WorldTV

Our recent news announcement about the new EPG feature was cross-posted to Techcrunch.com on Friday and earned a separate review on Techcrunch France.

We have many loyal users in France and some 2,000 French channels. A translation of the Techcrunch FR article is below and we’re grateful to Alain Eskenazi for his ongoing coverage.

“WorldTV is on a roll. We last wrote about WorldTV a few months ago, the service that allows you to aggregate videos from different platforms like Google Video, YouTube, Metacafe, MySpace and AOL, and create your own TV channel. The long-term goal of WorldTV is to cross the divide in future to web browsers on WiFi enabled TV sets and games consoles.

With this in mind, WorldTV this week launched an EPG feature that lets you view the programs of other channels without having to navigate elsewhere (more on EPG’s here), making the user experience close to that encountered on cable, for example.

WorldTV also launched an advertising platform in early December; allowing producers to monetize their channels inserting their Google Adsense code. All details (in French) on this new platform here.

The concept of WorldTV goes a little against the current trend of traditional video sharing platforms, yet WorldTV is having some success; Alx Klive, the CEO of WorldTV reveals that more than 100,000 channels have already been established on the platform by 70,000 users from 190 countries including over 2,000 in France. The site claims 600,000 monthly visitors. The company has recently reduced the number of employees and spending by 50% to achieve break even.”

Italia SW is a popular Italian technology site and revisited WorldTV for a review following the launch of our recent EPG feature. A translation of the article is below…

“Remember WorldTV? WorldTV is an aggregator of video clips found on YouTube, Google Video, Metacafe, MySpace and AOL. Compared to the hundreds of other Video Aggregators found on the Internet WorldTV has proven to be an innovative product, because anyone can create their own custom channel inserting links to favorite videos, all hosted on a video sharing portal.

YouTube is embracing HD video (YouTube has been testing HD video for months) and WorldTV is innovating as well by launching new features.

When we last reviewed WorldTV on Italy SW, WorldTV was a small startup, but now it has over 100,000 channels and also 600,000 users each month. Comparing the numbers of WorldTV to those of these other startups, people might snigger, but this is a victory because this site does not host any videos. Videos are streamed from the main video sharing and embedding sites.

What’s new at WorldTV? The first thing to tell you about is the new player – where a new sidebar is located on the left for the scrolling of videos. The sidebar provides a user experience similar to that of browsing the channels on a Web TV station, but it is individual video clips presented in a specific order or random. Also new on WorldTV is a sidebar on the right – a random list of stations determined using geo-location. This means that we have a high probability of finding stations created by users of our own nationality.

WorldTV is a Web Application to try because we are not just limited to video input, but we can also record broadcasts from our webcam. The most advanced technology is that you can also broadcast programs from your phone, in which case you will need an account on qik.com.”

In its first update to the list in two years, the UK’s Guardian newspaper has picked WorldTV.com as a Top 100 site for 2009. Right alongside the BBC’s iPlayer, YouTube, Joost and Vimeo.

We’re proud and just a little humbled to be in such prestigious company and are very grateful to the Editors at the Guardian for their inclusion.

While we’re at it… writers we enjoy reading at the Guardian include Vic Keegan, Jemima Kiss, Aida Edemariam and Jack Schofield.

Mike Butcher of Techcrunch UK has written an excellent article on WorldTV’s new EPG feature.

In it he says…

“In some sense WorldTV is going up against other user-generated video sites like YouTube, Magnify.net and Kyte.tv. But the difference is that this has been built from the ground-up to actually work on a TV… The experience is much closer to a TV one and that’s important.”

Mike is a sterling advocate of the UK and Irish based startup scene and doing a steller job. See him in full Santa garb as master of ceremonies at the recent Techcrunch Talk / Xmas party just a few nights ago.

We’re all very excited (and a little relieved) to announce a major new feature on WorldTV that we’ve been working on for months and which has been widely requested by users on our feedback forum.

Starting today all channels on WorldTV now have an Electronic Programme Guide (or EPG) which lets viewers scroll through a list of videos on a channel (see left), and scroll through a list of other channels to watch. In typical WorldTV fashion it is both easy-to-use and should work fine on a wide range of computers.

The best way to explain it is to experience it, and you can see it in action on this channel here (opens in new window).

The new feature is enabled by default across all channels on WorldTV starting immediately, but you can choose not to display it if you wish. You can choose between showing just the Playlist or just the Channel list if you prefer. The new controls for doing this are on the Player section of the Channel Settings tab (see right).

Within the next month we plan to offer the ability for channel owners to have control over which channels appear in the channel section, meaning in effect you’ll be able to create your own TV network! You’ll be able to link between different channels that you and your friends create.

