Type of business | Privately held company |
---|---|
Type of site | Video hosting service |
Founded | July 2003 |
Dissolved | August 2021 |
Key people | Reza Izad |
Current status | Defunct/Inactive |
Metacafe was an Israeli video-sharing website, launched in July 2003. During the mid-2000s it was one of the largest video-sharing websites,[ citation needed ] though it eventually began to be superseded by YouTube, Vimeo and Dailymotion. In August 2021, the platform's website became inactive, along with its social media pages having become abandoned.
Metacafe Inc. was founded in July 2003 [1] in Tel Aviv by Israeli entrepreneurs Eyal Hertzog (Chief Technical Officer) and Arik Czerniak (CEO) and raised $3 million from Benchmark Capital. In June 2006, the company closed a Series B financing round of $12 million. Investors included Accel Partners and Benchmark Capital. That September, the company moved its headquarters to Palo Alto, California and in October, Metacafe was ranked the third largest video site in the world according to comScore. [2] It used to attract more than 13 million unique monthly U.S. viewers and streamed more than 53 million videos in the U.S. each month, according to comScore Video Metrix (March 2011). The site's global audience was more than 40 million unique monthly viewers.[ citation needed ]
In its early years, Metacafe was similar to other video viewing websites such as YouTube or Dailymotion, but later turned into a short-form video entertainment. The company's partners had included marquee content providers such as major movie studios, video game publishers, broadcast and cable TV networks, music labels and sports leagues.
The site was supported through ads, and worked closely with brands in the entertainment, consumer electronics, telecommunications, consumer packaged goods, food & beverage, and automotive sectors.
In 2007, Erick Hachenburg, previously an executive with Electronic Arts, took over as CEO of the company. [3]
In June 2012 it was reported that Metacafe had been acquired by digital talent agency The Collective. Headquarters were moved to San Francisco, California, with another office in Los Angeles. [4]
In October 2006, Metacafe announced its Producer Rewards [5] program in which video producers were paid for their original content. Through this program, any video that was viewed a minimum of 20,000 times, achieved a VideoRank rating of 3.00 or higher, and did not violate any copyrights or other Metacafe community standards was awarded $5 for every 1,000 U.S. views.
The program had several success stories, some of which have been featured on national TV, such as The Can Tossing Video, [6] the Beer Launching Fridge on David Letterman, and the Ron Paul Girl series [7] by Liv Films, [8] as featured on Fox News and CNN. [9]
In August 2021, with neither warning nor announcement, Metacafe's website became inactive.[ citation needed ] Until October 2022 the URL redirected to VideosHub.
Video clips refer to mostly short videos, which are usually silly jokes and funny clips, often from movies or entertainment videos such as those on YouTube. Short videos on TikTok and YouTube often influence popular culture and internet trends. Such clips are usually taken out of context and have many gags in them. Sometimes they can be used to attract the public to the user's other accounts or their long-form videos. The term is also used more loosely to mean any video program, including a full program, uploaded onto a website or other medium.
Friendster was a social network based in Mountain View, California, founded by Jonathan Abrams and launched in March 2003. Before Friendster was redesigned, the service allowed users to contact other members, maintain those contacts, and share online content and media with those contacts. The website was also used for dating and discovering new events, bands and hobbies. Users could share videos, photos, messages, and comments with other members via profiles and networks. It is considered one of the original social networks.
iFilm is a discontinued U.S.-based video-sharing website on which users could upload, share and view videos. It was founded by filmmaker Raphael Raphael in 1997. It was later acquired by iFilm.net, a popular online interactive film and media archive, originally specializing in independent films. Ifilm.net was founded in 1998 by new media entrepreneurs Roger Raderman, J. Patrick Forden, and Luke McDonough. Percepticon Corporation engineered and built the website and content publishing system. Greg Deocampo, the founding CTO, developed the core engineering team, encoding network, presentation engine, and ad serving network. Its URL is now owned by Defy Media.
Break.com is an entertainment and humor website founded in 1998 that featured comedy videos, flash games, and pictures among other material. The website's target audience was men aged 18–35.
