MeeVee expanding beyond a personalized guide to delivering video content

John Shinal · October 30, 2007 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/87

Given how many places consumers can watch video on the Web -- everywhere from YouTube to Veoh Networks and, now, Hulu -- startups in this market need to work hard to differentiate themselves.

MeeVee.com, which was originally conceived as a sort of TV Guide for online video, has been expanding beyond just helping consumers find what they want to watch on the Web and now has ways of delivering it to them. 

The Silicon Valley startup has just raised another funding round and has now raised $16 million in total, according to founder and CEO Michael Raneri.

MeeVee calls itself the fastest and easiest way to find the video you want on the Web, but in this interview with Vator.tv managing editor John Shinal, Raneri likens the the firm to an affiliate television network for online video content.

That refers to MeeVee's business of supplying a white-label video platform to sites like USA Today, the Seattle Times newspaper and small cable companies. Its latest partner is Freedom Communications, which has newspaper and TV affiliate sites.

You can watch MeeVee's video pitch here.

MeeVee's blog affiliate network also provides content to video news blogs that use the MeeVee widget, which at the time of this interview had also been used by 75,000 Facebook users.

All this is in addition to MeeVee's original special sauce, its software that lets consumers create profiles that can be used to find videos based on what shows they like, or their favorite actors, hobbies and other topics. 

The latest funding round will help the company ramp up services, including one that's part of a new deal with the CBS audience network that lets Net users locate content from that network. The content will come from the archives of TV shows, contemporary content and even live video streams, Raneri says.