimed a stake in the explosive online video space with ExpoTV.”

Their other announcement is that they have hit a milestone of 100,000 video reviews called, "Videopinions." ExpoTV pays $5 for each accepted Videopinion. Congrats to ExpoTV for reaching this strong metric.

More info on Mashable.

Last week I reported on a video reviews site called ExpoTv. During the demo, I asked about their syndication policy regarding positive and negative reviews. Since I was the last question, I don't think they had a chance to full answer, but the gist of their reply was, "We allow the retailers to pick what they show." That just does not sit well with me.

Thi Luu, SVP, Web Operations provided a comment on my original post:

Thanks for feedback on ExpoTV and wanted to address your question about our syndication strategy. We feel that because video is a new medium for most retailers and comparison shopping engines, they haven't yet been able to build into their sites the sorting functionality about the content being positive or negative.

They link to and promote ExpoTV to allow users a more robust experience and to find more video product reviews. Until they build the capability to sort through the videos, having a lot of them without any ability to skim through them is tough on users. So for now, we let them display what they want.

As the retailers build more functionality around videos on their sites, we agree it's a much better user experience (and written reviews have proven it's more effective) to offer all opinions and we will be encouraging them to do so.

That's why we feel strongly about letting people submit positive and negative videos about products on ExpoTV.com and compensate our video creators for both types of videos. Hope this helps to address your question.

Best,
Thi Luu
SVP, Web Operations

Thanks for the reply Thi. What I would like to understand is the ExpoTv policy if a syndication site only requests positive reviews. Will this be noted on the syndication site? I am guessing not and that's where my ethical concern begins. I could understand if a customer wanted to purchase one "highlight" review for their site, but outside of that, should not be able to purchase just one type of review. In this case, it feels like Payperpost using video.

Imagine visiting buy.com to buy your new gadget. You see two video reviews and play both. They tell you how great the product is. You buy it. It dies. Turns out ExpoTv had 100 reviews, of which 98 were negative but you never saw those.

So CN readers, chime in? Do you think it's ok for ExpoTv to offer only positive or negative reviews to its syndication sites?

Last night I attended a meetup in NYC where ExpoTV was demonstrated. ExpoTV is a product review site that uses videos exclusively. Product reviews have been hot since the Internet began and tying together video and reviews makes sense and could be a huge winner if done correctly.

ExpoTV pays $5 for each accepted video review plus 1 cent for each view of the video. I am not sure but I will assume that if they syndicate the video you also make the 1 cent. Someone asked about how much they are making on each video and that it has to be much higher than $5 but the founders declined to answer. ExpoTV syndicates their reviews on Buy.com and Smarter.com.

Here is my concern which I raised last night. They noted that the syndication sites can select what type of reviews they syndicate including an option for positive/negative reviews. This is a big no-no in my book. I am hoping that someone from ExpoTV can clarify this but if they allow say Buy.com to select only positive reviews for say a mp3 player, how will the customer know that they are only viewing positive reviews? This could make any product look better than it is and provides for a horrible customer experience. As I said, I very much hope this is not the case.

Come inside to check out my video review!