Adap.tv Gets Video Advertising Right

Hate watching those not-so-short ads before getting to your video of interest?

Adap.tv recently launched its video advertising platform, matching advertisers to video content elegantly.

How does it work?
Adap.tv scans the video content displays contextual ads at the bottom of the video player while the video is being played. Their systems analyze the video's text meta data such as title, description and tags and combines it with speech recognition to make the right match to the advertiser. Then, Adap.tv tracks the user response to the ads in real time adapting ad categories to user behaviour.

Chances of survival are high
A deal with Amazon and Shopping.com puts Adap.tv in a great starting point as they can pull from a deep barrel of contextual ads. Another great advantage is having a major video platform in their corner, Israeli Viral video site Metacafe.com.

The deal with Shopping.com is not a coincidence, considering the CEO's background. Adap.tv was co-founded by CEO Amir Ashkenazi, the ex-founder and CTO of Shopping.com. Founded in 2006, the company is privately held and headquartered in San Mateo, CA.

Rumors say that youtube is working on a similar solution (in house) as well as ScanScout who recently raised a first round of $7 million.

See the ad below in the Adap.tv demo:

SpeedBit's Speedy Growth

Tired of staring at a motionless movie player while waiting to watch videos online?






Israeli startup SpeedBit, creator of the popular Download Accelerator, has found a way to innovate and leverage the exponential growth of videos online.

Delivering high quality videos to fast to the end-user has become a real challenge even for the big video sites such as YouTube and MetaCafe. These performance barriers slow down the adoption of the online rich media.

SpeedBit's latest product, SpeedBit Video Accelerator improves the viewing experience of streaming videos by alliviating the frustration of 'movie freezes' and buffering problems. The product claims to increase the video download speed from 400 to 1,000 percent, using patent pending multi connection technology to accelerate the caching of streaming videos.

In addition, the technology even allows users to view films on YouTube without disruption while BitTorrent is downloading at full speed - something that was technically almost impossible before the introduction of the new software. More features can be found here.

According to CEO Ariel Yarnitsky, the new product has attracted 1 million users in two weeks, and 20-30K new users are signing up every day. The product is downloadable for free and is not being monetized at the moment. However, Yarnitzky has several plans to cut the coupon by offering a premium service for the accelerated downloading of video files from iTunes. Using SpeedBit's technology, a film that normally takes three and a half hours to download from iTunes will take only 22 minutes.

Speedbit was founded in 1999 by Yerach and Idan Feigenbaum (father and son) and currently has 30 employees. Speedbit is funded by Pitango venture capital and Yossi Vardi (founder investor of ICQ).

Download the Video Accelerator here.

How does it work?

A lot has been written about 5Min

Israeli start-up 5Min describes itself as a place to find short video solutions for any practical question and a forum for people wanting to share their knowledge.

5Min's goal is to create a community Life VideoPedia, by providing user generated instructional videos that serve as visual tutorials on a wide range of topics. Current categories include arts, business, fashion, sports, health, tech, food, and much more.

5min was founded by three Israeli entrepreneurs: Ran Harnevo, Hanan Lashover and Tal Simantov. The founders philosophy of is that any solution can be visually explained in less than 5 minutes.

Unique features include the ability to watch clips in slow motion, frame-by-frame or even zoom in and the option to leave a question to be answered by a 5min expert.

As reported by Alarm Clock and NetTeeVee, 5Min recently raised $300,000 in angel funding from unidentified investors. They are joining several other companies in the how-to video field such as Jabbits and the more stablished VideoJug.

Some of the popular videos are:

• How to Belly Dance
• How to pour beer
• How to isassemble a PS2
• How to Tie a Tie