marketing material. He says a restaurant critic could use the platform to create a video review of his or her experience—minutes after finishing a meal. Education is another important application. The company’s first beta customer is a school in Texas that wants to use the technology to communicate to students how they should prepare for the next day of class.
There are two main components to the 1Minute40 technology: the template that the consumer interacts with, and the back end system that creates the videos. (Kotelly has applied for a patent to protect the technology his company developed that assembles and ships the video content.) That back end also plugs into analytics services to get feedback on how viewers are reacting to the videos 1Minute40Seconds creates, to more intelligently inform future production.
“These templates are conducting an interview,” he says. “Just like when you ask questions back and forth.”
As its name indicates, 1Minute40Seconds is focused on keeping the videos short and compelling. One minute and 40 seconds isn’t the absolute limit, but the startup wants to keep the finished product down to a few minutes. (The 140 number refers to the number of characters allowed in a Tweet). “We don’t let you put too many words in; we’re putting up the guard rails,” he says.
The company already has the support of a big name in the video software world—Avid Technology founder Bill Warner, who has provided some angel funding. The startup is also currently part of the MassChallenge accelerator program. It aims to start targeting customers full-force at the beginning of this fall.
It will be interesting to see if there’s a place for 1Minute40Seconds in the fast-evolving Internet video world—and to see the kinds of stories it will pop out.
