Online video specialist and Comcast subsidiary thePlatform announced
that cable network Outdoor Channel has become the latest customer for its "mpx
Beta" video management system, which it is using to manage and publish
online video for its website, OutdoorChannel.com.
In addition to using mpx Beta, the updated version of thePlatform's
popular "mps" media publishing system which the Seattle-based
company launched in February, Outdoor Channel is also employing thePlatform's
video player technology to allow viewers to watch its extensive library of hunting,
fishing, shooting, off-roading, adventure and conservation videos. thePlatform's
player includes integrations with leading social media sites, such as Facebook,
Twitter, Digg and Yahoo! Buzz.
"OutdoorChannel.com is currently attracting approximately one million
unique visitors per month," said Todd Merkow, president of digital media
at Outdoor Channel, in a statement. "thePlatform's proven video
publishing system will provide us with a simpler, scalable and robust back-end
to serve our viewers' appetite for our authentic outdoor content."
thePlatform has just released a number of enhancements to mpx Beta,
including new tools for creating and managing "curated" video
feeds, integrated support for applying advertising policies and additional
capabilities to enforce viewing restrictions for TV shows, live events, movies
and clips.
The new functionality for "curated" feeds allows a site to
easily match mix editorial feeds, which are manually picked by a programmer's
staff and placed in a static playlist, and dynamic feeds, which are
automatically populated, explains thePlatform VP of sales and marketing Marty
Roberts.
"For example, if you're E! Online and you want to keep the latest
Lindsay Lohan clip right up top, you can set up as many static positions as you
want," says Roberts. "After that, you can backfill the rest of the
playlist with more dynamic content, based on availability date, what's most
popular, etc."
Another new feature is that mpx Beta Feeds users can apply their
business policies, such as advertising restrictions or limitations on what
types of IP devices can display their content, to the actual feeds as they are
syndicated. This ensures the right ads are played for partners and that content
delivery requests are limited to the syndication partner.
Another new content tool allows mpx Beta to restrict the viewing of
feeds for live events like sports, where blackout restrictions might apply. thePlatform
previously enabled customers to set broad geo-restrictions, but the new mpx
Beta functionality allows customers to restrict content viewing by country,
region, metro code, city, area code, postal code, and set blackout areas for
specific audiences within those regions. mpx Beta also gives customers the
ability to restrict content by expiration date, referring domain, IP address,
and keys.
Finally, mpx Beta's new integrated advertising policy management,
based on integration work with 16-odd third-party ad server companies, allows customers
to set policies to call primary and secondary (failover) advertising providers,
providing access to a larger selection of ad inventory for any show or video
clip. mpx Beta customers can configure specific ad policy settings for
advertising bumpers, pre-rolls, mid-rolls, and post-rolls, and use the console
to set the number of ads to appear in any video, the frequency of ads and
whether users can skip ads or not.
"Overall, we're trying to balance the complexity inherent
in customers' business relationships with making it easy to use the
system," says Roberts.
