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Brightcove 3

Posted by Preetam on Oct 12, 2008 | Comments

Someone’s leaked Brightcove 3 screenshots, and you can have a look at them on Techcrunch. The screenshots are nothing short of awesome, and kudos to Brightcove’s interaction design team- we honor you.

However, I think maybe…just maybe…Brightcove is focusing a disproportionate amount of effort on publisher control, when they really could be doing something more about end-user engagement…maximizing the viewer experience.

Even with Brightcove 3, we’re still talking about viewers seeing a Brightcove player, with a list of videos to the side. And IMHO, with this player-based approach, Brightcove is effectively boxing up what’s supposed to be an out-of-the-box experience.

Plus, the last I checked, we’re on the verge of a recession.

Even common sense tells me that in times like these, video content publishers couldn’t care less about the amount of control you give them over their content.

What they probably want to know are answers to:

  • How can I reach more people?
  • How can I slash my content publishing and delivery costs?
  • How can I engage my users?
  • How can I monetize my content effectively?

But that’s just me.

  • Lucas,

    I didn't say that publishers don't care about where their content shows up. In fact, you're right: it's quite the converse- publishers do care very much about where their content shows up, and they want to be able to maximize reach + increase monetization capability even for content that has been spread all over the web.

    My intent was to highlight the fact that Brightcove is putting too much emphasis on publisher control, whereas they could have been doing a lot more on reducing costs, and making sure that the excellent service + user experience they offer is actually helping content publishers realize profits.

    So publishing control(and I screwed up in not articulating this properly) is about all the wonderful things I can do with my video content before it leaves my publishing platform(a la Brightcove/Marcellus).

    Then there's distribution control and capitalization.

    Then there's monetization-level control....

    Thanks for writing. Does that help clarify, somewhat?
  • Lucas Jackson
    "Even common sense tells me that in times like these, video content publishers couldn’t care less about the amount of control you give them over their content."

    that contradicts your statement here:

    "How can I slash my content publishing and delivery costs?"

    and here:

    "How can I monetize my content effectively?"

    The challenge that publishers have is that they generally are charged based on usage (the service, BC, Marcellus, etc.) has costs associated to bandwidth usage and for something to be spread across MySpace and every other place on the web means that there's potential runaway costs in overages. So I take issue with the comment that publishers "couldn't care less" about where the content they own shows up. Plus, when video is "shared" it uses loses a lot of opportunity to show ads around the content, further affecting the bottom line.

    Control over content and providing a good user experience, capitalizing on ad opportunities and reducing costs are all tied together.
  • You know what? I loved the BC interface... lubly! But, did I see the minimalist iTunes approach in there?! =) Which is quite funny coz BC reminds me a lot of the young Apple back in the days... first to figure out that there is market, first to carve out a niche in the market, pretty/idealistic...

    Apple figured out the technology of software...

    But it took a MSFT to figure out the business of software.
  • Hi Alex,

    Thanks for stopping by!

    As a matter of fact, I DID look at Delve earlier today. I love your product and I think it stands strong next to the Brightcove Publisher platform.

    However, we just launched our own video platform as well(http://www.marcellus.tv), and our focus is more on the end-user experience.
    Your product is excellent(I really mean that) from a publisher control standpoint..so perhaps there might be an opportunity for us to complement each other on some fronts.

    Feel free to write to me if you see a fit.

    pm (at) marcellus (dot) tv
  • Hey,

    I'd like to invite you to check our Delve Network's video platform. If you like Brightcove's Flex based UI, then I think you'll find the Delve UI to be even more impressive.

    Stop by and sign up for a free trial.

    Alex Castro
    CEO
    Delve Networks
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