Revver was an American video sharing website that hosted user-generated content. Until its shutdown in 2011, Revver attached advertising to user-submitted video clips and originally offered to share ad revenue with the video creators. Videos could be displayed, downloaded, and shared across the web in either Apple QuickTime or FLV format. In addition, Revver was a video publishing platform that enabled third parties to build their own "Revverized" site. Revver allowed developers to create a complete white label of the Revver platform.
YouTube is an American online video sharing platform owned by Google. Accessible worldwide, YouTube was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim, three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States, it is the second most visited website in the world, after Google Search. YouTube has more than 2.5 billion monthly users, who collectively watch more than one billion hours of videos every day. As of May 2019, videos were being uploaded to the platform at a rate of more than 500 hours of content per minute, and as of 2021, there were approximately 14 billion videos in total.
A viral video is a video that becomes popular through a viral process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites such as YouTube as well as social media and email. For a video to be shareable or spreadable, it must focus on the social logics and cultural practices that have enabled and popularized these new platforms.
Dailymotion is a French online video sharing platform owned by Vivendi. North American launch partners included Vice Media, Bloomberg, and Hearst Digital Media. It is among the earliest known platforms to support HD (720p) resolution video. Dailymotion is available worldwide in 183 languages and 43 localised versions featuring local home pages and local content.
Vimeo, Inc. is an American video hosting, sharing, services provider, and broadcaster headquartered in New York City. Vimeo focuses on the delivery of high-definition video across a range of devices. Vimeo's business model is through software as a service (SaaS). They derive revenue by providing subscription plans for businesses and content creators. Vimeo provides its subscribers with tools for video creation, editing, and broadcasting, enterprise software solutions, as well as the means for video professionals to connect with clients and other professionals. As of December 2021, the site has 260 million users, with around 1.6 million subscribers to its services.
Joe Eigo is a Canadian stunt performer.
RJ Williams is an American media and Internet entrepreneur. He is the founder of the media company Young Hollywood. RJ Williams is currently a very active angel investor in the digital ecosystem with dozens of investments in high profile companies over the years and is a former child actor.
Blip was an American media platform for web series content and also offered a dashboard for producers of original web series to distribute and monetize their productions. The company was founded on May 5, 2005, and it was located in New York City and Los Angeles. It was financed by Bain Capital Ventures, Canaan Partners, and Ambient Sound Investments. Blip's mission statement was "to deliver the best original web series to audiences across multiple platforms." The site showcased a wide variety of dramas, comedies, arts, sports and other shows. Blip was acquired by Maker Studios in 2013 and shut down by them on August 20, 2015.
Veoh is an American video-sharing website, launched in September 2005. It was originally launched as a virtual television network application, and then became a video-sharing website in March 2006. During the mid-2000s, it was one of the largest video-sharing websites, though eventually began to be superseded by YouTube, Vimeo and Dailymotion. In February 2010, the company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, until it was saved two months later by the technology company Qlipso Inc. It was later sold to blogging host FC2, Inc, who still own it as of October 2021.
Peekvid.com was a website that cataloged links to various TV shows and movies to make them more easily accessible to the public.
alluc.ee(pronounced: "all-you-see") was a user-generated online video directory for TV shows, movies, music videos, sport, pornography, anime and cartoons, and later a search engine. Alluc did not host any content itself nor contain any download links; all links were to streaming video sharing websites. Users provided the links in the right category and published links to the site after being reviewed by the administrators. Video hosting sites that were linked to on Alluc included YouTube, Dailymotion, and Veoh, amongst others.
Tudou, Inc. is a Chinese video-sharing website headquartered in Shanghai, China, where users can upload, view and share video clips. Tudou went live on April 15, 2005 and by September 2007 served over 55 million videos each day.
MeFeedia.com is a media search website founded in 2004 that features videos, TV shows, movies, and music among other material. The chief executive officer of MeFeedia is Frank C. Sinton III. Mefeedia's name is derived from how it receives all content from user-submitted video RSS feeds from other sites and vlogs.
Clicker was an Internet video directory and search company based in Los Angeles, California. Their website aimed to be the TV Guide for all full episodes of programs available to watch on the Web. It is owned by CBS Interactive.
BBTV is a Canadian media and technology company founded by CEO Shahrzad Rafati in 2005. In 2019, the company was the second-largest video property by unique viewers, according to comScore. Its head office is in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. BBTV's clients include the NBA, Paramount Global, and Sony Pictures.