Metacafe News:

--Taps End-Users to Improve Metadata for its Videos
--Teams with Universal on "Collaborative Remix" Promotion for "Heroes"
--Enables End-Users to Personalize its Videos

Broadband video site, Metacafe, is tapping its end-users to help improve the metadata associated with its video offerings. The company is inviting end-users to add and improve tags, titles, descriptions and more for any of the videos on its site, via a new feature called Wikicafe that the company says is designed to eliminate tag abuse and improve video search and recommendations. "A video with incomplete or inaccurate metadata is like a book without a cover--you don't know what it's about, which shelf it belongs on, or who's most likely to enjoy it," Eyal Hertzog, Metacafe's founder and chief creative officer, said in a prepared statement. "Simply put, we live by the mantra: "It's the metadata, stupid!'"

According to the company, Wikicafe is designed to allow people to share their knowledge of specific topics by adding details about the content of a video: thus a dog lover could tag a video with the correct name of the breed the video features, or a world traveler could add background about the location in which a video is set, the company says. Metacafe says that the application should enable it to assemble a rich database of video information that will make it easier for end-users to discover the videos that interest them. In addition, Wikicafe allows end-users to change misleading tags, correct spelling errors, and edit metadata in various other ways: to open the application, they simply click "Edit Video Details" on any Metacafe video page, and their updates are immediately reflected on the site. The app, which is built on the MediaWiki platform, supports six languages in addition to English: Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Italian and Spanish. According to Metacafe, it was in beta testing for four months before its launch last month.

In other Metacafe news:

• The company recently teamed with Universal Studios Home Entertainment on a "collaborative remix" promotion that invited its end-users to create their own original "Heroes Moment" remix of the eponymous primetime drama series, using video and audio clips from the show, and also to further enhance remixes created by other end-users. The service was powered by a collaborative online video editor from Kaltura. The remixes it generated were located on a dedicated area of Metacafe's site: after watching a remix, end-users were invited to "Join the Heroes" by adding to the remix they had just watched or by creating their own from scratch. They could also rank other end-users' remixes, and email links to their own remixes to their friends. "Fans of 'Heroes' are avid entertainment enthusiasts who welcome the opportunity to stretch their own creative muscles by making a remix showcasing their favorite characters and moments from the second season," Metacafe CEO, Erick Hachenburg, said in a prepared statement. "By enabling this to be a truly collaborative endeavor, we're not only enriching the shared fan experience, we're helping Universal Studios Home Entertainment put the power of social media to work in enlisting consumers as brand ambassadors."
• The company recently launched a feature that allows its end-users to personalize their experience of its videos by adding dialog bubbles, photos, Webcam video, clip art, subtitles and more to online videos, and then to save their customized versions of those videos for viewing by other Metacafe users or for sending to their friends via email. The feature is enabled by a toolkit, called PLYfx, from a company called PLYmedia, which specializes in tools that enable interactive enhancement of Web video. "The power of online video centers on the ability for viewers to interact with content and control their own entertainment experiences," Metacafe's Hertzog said in a prepared statement. "This toolkit builds on these core principles and makes it easy for everyone to stretch their creative muscles and produce videos that reflect their original ideas, personal style and mood of the moment. This is yet another way we're breaking down the barriers to creative expression and infusing more fun into social media." In order to use the new service, which is currently in beta, registered Metacafe users first go to an area of the site where they click on an "Enable PLYfx" button. Then, when they are watching a video, they can click on a PLYfx button that appears in the upper left corner of the video player and that activates a drop-down menu which leads them through the process of personalization. In addition to allowing end-users to share their personalized videos by email, the application allows them to embed their creations directly in another Web site. Each new PLYfx-created video is assigned a unique URL, so that it can be promoted elsewhere. "Lots of people have ideas they'd love to bring to life in video, but the process of shooting, editing and uploading a video is still fairly time-consuming and labor-intensive," PLYmedia CEO, Ben Enosh, said in a prepared statement. "Our platform makes it quick and easy for people to bring their creative visions to life by building on existing videos. This creativity toolkit encourages more participation, cooperation and interaction among members of the Metacafe community--enhancing both the individual and shared entertainment experience."