Expect to see a lot of consolidation in the broad video space.
- the fight for #3 in file sharing social networks will cause many (DailyMotion, Metacafe, Veoh, Revver, Break) to consolidate and merge to remain viable against YouTube, Yahoo!, MySpace and MSN.
- ad networks and advertising platforms will also see some shakedown (Yume, Scanscout, Brightroll, Tremor Media, etc.)
- today we saw content producer LX.tv get acquired by NBC. See our thoughts here.
Just now, metric company Vidmeter got acquired by Visible Metrics. It’s worth noting that Vidmetrix is a tool by Vidmeter, spawned from Holt Labs, whose founder Bri Holt previously sold SocialMeter.com to Adaptive Blue, Read Write Web columnist Alex Iskold’s Union Square Ventures’ funded company, USV is Fred Wilson’s fund, who incidentally was an angel investor in Wallstrip, Howard Lindzon’s video blog on the stock market, who sold to CBS and then proceeded to invest in Vidmeter’s competitor Tubemogul (on tomorrow’s Six Degrees of Separation, we’ll look at…).
All to say, Holt deserves some credit for identifying these niches and then creating products that catch the eye of would-be buyers, quickly.
We’ve used Vidmeter’s Vidmetrix. Also in the market are TubeMogul, as well as Hey Spread. Veoh too has a multi-upload tool function, but Vidmeter and Tubemogul also offer analytics, which makes them a more interesting acquisition target to more companies (think Nielsen, comScore, Google Analytics, Webside Story, etc.) I can also see a company like CBS acquire Tubemogul, don’t ask me why, just a gut (ie. Think Howard Lindzon is Kevin Bacon).
This is the year video goes mainstream and many companies that were thinking “Build” shift gears and decide to Buy. the dollars are shifting away from TV way too fast for cash-rich, time-restricted media and technology companies to sit around.
Disclaimer: WatchMojo.com has various working relationships with both Vidmeter and Tubemogul, and distributes content on Veoh. We’ve been rooting in equal parts for both Vidmeter and Tubemogul and fully anticipate them to have a successful exit too, soon.
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