Is Blip.tv The Next Generation In Television Network?
“We offer a suite of analytics, including engagement graphs that delineate when people stopped watching a particular episode…”
This is the third week of our 5on5 Expert Blog Series on Video Distribution. Today’s interview is with Co-Founder of Blip.tv, Dina Kaplan.
What is blip.tv and what do you do?
Blip.tv is the next-generation TV network. We host, distribute and monetize approximately 50,000 original Web shows, attracting 90 million video views a month. The company was founded in May of 2005, so we just celebrated our 5th anniversary, and we’ve always been headquartered – proudly I should say – in New York City.
What we’ve found is that show producers often want to focus their talent, and energy, creating great original content, but they need help with all of the other elements required for a Web show to be scalable and profitable. This boils down to four buckets: first, bandwidth and technology to power the show; second, distribution to outlets such as iTunes, AOL Video, YouTube, Roku, Boxee and other platforms where people enjoy watching Web shows; third, ad sales to drive revenue for the show; and fourth, a bit of marketing, packaging and PR. Blip.tv provides each of these four services, enabling show creators to focus on making great content while blip.tv handles the rest.
Dina Kaplan, Blip.tv
Who should post their videos to blip.tv?
People producing original, serialized shows should post their content to blip.tv. We encourage these producers to send us a note when they’re uploading, to support@blip.tv, so we can check out the content and also say hello. The founders of blip.tv actually come from the community of show producers, so we’re always happy to welcome new folks to the roster of producers we work with and to nurture them as they grow audience numbers and then revenue.
Do you offer analytics?
We offer a suite of analytics, including engagement graphs that delineate when people stopped watching a particular episode and even where people paused, rewound or fast forwarded within the show. We’ve integrated TubeMogul analytics into blip.tv, and they’ve been a terrific partner for us and for our shows.
We also aggregate statistics across the entire blip.tv distribution network, so shows can check the blip.tv dashboard to track viewership across each of our syndication partners. We make it easy to track revenue by episode and by day, week and month, and to keep track of your eCPM as well.
Are pre-roll, post-roll, or overlay on all the videos that are uploaded?
As a producer using blip.tv, you have the choice to opt into, or out of, advertising on the blip.tv network, and we let you select the type of ads that run on your show. If you want to maximize revenue you’ll select pre-roll, overlay and post-roll for all of your episodes. Some of our shows will make a quarter million, or even a half million dollars this year, so we encourage shows to opt into advertising. We like nothing better than to send out checks to shows for their share of advertising revenue each quarter.
Does blip.tv have ownership over my video?
You own 100% of the content you upload to blip.tv, and that will always be the case. Our goal is to let you succeed on your own terms.
I want to give a special thanks to Dina for educating us on how blip.tv works as a television network. Next weeks interview is with Blake Whitman, Director of Community of Vimeo.
