Sunday, November 25, 2007
YuMe Out To Tame Video For The Internet
by
Advertising on the Web has been evolving from text-based, to static or animated display ads, and, most recently, to video. While advertisers would like to take advantage of the video capabilities a growing broadband-powered Internet is providing, trying to harness online video-based marketing has been a bit chaotic. A company called YuMe would like to bring some order to the chaos.
Similar to the way a keyword entry in a search engine brings you to both relevant organic and paid text ads, the YuMe network would help deliver video-based advertising in the same manner. In addition, it would provide the same types of controls and measurement capabilities that have made services like Google’s AdWords so popular.
YuMe has created a video advertising network that hopes to offer “brand safe advertising experiences” to people using computers, TVs, mobile devices, etc. In other words, part of YuMe’s mission is to make sure that a company’s online ads don’t end up next to some inappropriate content. We’ve all seen things like that happen online. An example might be an ad for a pontoon boat manufacturer ending up next to a news story in which a boating accident killed three people. Systems that place such ads online might interpret the word “boating” in the tragic story as a marker for a relevant place to insert the pontoon boat manufacturer’s ad. YuMe’s intent is to circumvent these types of brand-negative occurrences.
YuMe has a good thing going. It’s a needed service. It’s at the nexus of the fast-growing online video adoption. And, it’s backed by some big money. YuMe has received $7 million in funding from Khosla Ventures, Accel Partners and BV Capital. It just stands to reason that this will be a major acquisition candidate for Google or one of the other major online players that are trying to establish preeminence in Internet-related video advertising.
