speech-to-text software to make online video content more visible to search engines, thereby creating more “side doors” into media websites with loads of video content, such as Boston.com. “Text is the currency of the Web, and being able to plug all of this content into the broader search economy is the problem to solve with video,” says Tom Wilde, EveryZing’s CEO.
But Wilde isn’t too worried about the new competition. For one thing, he wonders how many companies with large video archives that they need to make searchable will also be in need of video hosting services. (Judging from Delve’s website, the company doesn’t offer one without the other.) “A lot of major media companies have already built their own” video content management systems, Wilde says. “It’s not a particularly difficult problem to solve, from a technology standpoint. That’s why you don’t find Brightcove or Maven serving the ‘Tier One’ media companies.”
EveryZing’s speech-to-text system, by contrast, is a Web-based service that runs alongside a client’s existing Web publishing systems. “We made a very conscious decision that we would ensure that our customers could leverage their existing investments in related technologies, whether it’s content management or ad serving or analytics,” says Wilde. “We just created a layer on top of that to drive discovery, consumption, and ad targeting.”
I wasn’t able to reach anyone at Delve for comment, as it appears that the entire company is in West Hollywood, CA, for AlwaysOn’s OnHollywood conference. But according to TechCrunch’s coverage, work on the Delve platform began in August of last year after Pluggd closed a Series A funding round involving Band of Angels, DFJ Frontier, Intel Capital, and Labrador Ventures. (There are conflicting reports about the size of that round: TechCrunch says it was $8 million, while John Cook’s Venture Blog at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer says it was $5.8 million. But everyone agrees that Intel Capital provided a $1.65 million seed investment in December 2006.)
The company is currently putting the finishing touches on its video management platform and player software, and has signed up a handful of beta customers including Bikini.com, CNET, Intel, Jaudible, Small Screen Network, and Wallstrip. Castro told Hendrickson that a free trial version of Delve’s software will be available within a few weeks, with pricing information also on the way soon.
