Are TV Stations Waking Up to Online Video? ClipSyndicate

Here's a new online video service that shares ad revenue like Revver. It's called ClipSyndicate, and its partners include Bloomberg News, The Associated Press and other news outlets.

The idea behind ClipSyndicate, says The International Herald Tribute, is "to give local U.S. television stations, which have watched as online upstarts have stolen viewers and advertising dollars, their own foothold on the Web. Local stations have failed miserably in attracting audiences to their Web sites. But given the fascination with online video, that model is now flipping. After all, why struggle to build an audience of your own when new Internet businesses will find video-starved viewers for you in far-flung corners of the Web?"

ClipSyndicate shares revenue with any site that hosts its videos (provided the site isn't a broadcaster or porn site). Publishers can either pay an undisclosed fee to ClipSyndicate each time they show a clip – and then display their own ads with the clip – or run the videos with ads sold by ClipSyndicate and earn 5 percent of the advertising revenue. The video's owners, meanwhile, receive 30 percent of whatever revenue is generated from each clip.

I gave ClipSyndicate a whirl, and was intrigued a bit. The demo sites like Aerospace News (which shows crashed planes) are not the finest, but that may be because the service is new. An ad was served at the beginning of a video, which was spawned by Microsoft Windows Media Player (ironically I didn't see the video of the ad, but the video of the clip worked). There was also a YellowPages banner on the top of the video.

I'll do a comparison of pay services next.