Co-founder Kevin Sladek puts VideoEgg in context
January 22, 2006
Video for video's sake is OK, but video in context adds value. That's the philosophy at VideoEgg, which has launched VideoEgg Publisher to make vlogging easier. The initial beneficiaries are those with TypePad blog accounts.
VideoEgg Publisher, a Web browser plug-in, was made available for Windows in September 2005. A version for Macintosh computers debuted at Macworld San Francisco earlier this month.
Here's how Kevin Sladek, a member of VideoEgg's founding trio, explains video's value-added relationship with context. Web video of someone else's kids is, to be kind, not all that interesting. Web video of your kids is priceless to you, to grandparents and maybe even to other family members and friends.
That value-added relationship sometimes can be measured in dollars and cents.
VideoEgg, which was founded in Connecticut by Sladek and two former Yale University classmates, conducted a test with 22 eBay auctions. Eleven pairs of items (22 items in all) were offered online. Auctions incorporating video earned 30 percent more than identical items without video, Sladek says. Used items pitched with video actually showed a 70 percent greater return.
"There's a whole universe of sites online where video makes sense," Sladek says. These include personal Web sites where family and friends keep up with one another (such as vlogs), and where video of the kids is in perfect context. Other Web venues where video is a value-added fit are auction sites and real estate sites, Sladek says.
So far, VideoEgg has focused on creating partnerships with "the bigger guys" like TypePad, Sladek says. TypePad account holders, who pay a monthly fee for the service, may add VideoEgg video to their blogs at no extra charge. The only restriction is a two-minute limit on each video segment.
Since VideoEgg debuted its TypePad service last fall, inquiries have poured in from "smaller services who are interested in our features," Sladek says. The company, which relocated to San Francisco in early January, is considering avenues to offer VideoEgg Publisher to a broader range of bloggers and others who want to add video to Web sites.
VideoEgg Publisher's PC client accepts video in several formats. The Macintosh client accepts only QuickTime video, which predominates on that platform.
Once uploaded, the video is processed by VideoEgg's proprietary software and returned in Flash format.
"We think Flash is, right now, the best option for Web video playback," Sladek says. Video quality is on a par with H.264 (MPEG-4), he says. But more importantly, Flash claims its Web browser plug-in has an installed base of 98 percent, meaning that VideoEgg's material will play on virtually all late-model computers connected to the Internet.
Sladek's partners in VideoEgg are Dave Lerman and Matthew Sanchez. The trio graduated from Yale University in 2003 and founded MediaLiquid, which helped non-profit organizations find the creative resources to do public service advertising. Working with thousands of film and video professionals convinced the trio that the Web needed a simpler way to distribute video. The VideoEgg concept was born.
While still based on the East Coast, VideoEgg earned the confidence of venture capitalists Josh Kopleman, founder of Half.com (bought by eBay) and now managing director of First Round Capital, and Howard Morgan, director of Idealab.
On January 18, after moving West, VideoEgg announced that it had received a new round of venture funding from August Capital. August Capital's David Hornik joined VideoEgg's board of directors, which includes venture capitalist Morgan and co-founder Sanchez. Clifford Boro, who founded Internet Financial Network in 1994, is VideoEgg's chairman.
Hornik, an Internet entrepreneur and lawyer educated at Harvard and Cambridge, also is a director Six Apart. Six Apart makes blogging software and services, including Moveable Type and TypePad.
Morgan also serves as chairman of the board of Luxology, LLC, "an independent technology company developing high-end 3D content creation tools, focusing on film, television, gaming and print." Clifford Boro serves on Luxology's Advisory Board.