Brightcove Announces New Customer Wins in Japan

Broadband video publishing solutions provider, Brightcove, has just announced a series of customer wins in Japan, which it says were aided in part by the recent release of a fully localized version of its platform for the Japanese market (see the article published on itvt.com, July 15th). The company established a majority-owned Japanese subsidiary, Brightcove KK, back in 2008, with a $4.9 million investment from itself and from four prominent Japanese strategic partners: Dentsu, J-Stream, transcosmos and CCI. "We continue to accelerate our rapid global expansion, and our success and broad adoption in Japan is a major driving force to that growth," Brightcove chairman and CEO, Jeremy Allaire, said in a prepared statement. "We've seen strong customer traction in Japan since the launch of Brightcove KK last year, and the recent introduction of our fully localized online video platform has enabled more leading organizations to take advantage of the dynamic features and functionality that Brightcove offers."

The new customers are:

• Rakuten, which bills itself as the largest ecommerce Web site operator in Japan and which claims to have over 50 million registered users. It is using the Brightcove platform to power a new video section, in which, according to the company, it "publish[es] and distribute[s] high-quality video content to foster a more interactive purchasing experience for visitors." In addition, Brightcove says, its platform will allow Rakuten's merchant partners to "upload user-generated content...and add it to their online presence on the Rakuten site." Rakuten also operates an online DVD rental site on which trailers for campaigns and new releases are delivered by Brightcove.
• Tokyo Metropolitan Television, a commercial TV station which until now has served the capital city exclusively. The station is using the Brightcove platform to make broadband video programming available throughout Japan, including recent coverage of the Tokyo election and high school baseball championships.
• Regional broadcasters, Television Osaka and Shizuoka Asahi Television, which are using the Brightcove platform to manage their broadband video content and to publish new content that is synchronized with aired programs in an effort to drive online viewership. According to Brightcove, its "open platform and rich set of API's also enables these broadcasters to make their video content available via mobile devices through its integration with the video transcoding and publishing solution of J-Stream, a pioneer company which offers video delivery infrastructure in Japan, for Japanese mobile handsets. This integration," Brightcove says, "enables single video uploads to be automatically optimized for PC's as well as a wide range of 3G mobile handsets."
• ART iT, a bilingual portal site devoted to contemporary art content, which is using the Brightcove platform to power new broadband video and social networking features, and also using the platform's distribution capabilities to extend its broadband video content to third-party sites and networks. According to Brightcove, its platform "enables ART iT to deliver a highly interactive Web site experience that promotes contemporary art through interviews with high-profile artists and curators and visual tours inside galleries and museums."
• Chabu-Nippon Broadcasting (CBC), a basic station of Japan News Network and Japan Radio Network, which Brightcove says has adopted its platform to reduce time-to-market and costs for distributing a growing library of broadband video content. It recently launched Brightcove for one of its major radio Web properties, the company says, inviting visitors to vote on and rank their favorite movie clips.
• Aniplex, an anime and music production subsidiary of Sony Music Group, which is using the Brightcove platform for publishing and distributing its animated and promotional video content. According to the company, it also uses its platform's "deep customization capabilities" to create integrated players for each title.

In addition, Brightcove says, its first major Japanese customer, Presentcast, continues to roll out its platform to additional Web properties: among other things, it recently teamed with Tokyo Broadcasting System to distribute full-screen video highlights from the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics. Brightcove's other previously announced Japanese customers include Tokyo Broadcasting System, Asahi Breweries Group, Sony Music Network Japan, Shueisha webUOMO, and orangepage.net.

In other broadband video news: Ooyala announced last week that, in addition to traditional streaming and HTTP delivery, its publishing platform will now support RTMPE (Real Time Media Protocol Encrypted) streams, in order to enable its customers to protect against stream-ripping and unauthorized distribution of their content.