Video Platforms: it’s getting crowded in here

Today we saw a new entrant into what is getting to be a crowded space; Quick.TV is the newest video management and delivery platform for professional video. They join Grab Networks, Brightcove, thePlatform, Ooyala, Long Tail Video, Delve Networks, Magnify, Videobloom, and soon Joost all helping professionals get their video to the masses online.

With so many services to choose from its fair to ask, what’s the difference? All offer similar core video capabilities: upload, encode, host, serve, and deliver video through a skinnable player, and then view analytics through an online account. Most also offer in-player advertising capability. From a feature perspective, what’s starting to set them apart are added capabilities such as social features, in-player applications like polls, or the coolest thing, the ability to make objects in video clickable, tying the click to a subsequent action. For example, a publisher can make a car clickable and associate that click to a website. User’s watching the video can click the car and be directed to the website for more information or purchasing. To my knowledge Ooyala are the pioneers here and Quick.tv is following suit.

The bottom line is that video management and delivery is now a commodity. Pricing is based on storage and bandwidth costs, and most of these services have partnered with third-party CDN providers and mark up the charges. That’s great news for professional video publishers since, with competition, service providers are forced to either lower prices or provide better capabilities and services to justify the higher price tag. Either way, it’s a win for the consumer.