Channels.com, a 2-year-old Palo Alto, Calif.-based start-up is joining the online video party, with the launch of its Web video guide, that allows users to collect and collate all types of online videos into – you guessed it – channels.
Channels.com founder and CEO Sean Doherty, a former @Home executive and a telecom entrepreneur, says that the company’s service allows consumers to build playlists (channels) out of any type of video content on the web, but is more focused on the web videos from established media companies. A quick glance through the website and you realize that Channels.com has many of the features you find in disparate services such as Dabble and VodPod, but all aggregated together.
“By using our tools you can build a channel of say Lost promotional videos, actor interviews and then link it to the full-length web video shows that are currently available on the network’s website,” says Doherty. He argues that just like when you go to Amazon.com, you browse through the available book options, read through the excerpts and reader comments, and then make a purchase decision – the same holds true on his service. The “revenue decision” in this case is your willingness to watch the full-length videos, most of them ad-supported.
“Most of the TV and cable network executives want to make money on the Web,” says Doherty, who has so far self-funded the company, with a small angel investment from Will Hearst, former general partner at KPCB, and an original investor in @Home (the first cable modem based broadband service that merged with Excite, but later went belly up). “New technologies are cool but are like a talking dog,” Doherty adds, “but most of the innovations in web video don’t show a clear way for the rights holders to make money. The guy who owns the P&L for web video at NBC cares.”
Doherty is betting that the content owners will kick some of the monies back his way. He has talked to nearly 75 cable and television networks and claims that so far the feedback for his service has been quite positive. “In developing Channels, we realized that the Web offered the potential to create a central environment where video-clip surfers can discover great video and be converted into viewers of ad-supported video in one integrated experience – without uploading.”
Hi Om,
I looked at Channels, and it looks exactly the same as Vodpod, Splashcast and Magnify. Except that those three have people making the channels or groups, and Channels does it in an automated fashion. In fact Channels seems to just plop an RSS feed from a source that has multiple RSS feeds, into individual channels.
I also looked at Dabble. When I search Dabble, I get for example for “dog”, over 100k videos with the most relevant at the top, but at Channels I get 46 in reverse chron order (like getting the feed in Bloglines).
I don’t think search and collecting an RSS feed into a single channel are quite the same thing. How do you figure that Channels does more than Vodpod, Splashcast or Magnify, which have people hand selecting video? I had much more valuable video watching their channels than the automated channel at Channels.com.
Interesting site though.
Kelly