From the release, “VUDU’s partnership with Brightcove supports multiple advertising platforms, allowing Brightcove customers to maintain their existing online video monetization strategy and infrastructure while expanding their distribution reach to the television. VUDU is the first partner to support Brightcove-powered, ad-supported content distribution on a set-top-box.”

It looks like you need a VUDU box to use the service. The VUDU BX100 movie player box starts at $149.

From the release, “The partnership announced today will make it easy for any organization using the Brightcove platform to program and syndicate advertising-supported video content across the sevenload network. This integration will also enhance the online video experiences for sevenload users by making top-rated programming from Brightcove customers available for viewing and sharing with the wider sevenload community.”

German sports site SPOX is the first to distribute their content to Sevenload via this new partnership and Brightcove says more sites will be announced soon.

The list of new partners is interesting because many of them are startups we’ve covered here on CN. The new partner list includes:

• Brightcove (our coverage)
• ClickTale (our coverage)
• Keibi (our coverage)
• ShareThis (our coverage)
• Visible Technologies (our coverage)

It’s a smart move for the startups - they gain a bit of visibility and a good deal of distribution. Omniture has a wide reaching customer base worldwide and could provide a spark for each of the startups.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Last month AOL went with Brightcove for their online video. Here’s an example of the Brightcove integration on Portfolio:

With Brightcove KK, Japanese media companies and marketers will gain access to the most powerful and scalable software as a service (SaaS) solution available for online video players, distribution, and advertising. Dentsu, Inc. is the largest advertising company in Japan, J-Stream, Inc. is Japan’s largest content delivery network (CDN) and CCI is Japan’s largest interactive adverting company.

Check out our coverage of Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire speaking at MIT.

Brightcove

Here’s how Jeremy Allaire, Brighcove founder describes the deal, "The distribution partnerships announced today will make an exciting array of high-quality, premium video content available to be viewed on Bebo channels, shared through viral widgets from RockYou and Slide on Facebook and MySpace, included in instant messaging activities on Meebo, and viewed in full-screen at Veoh’s Internet Television portal."

They also claim that these new distribution partnerships will reach over 300 million viewers. No mention of overlap between the services. At the end of the day, distribution could mean more viewers but could also work to dilute a video brand. I wrote about this topic last week.

Brightcove has signed a variety of partnerships recently including IAC, Fox and Channel 4 in the U.K.

"Working with G+J, Europe’s largest magazine publisher, as our first customer in Germany is a significant milestone for us as we begin our expansion in continental Europe," said Jeremy Allaire, chairman and chief executive officer of Brightcove. Brightcove is already signing deals in the U.K. including their deal with Channel 4.

This continues a line of distribution deals stateside for Brightcove including most recently IAC last month. In my use of the Brightcove platform as a consumer, I find the experience to be very smooth.

And to all of you startups out there, remember that there is a market outside San Francisco.

Now I get why they did this — it’s about distribution. IAC Chairman Barry Diller even notes at this with his comment on the deal, "By making this platform available across IAC we can continue to deepen engagement with our online audiences, expand the reach of our brands, and open powerful new revenue streams through online video advertising across our sites."

But where’s IAC-owned Vimeo in all of this? While I know Vimeo is a community-based video sharing site, couldn’t Barry have created a white-labeled version of the system and monetized it using the IAC advertising network? While I don’t think this means Vimeo is doomed by any means, it sure is interesting that they selected to go outside before thinking about their own properties and how to leverage them for growth.

Channel 4

Brightcove chairman and chief executive officer, Jeremy Allaire, said: "Channel 4 is an industry leader with an incredible depth of innovative and award-winning programming. We are thrilled that Brightcove has been chosen to help expand the reach of Channel 4 content on the Web, driving viewership and fuelling the growth of online communities around some of its most popular shows."

Channel 4 has ongoing plans to launch further broadband video channels with the Brightcove Internet TV platform later this year.

This news comes during the same week as the announcement that BBC, ITV and Channel 4 will launch a combined on-demand video service. And earlier this week, Brightcove closed their Brightcove.tv service.

Jeremy was the keynote speaker at the MIT Brave New Web in February where his conclusion was, "it's an exceptional time for entrepreneurs, many approaches to starting and growing a company, follow your passion and your customers, online video is at the center of the online revolution right now, and it's still very, very, very early — hundreds of companies will get built and create value."

The videos can be embedded on external sites which will help Fox's online video penetration. I would love to see the ability to create clip reels with my own selected clips. Imagine a 24 review site that can show clip reels instead of just a bunch of screenshots. Legally that is.

I agree with Jeremy that video is in its infancy. One thing I think about a lot is that if we rush it too quickly, it might be for the worst. Let's run the course as needed and in due time video will be where it needs to be.

