Ooyala

Broadband video platform provider, Ooyala, on Wednesday announced the launch of its Video Search Engine Optimization SDK. Using Ooyala's video publishing tools, the company says, the SDK allows developers to expose video metadata to search engines in order to improve search engine rankings.

Because the [itvt] editorial team is busy working on The TV of Tomorrow Show (March 3rd-4th in San Francisco) and on our new EBIF Intensive event (March 5th in San Francisco), we will be covering most stories in summary/round-up form over the next few weeks. Here is a round-up of broadband video news for the past few days:

Earlier this month (see the article published on itvt.com, January 12th), broadband video platform provider, Ooyala, announced that it had entered into a partnership with NTT Smartconnect--a subsidiary of Asia's largest telco, NTT Holdings--to sell a localized, co-branded version of its flagship Backlot video platform in Japan. On Wednesday, the company launched the new Japanese version of the platform, together with a Japanese Web site.

Broadband video platform provider, Ooyala, announced Wednesday that Telegraph Media Group (TMG), which publishes the UK newspaper, The Daily Telegraph and its Web site, telegraph.co.uk, has chosen its platform to power its broadband video offerings. The deal--which sees Ooyala replacing rival Brightcove as TMG's broadband video platform provider--also calls for Ooyala to work with TMG's recently launched digital business unit, the Euston Project, to develop new technologies for the delivery and consumption of online media. According to Ooyala, members of its technical team will begin working out of the Euston Project's facilities next week.

Because the [itvt] editorial team is busy working on The TV of Tomorrow Show (March 3rd-4th in San Francisco), we are covering a number of stories in this issue in summary form:

Broadband video platform provider, Ooyala, will today announce that it has entered into a partnership with NTT Smartconnect--a subsidiary of Asia's largest telco, NTT Holdings--to sell a localized, co-branded version of its flagship Backlot video platform in Japan.

Here is a round-up of some other interactive TV-related stories we didn't have room for in this issue:

Italian software company, Command Guru, recently produced an interactive, live streaming, fly-on-the-wall reality TV show, centering on the efforts of an international team of 10 developers, led by Cocoa guru, Aaron Hillegass (author of "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X"), to develop a free, open source, social networking iPhone application in seven days ("from start-to-publish on the App Store").

Broadband video platform provider, Ooyala, said last week that it partnered with Tokyo-based Gotcha Media to deliver a live stream of last month's Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) heavyweight title bout between Fedor Emelianenko and Brett Rogers. According to the company, its live Internet streams of the event generated "ground-breaking" viewer numbers in Japan, and viewership of the on-demand version of the fight continues to grow even a month after the event. Ooyala claims that its platform's scalability allowed Gotcha Media to deliver high-quality video to over 15,000 concurrent viewers in Japan.

Broadband video platform provider, Ooyala (note: the company claims to have over 140 global media and enterprise customers, including Warner Bros., Electronic Arts and Sybase), announced last week that it has been tapped by Brazilian movie rental company, NetMovies, to power the latter's new, Web-based movie-streaming service, NetMovies Live.

Broadband video platform provider, Ooyala, announced Monday night that it has appointed Jay Fulcher as president and CEO, effective immediately. Fulcher, who will also join the company's board, replaces Ooyala co-founder and CEO, Bismarck Lepe, who will now take on the position, president of product strategy, and report to Fulcher. Fulcher most recently served as president and CEO of publicly held Agile Software, a provider of product lifecycle management solutions, and led its sale to Oracle in late 2007. Prior to that, he spent five years at PeopleSoft, where, according to Ooyala, he led the transformation of that company's $1 billion+ global services organization after being president of its $400 million products division.

Ooyala, a Silicon Valley-based company that offers solutions for broadband video management, delivery, syndication, and monetization (note: those solutions include an interactive video platform that the company claims automates video object recognition and tracking, and allows the creation of clickable objects within a video, enabling viewers, for example, to access more information on products featured in a commercial or show), announced Monday that it has expanded its US sales and business development operations with three new hires:

Ooyala, a Silicon Valley-based company that offers solutions for broadband video management, delivery, syndication, and monetization (note: those solutions include an interactive video platform which the company claims automates video object recognition and tracking, and allows the creation of clickable objects within a video, enabling viewers, for example, to access more information on products featured in a commercial or show), will announce today that Akarag, a Japanese company that specializes in helping companies integrate digital media into their business, has joined its Technology Partnership program.

Japanese incumbent telco, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT), announced Tuesday that it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Silicon Valley-based Ooyala, to launch a "joint exploration of the business potential and technologies related to interactive video advertising." Ooyala, which was founded in 2007 by former Google employees, Bismark Lepe, Belsasar Lepe and Sean Knapp and which last year announced that it had raised $8.5 million in a funding round led by Sierra Ventures, offers an interactive video platform which it claims, among other things, automates video object recognition and tracking, and allows the creation of clickable objects within a video, enabling viewers, for example, to access more information on products featured in a commercial or show.