Brightcove 3: The search for Brightcove 2
I hope we’re not about to get back into the numbered naming scheme for software products/web apps. To me that became uncool as soon as AOL hit version 3.5. That isn’t stopping Internet video platform provider Brightcove however, which today unveiled the beta version of Brightcove 3.
To this I ask, where is Brightcove 2? I can’t seem to find it on the Internet.
Naming silliness aside, Brightcove 3 is a complete overhaul of the current look and feel of the service. It also promises a new model for utilizing video players and video information on web pages.
Seeing as the service is in closed beta for the time being, only open to select customers, it’s hard to know exactly what all these changes are beyond the rather vague press release. There is also a preview site set up with even less information.
Brightcove 3 boasts that it will bring television programing to the Web by enabling the delivery of long-form, broadcast-quality content through any website without the need for proprietary software plug-ins. Which the increasingly popular NBC and Fox-backed video site Hulu already does.
While big customers such as the New York Times, Dow Jones, Barron’s, Newsweek, Showtime, HBO and MTV may have already have access to Brightcove 3 or will shortly, everyone else can expect to see these new features this coming Fall,
The service, which claims to have some 135 million unique Internet users every month, launched a Japanese subsidiary last month. Brightcove KK is a strategic expansion to an area of the word where many citizens have access to broadband Internet, an integral part of Brightcove’s vision.
Brightcove raised a large $59 million round back in the start of 2007.
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About the Author, MG Siegler
MG Siegler writes about technology trends and new media for VentureBeat, with a focus on mobile topics, social elements and key news stories. Before that, MG wrote about technology on his blog, ParisLemon. Originally from Ohio, MG attended the University of Michigan where he studied film. He's previously lived in Los Angeles where he worked in Hollywood and in San Diego where he did web development. He now lives in San Francisco.