For those interested in how we determine which channels are shown on the EPG, we take the best channels on WorldTV (those with a ‘pick’ status on the World page) and display…

• Some from the same country as the channel you are watching
• Some from the same continent as the channel you are watching
• Some from around the World

All the more reason to get your channel chosen as a ‘pick’ by writing to us and letting us know what a great channel you have!

We hope our users enjoy this new feature and it certainly makes watching WorldTV even more of a pleasure. You can now surf through and find all kinds of interesting channels and videos.

You can also read the Press Release for this announcement.

WorldTV’s new advertising platform that empowers users to monetize their online video channels went live today shortly before 5pm GMT.

Users can now add their own Google Adsense details to their channel to immediately begin earning a 50% share of the ad revenue on their channel. Users can upgrade their channel to receive a 95% share of the ad revenue if they wish, or eliminate advertising entirely.

A couple of other new ‘Pro’ features were also launched alongside the ad platform including the ability to debrand a channel (remove all WorldTV branding) and remove the 100 clip limit within the Library and Playlist.

Full details of the ad platform are in our previous post.

Version Français | Versión Español | Versão em Português

One of the core principles of WorldTV is to offer channel creators a full suite of tools for building and operating an Internet TV channel. WorldTV is intended as a platform where you can literally build and run your own broadcast TV network.

A full set of tools would naturally include the ability to run advertising on a channel and potentially earn money from your channel. Internet TV is growing, and when it becomes common to watch Internet video on a TV set, the WorldTV channel creators of today could well become the media moguls of tomorrow. That’s our goal, and we look forward to helping make this come true for everyone.

We’ve thought long and hard about the best way to implement an advertising solution on WorldTV. A system that empowers people who want to monetize their channels, recognizes that some people don’t like advertising, and a system that ensures we can invest in the future.

Summary of new advertising functionality

Beginning December 8th 2008 all channels on WorldTV will have a new advertising unit on the left hand side of the channel. We’ve been running trials on certain channels for several weeks. You can see the advertising unit in action here.

• If you do nothing, your channel will have the new advertising on it starting December 8th
• If you have a Google Adsense account, you can earn 50% of the ad revenue on your channel simply by entering your Google Adsense details within the Editor
• You can remove the advertising entirely (classic WorldTV mode) by paying $5 per month
• You can receive 95% of the ad revenue on your channel by paying $20 per month
• If you are a non-commercial entity with a worthwhile project and feel strongly about the issue of advertising,  you can request removal of the ad unit, for free, by way of e-mail letter, and we will consider your request.

Other details

• Ads will not appear when a viewer goes into full screen mode
• Ads will not appear on the embeddable player
• If you currently use an iframe technique to embed your channel, you may want to switch to the embeddable player technique as the iframe technique will include the new ads

How it works in practice

A new tab will appear in your Editor on or around December 8th called ‘Advertising’. Here you can enter your Google Adsense PublisherID (available on the top right hand corner of your Adsense account page) and immediately start earning 50% of the revenue from your channel. We achieve the revenue split by showing ads with your Google Adsense code alternatively with our own. In other words, viewer 1 to your channel will see our Adsense code, viewer 2 will see yours, and so on. If you choose the upgrade to 95% revenue split we will show your channel with your Google Adsense code for 19 out of every 20 impressions.

How much money will I make?

It’s completely free to try your own Google Adsense code so just give it a go! The most successful channels will tend to be the ones that get the most viewers, so finding ways to promote and market your channel through blogs, social networks and from other sites will be key. Compelling content that is regularly updated, and finding ways to promote the updates you make (something we plan to help with through new forthcoming ‘notification’ features) will also help.

Are any channels restricted from showing advertising?

Google AdSense program policies are specific about the kind of content that ads are allowed to be shown next to. We have implemented a system that will automatically disable channels from showing ads that are deemed to be against Google Adsense program policies. If you feel your channel has been disabled inappropriately, you can contact us and we will review your channel manually.

I’ve created a new channel on WorldTV and there is no advertising option

When you first create a channel on WorldTV, there will be no advertising for the first 48 hours. After 48 hours the option will become available. This gives us time to review the content with our system.

How do I make a ProBono request to remove advertising from my channel?

Write to us at reception@worldtv.com telling us your channel URL and why it is important for you not to have advertising on your channel. We will consider all requests on a case-by-case basis and notify you within 3-10 days if your request has been successful. Personal, charitable and other worthwhile non-commercial projects will all be considered and are warmly welcomed at WorldTV.

If you have any questions about our new advertising plans please write to us at reception@worldtv.com

You can also read our Press Release on this announcement