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[Posted on March 20, 2008 - 2:22 PM]
mesmo_logo.pngThe conversation last night in the screening room at Dolby Laboratories' headquarters centered on ways of monetizing video content, hub and spoke strategies for Facebook and new opportunities for online video startups. 

It's never fair for Blinkx, the company I consider to be offering the best video search tool on the web, to be lumped in with a bunch of newbies. It just shows how much has to happen for those less mature companies to grow into viable businesses. Nevertheless, it was a good night organized by SF New Tech as all of the companies showed off something interesting. Here's the rundown company by company:

Seero - Layering on GPS information to live video could be useful for real estate agents, travel organizations and big enterprises. It was definitely cool and worth checking out. However, the lack of widespread use of GPS-linked video will make it a challenge to gain consumer traction. I could see this turning into an enterprise-focused company within six months.

Seesmic - Its interface is gorgeous and functionality looks powerful. There are definitely some passionate users in the beta trial that has been expanded to 10,000 users. One critic in the peanut gallery charged it was just video e-mail system but we will only know how many people yearn to converse via video when Seesmic opens up to the public in four to six weeks. With $6 million in the bank from a recent venture capital financing, the company has time to find its stride.

Mesmo - This was the surprise of the night for me. With 5.5 million Facebook users, Mesmo allows users to watch television online, engage in online discussion about the shows and participate in television trivia quizzes. Just as iLike and Flixster are fostering huge music and movie communities, respectively, Mesmo is targeting the TV set. The small team showed their pluck by shutting down their own destination site to focus on the Facebook (and now Bebo and MySpace) platform, when that's where the growth came from. And CEO Davin Miyoshi jokingly noted that the company's valuation should be high based on its user to employee ratio of about one million. This is one to watch.

Your Truman Show - I hate the name. Now that I've got that unpleasant little piece of business out of the way, it seemed from the demo last night that this company is evolving. While it maintains its home page, Your Truman Show released a Facebook application called Videomap earlier this month and has a video search product in the works. 

Blinkx - Best video search tool on the web is building upon that to develop what might be the best video monetization tool. Their technology processes professionally produced content and can insert brand advertising into the bottom of the screen when certain keywords are uttered. For example, as an ITV news video played, the word 'energy' was mentioned and a Shell ad promptly popped up offering the user a link to a Shell video about cleantech. It sells at about a $16 CPM. Impressive stuff. - Joshua Jaffe

Joshua Jaffe is general manager of TechConfidential.com.



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