Brightcove in Over-the-Top Video Distribution Deal with Boxee

Broadband video publishing solutions provider, Brightcove, announced a partnership with over-the-top-TV specialist Boxee, Tuesday, which it says will see it providing Brightcove media customers with turnkey distribution options to the living-room television set via the Boxee interface. The company bills the partnership as providing its customers with new opportunities to expand their audience reach and advertising inventory, while bringing online video from prominent news and entertainment programmers to Boxee users. The first Brightcove customers to take advantage of the distribution partnership include Conde Nast Digital, Qubo and TheStreet.com. "Boxee's unique and powerful platform enables media publishers to provide consumers with a lean-back TV experience for online video, while maintaining control over monetization, analytics, and other important aspects of their digital media strategies," Jeff Whatcott, Brightcove's SVP of marketing, said in a prepared statement. "We are very excited to be able to roll this opportunity out to Brightcove platform customers on a worldwide basis."

According to Brightcove, integration with Boxee provides an easy way for Brightcove customers to set up their own content channel within Boxee and take advantage of the Brightcove platform's built-in publishing and distribution features. Featured content can be integrated into Boxee's catalog (which includes such sites as Netflix, CNN and CBS) "in a matter of minutes," the company says, and without sacrificing existing workflows and control over advertising (note: according to an article in Paid Content, Tuesday, Boxee will not be taking a share of ad revenues generated by Brightcove customers on its platform). In addition, Brightcove says, customers can expose their content to Boxee's community, as well as to third-party social sites such as Twitter and Facebook, through Boxee's rating system, which pushes recommended content to friends both inside and outside the Boxee community. "Boxee's partnership with Brightcove represents an important step as we bring well-known, established content owners onto our platform," Boxee co-founder and CEO, Avner Ronen, said in a prepared statement. "The Brightcove platform also gives us a go-to provider for our content partners who are looking for robust content delivery options. In turn, Boxee offers Brightcove clients the ability to extend their entertainment from the Web into the living room." According to Boxee, over half a million people have downloaded its software platform (which includes Linux, Mac and PC versions) since its launch in June, 2008.

In other Brightcove news: The company also announced Tuesday that German weekly newspaper, Die Zeit, has selected its platform to power broadband video for its Zeit Online Web site. According to Brightcove, its platform will allow Zeit Online to tightly integrate its advertising-supported video with other online content, and will also extend its audience reach by giving visitors to the site the ability to share and embed videos on third-party distribution and social media outlets. The company also claims that its platform's ease of integration with leading advertising networks and servers has enabled Zeit Online to expand its monetization strategy with new broadband video advertising opportunities. "Video performance and quality are key factors in the success of our online video initiatives, and Brightcove's track record in both areas is unmatched," Zeit Online managing director, Christian Roepke, said in a prepared statement. "Brightcove's open platform approach and developer resources also enable us to develop new, highly customized experiences that integrate online video with other Web site features, which helps to keep visitors on the site longer."