Magnify.net Archive

Last night at the NY Video 2.0 meeting, Magnify.net presented their new Magnify Publisher tool. We wrote about the Magnify Publisher when it launched last week. I did notice that embedded videos are now using a customized Magnify.net player with Magnify branding. This wasn’t in the initial launch version last week.

Magnify Publisher offers a variety of video hosts to search from and you can filter to specific providers. Image search currently works with Flickr and more image providers are coming soon. There’s also the ability to upload a video (it’s stored on Magnify’s servers) or record a video directly using a webcam.

NY-based Magnify.net is launching a new tool today named Magnify Publisher. It’s an add-on for blogging platforms — the first installations are available for WordPress and Movable Type.

Magnify Publisher offers a variety of video hosts to search from and you can filter to specific providers. Image search currently works with Flickr and more image providers are coming soon. There’s also the ability to upload a video (it’s stored on Magnify’s servers) or record a video directly using a webcam.

I spoke with Magnify.net CEO Steve Rosenbaum who suggested that Magnify Publisher will allow bloggers to add more multimedia content to their posts. As we walked through the demo, it’s clear that if you are looking for images or videos to add to a post, Magnify Publisher makes it very easy — much easier than searching on a service, copying the embed or saving out the image and uploading or embedding. Rosenbaum also notes that by using the tool, it can help to add more video content to a site on a regular basis.

On a side note, Rosenbaum is very passionate about the NY tech community and believes we will see big growth this year.

Magnify.net currently hosts more than 36,000 video channels and launched their 3.0 version in March 2008.

Magnify.net has launched a new widget based on the new YouTube API today at the April NY Tech gathering named VidyUp. I’ve embedded the video demo below. The idea is to bring in sites who aren’t interested in the full Magnify suite but rather want an entry ramp to get videos from site visitors onto their site.

You install the widget, users can then upload videos into YouTube and they appear on your site. It’s pretty slick and I am guessing we will see more of these type of widgets coming from developers using the YouTube API in the near future.

NY-based Magnify.net has launched v3.0 of their software today including a new enterprise model and more social tools. Magnify.net is now able to import social content from services including: Twitter, Flickr and Mogulus. Magnify.net lets you create a themed video channel by importing videos from YouTube, AOL, Yahoo, Veoh and other online video services. Magnify.net picked up $1 million in additional funding last month. The company is now referring to their service as an "Online Social TV Network".

Similar to NY-based white label social networking provider KickApps, Magnify.net now offers three pricing plans: free, pro and enterprise. Free allows you to share in the revenue generated from your pageviews, pro allows you to "buy" the inventory and display your own advertising and enterprise is for their larges customers including The Weather Channel.

Check out all of our Magnify.net coverage.

Just a week after announcing their 2007 figures and a month after opening their graphics platform, NY-based Magnify.net is announcing a new round of financing to the tune of $1 million dollars. Magnify.net is a white-label social networking provider that the company describes as, "online video discovery and broadcast platform for websites". The tool allows site owners to add custom video channels to enhance the overall user experience and keep users on the site longer, thereby allowing for more chances to monetize the user.

The money will be used to continue expansion and hire more staff for their ad network. Participating in the round are current investors: Next Stage Capital, New York Angels, Rose Tech Ventures, Active Angel Investors, and a number of individual investors including Chris Anderson. New to the round-up are: Ogden Capital and Gideon Gartner.

The company reports new membership at 1,000 sites per week.

NY-based white-label video social networking provider (phew!) Magnify.net is announcing the launch of their open source graphics development program. The idea is simple — if you create templates and graphics to use on Magnify.net, you can now share them and let others use them as well.

Called the Graphic Share Library (GSL), any member of the Magnify.net community can create, share, and use elements that have been ‘open-sourced’ by other members of the community. As part of the launch, Magnify.net has added 75 element Graphics Bonus Pack and an entirely new set of templates and graphics elements that include a series of themed channel graphics for sports, food, politics, adventure sports, gambling, and newspaper sites.

I have to admit, I don’t know how well this program will work. It’s a great idea in concept but if I spend hours/days/weeks creating a template, why would I want 10 other jabronies to use it as well? It would just water down my brand image. What I do think could work well is if Magnify.net partnered with some top Web designers to provide some templates and then allow those designers to offer other templates for a fee – could be a new stream of revenue for Magnify.net and a new base of marketers (the designers) similar to WordPress. They could also sign on these designers to make icon and button packs – another way to promote the product and have fans of the designer flock to Magnify.net

Magnify.net also claims to deliver more than 12 million page views per month and serving over 25,000 content publishers and they are the fastest growing video platform.

Check out the nextNYers interview with CEO Steve Rosenbaum:

I had an opportunity to speak with Magnify.net CEO Steve Rosenbaum earlier this week. Magnify.net is a NY-based startup which allows you to create video channels to expand the content on your blog or Web site. At least that is what I thought it was before I spoke with Steve. Steve began by stating that Magnify.net is actually a full social networking tool, similar to KickApps and Ning. Steve is working on updating messaging with a subtle shift to expose more of their social networking features. There are 8000 current sites using Magnify.net.

We went thru a full product demo and I was very impressed, especially with the video search features. It seems like a great way to add content to a site without doing anything. Set up the filters once, and Magnify.net will continue to add content as you have indicated.

The announcement tonight is around their ad-share advertising program. Basically it's simple, you can utilize the Magnify.net ad network and you earn 50% of the revenue generated from your impressions and ad clicks. And if you use the settings I mentioned above, fresh new "ad impressionable" content appears daily. Steve noted that they also offer an ad buyout program whereby you can "buy" the impressions at a rate you negotiate with Magnify.net and then you "own" the full 100% of ad space.

These ad programs are similar to KickApps except that KickApps gives you one of two locations and they own the other ad slot. The ad buyout program is the same for both services.

From the official announcement: “We see the next 24 months as a critical turning point for ad dollars. By launching the AdShare Network now, we’re giving our users a head start in determining what advertising strategy works best for them, their advertisers, and their visitors,” said Steve Rosenbaum, founder and CEO of the Magnify.Net team. “Each day we see power shifting from Madison Avenue to Main Street — and a new economy is growing up around video-centric communities of content. This means that individuals or small businesses with passion can become the central place for content consumers. And that’s exciting.”

The team is currently made up of three developers, a CEO/CTO/CFO, and a biz dev person in San Francisco. They supplement the full-time staff with a few additional developers. They are actively recruiting for a biz dev person for the east coast. They raised a 1.2 million dollar angel round and are looking at a full vc round in the near future. Three developers seems a bit light, they are certainly leaner than their competitior up the street, KickApps who has 40+ staff.