Vator Box

5

Vator Box: Kyte and Ad Infuse

Portfolio.com's Blaise Zerega talks mobile video and ads

Innovation series by Bambi Francisco Roizen
August 29, 2008 | Comments (1)
Short URL: http://vator.tv/n/3c9


As someone who has spent hundreds of hours capturing digital video, then downloading it to a PC before uploading it to the Internet, the ease of a streaming video service like Kyte is a godsend.

The ability to capture video and send it directly to the Web with a wireless connection is the heart of the business proposition for Kyte and for its main competitors, Qik and Flixwagon.

 Helping us evaluate Kyte is this week's guest host, Blaise Zerega, deputy editor of Conde Nast's Portfolio and former managing editor of Wired.

As Zerega points out, Kyte garnered a lot of attention after well-known blogger Robert Scoble praised its service and started using it again after earlier switching from Kyte to Qik.

One of the reasons was Kyte's embeddable player that lets users create their own custom video channels that can be housed on any Web site, including Kyte's, or on a social network like Facebook or MySpace.

Businesses and entertainment users have the option of using the Kyte Premium Player for capturing and distributing  branded video on the Internet.

50Cent is the biggest-name artist using the Kyte platform to beam short videos to his fans on his own Web site.

Kyte's chat feature is part of its plan to create social networks around shared video content.  In the hands of citizen journalists, mobile phones streaming Kyte video can produce live coverage of an event anywhere there is mobile service.

To succeed as a business, Kyte will have to aggregate a lot of content and traffic so it can eventually sell ads, or license its technology to companies that want a mobile video platform.

While the online video market has proven tough, with many sites abandoning content plays in favor of licensing their technology for white label video platforms, mobile video streaming may prove more profitable if its allows advertisers to place highly-targeted ads in front of users.

Ultimately, a company like Kyte, which is backed by Nokia, may end up being acquired by a large handset maker or anyone else that wants a mobile video technology that's powerful and easy to use. 

 

Next up is Ad Infuse, which delivers personalized ads to mobile phones and networked media players.

Mobile ad networks like Ad Infuse, and rivals like AdMob, are attractive takeover candidates, Zerega says, because the highly personal nature of a mobile phone is helping to support high CPMs for mobile ads, at least so far.

As Vator.tv managing editor John Shinal added, "non-relevant ads are DOA on mobile phones," because no one is going to allow for that level of intrusion for an annoying ad.

Whether the high CPM rates for mobile ads can be paired with high click-through rates, or can last at all if Google and other large Web ad firms migrate to mobile is a key question for mobile ad networks. The big players can use scale to improve efficiency and help drive down rates, just as they have done with Web search and display advertising. 

Still, Ad Infuse  and others are likely to get snapped up by larger firms, just as Web ad networks such as Blue Lithium, Tacoda, RightMedia, Adify and others were snapped up.


Related companies, investors and entrepreneurs

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lglglj g
Startup/Business
Description:  
Plogo_kyte-kyte_kyte_logo_orange_background
Kyte
Startup/Business
Description: Kyte is a white-label, cloud-based publishing platform for live and on-demand video. The Kyte Platform reduces the cost and complexity of...
Thumb_2833_admobomarhamouiceo
Admob
Startup/Business
Description: AdMob is the world's largest mobile advertising marketplace. Founded in 2006, AdMob allows advertisers to reach their customers on the m...
Thumb_459_ao_nyc2007_adinfuse
Ad Infuse, Inc.
Startup/Business
Description: Ad Infuse delivers highly personalized ad experiences to consumers across all mobile devices. By dynamically inserting targeted ads at t...
Plogo_qik
Qik
Startup/Business
Description: Qik is a little piece of software that enables you to stream videos directly from your phone to the Web. Use it to stream engaging videos...
90_70_default_profile_pic
Omar Hamoui
CEO/Founder,
Admob

Related news


Comment

Comment_gbg
Gannon Hall, on August 29, 2008

Gannon from Kyte here. Thanks for the write up. Just wanted to clarify a few points re: our business model from the video discussion.

We are not a destination site. Kyte.tv is meant to be a reference site. Our model is that our users’ brand is the destination and their fans should be able to view branded content wherever they are (e.g. social networks, blogs, mobile phones, other web sites, etc.). For example, Huffington Post has been using the Kyte Platform to live stream from the DNC. I can watch their content on the HuffPo web site, or on my Facebook page, or a blog that has embedded the HuffPo channel, etc.

While anyone can use Kyte, and we are certainly happy that individual consumers are using our platform, our business model is focused on branded content, not UGC. There’s not a very big audience of people that care about the live streams that I do on the weekend, but there is a massive audience of folks that want to see SPIN Magazine providing live, behind the scenes footage from the Radiohead tour (http://www.spin.com/radiohead-tour) or view 50 Cent’s branded content (http://www.thisis50.com). So, the significant opportunity to monetize comes from branded content, not UGC.

We are not aiming to be an ad delivery network. Today, you can utilize the rich media advertising features we have built into our platform (e.g. pre, post roll, etc.) as well as include banner ads with links for e-commerce integration. Power 106 in L.A. (over 1.5 mil weekly listeners) is doing this today and if you visit their Kyte channel you’ll see a Nike Human Race 10K banner ad within their player: http://www.power106.fm/powertv/. Next week we will be rolling out some new ad types for our partners, and in the Fall you will see us do third party ad server integrations (e.g. DART, etc.).

We do not compete with Qik. Kyte is a universal digital media platform, of which live mobile streaming is but one component. While this feature gets lots of attention in the media it represents one of several ways (including pre-produced video uploads, mobile email, mobile record and upload, live webcam, APIs, etc.) our partners produce and distribute branded content. More on our platform here: http://www.kyte.com/platform.

Thanks and hope you all have a great Labor Day weekend!


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