MTV Networks starts making money on MySpace, via video ad-matching tech
MTV Networks can now make money when a MySpace user uploads its content — say a clip from comedy newscast “The Daily Show,” or prank show “Punk’d” — via ad-matching technology created by a Palo Alto, Calif. startup called Auditude.
Similar to the “Content ID” system recently introduced by Google-owned YouTube, Auditude automatically identifies professional video clips and lets a content owner serve targeted ads alongside them.
In the meantime, MTV owner Viacom is pressing on with its $1 billion lawsuit against Google, because it says Google hasn’t done a good enough job of stopping users from illegally uploading its content to YouTube. But if Viacom is willing to use this technology with News. Corp.-owned MySpace and make money, rather than sue News Corp., why not use YouTube’s Content ID, too?
Auditude says it has indexed more than a billion minutes of content, comprised of 250 million videos and four years worth of 100 television channels; the technology can be used on any web site. It has already partnered with Warner Bros. The company’s chief executive is Adam Cahan, a former executive at MTV and Google. The company has received funding Greylock Partners.
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About the Author, Eric Eldon
Eric currently covers digital media technology and business news, especially what's happening on social networks and their platforms. He also writes and edits stories about venture capital, and lots of other stuff, too. He started at VentureBeat in the spring of 2007, half a year or so after Matt Marshall left his reporting job at the San Jose Mercury News to found the site. Eric previously cofounded a startup called Writewith, that was building editorial software for newspapers and other groups of writers. The startup didn't work out, but he learned a lot.