And watch CN later this week for an important announcement! :)

Brightcove.com – The best in online video

At first glance, Brightcove might seem like just another YouTube, but it does have some nice additional features. For starters, it's an attractive, well-organized site that makes it easy to find what you're looking for by category, or just browsing. Also it has a weekly e-mail newsletter that brings you users' top picks. It has a good selection of TV clips and user provided videos. read more » (check out our other Brightcove coverage)

iStalkr.com – Social Feed Aggregator

iStalkr allows you to keep track of your friends' social feeds. See what they've recently listened to on Last.fm, or what new pictures they've posted on Flickr, or what their most recent tweet was about. People whose feeds you are keeping track of are the ones you are iStalking and the people who are tracking your feeds are your iStalkrs. It's like Twitter, but with more content from different sites from your favorite people for you to keep track of. read more »

ShareThis.com – The Site Formerly Known as Share2Me Redefines Sharing

ShareThis, formerly known as Share2Me, a bookmarklet for sending media across the web has launched HowYouShare, a promotional site with YouTube poster girl abbegirl enlisted as host. Simply install the bookmarklet, register, import all your contacts from FaceBook, AIM, and MySpace, and share. Whenever you come across something you're dying to share, just hit your ShareThis button. It's simple–register now for free. Start sharing, and save your stuff in your Sharebox to look at it later. read more »

Dealighted.com – Find all the hot deals for any product in one place

Looking to buy something? Find out the best deals that other people have stumbled upon, all on one site: Dealighted.com. The top sale deals are constantly being placed on the site's home page and in its searchable database which receives threads from various deal forums. You can search by tag, by forum, or by the hottest deals going on right now. As a registered member (which is free), you can save deals, make comments, or e-mail deals to friends. read more »

PDFfiller.com – Online Form Filler

Quite simply, PDFfiller allows you to fill out pdf files online without any downloading of software. Having been a part of a company that was searching for a solution to filling out PDF files while online, this is a site that ill prove to be an incredibly useful tool for lots of businesses with online representation. read more »

Clearly stats about how many plays you have are meaningless and dead as well. Where, who, when, how are the questions we need answered. Where was the video played, who watched it, when did they view it and how must be shared with us – especially those of us who are in this for business.

Eric Elia, Brightcove's vice president of programming and design said, "One of the key pieces that's broken in traditional TV is the reporting and analytics."

Brian Shin, CEO of Visible Measures, said the analytics product allows publishers to track not only videos on their own site, but when their videos are embedded and streamed elsewhere.

"What we're trying to do is create an objective set of metrics that apply in terms of audience engagement, video virality, the distribution of video as it's embedded throughout the Web–if it's watched on a blog or on Facebook, we want to be able to track all of these things," he said.

I love analytics and will be watching this closely.

From Online Media Daily: The New York Times Co.-owned site also launched a new embedded video player, designed by Brightcove. The new videos follow About's "guide" model, which assigns experts to create content on each individual topic. Previously, videos were produced by professional TV personalities on a one-off basis. "This is a huge step forward for us because we've now brought the video production under the guide model, and that's allowing us to now expand very quickly," said Scott Meyer, About.com's CEO. "You have a much richer advertising environment, with companion banner ads, pre-roll, video overlays," he said.

More ads? They do have a new Web 2.0 style logo! I think their first step to increasing value is to remove the popunders. Every page beeps.

To download the audio, please visit this link on rapidshare. File is 21 mb and is 60 minutes in length.

Genesis of a company
– pattern recognition around a problem or opportunity
– vision and passion for a consumer or business problem
– serendipity
– explicit strategy and planning

What's the scale and scope of your dream? Jeremy believes this is a crucial question to ask before you start.

Early Financing choices include going from bootstrap to angel to venture or going direct to VC. Must ask yourself whether your potential partners are focused on building the kind of company you want to build.

Building the early team – Jeremy discusses that he didn't just hire all his friends for Brightcove.

Finding your customer – Jeremy notes that innovation and invention are generally cop-outs

Build great products that people will talk about, and if they don't, you've built the wrong products — the blogosphere is the great equalizer

He talks about the importance of building industry awareness and credibility

He discussed going after institutional funds and hedge funds instead of just traditional venture capital. Rarely available to most private companies.

Global video industry is a $350 billion industry. The internet video market represents .01% of this total. This does not include the booming growth in the user-generated video market.

Video is becoming as ubiquitous as text — on the verge of video as a "communications medium"

Lessons for media businesses include finding ways for consumers to become creators of programming. Get out ahead of the pirates and build your own video business and embrace ways for consumers to participate in and manipulate your media

He shows examples from Brightcove, Elle magazine (I think it's supported by Brightcove)

Monetization space – dominant one is from broadband advertising, pay media, syndication as content-owners expect to get paid for use and distribution of their content

Jeremy believes we are starting to move into better quality video from the 250kbps and exciting new UI metaphors

Conclusion – exceptional time for entrepreneurs, many approaches to starting and growing a company, follow your passion and your customers, online video is at the center of the online revolution right now, and it's still very, very, very early — hundreds of companies will get built and create value.