SplashCast designed widgets that were capable of aggregating different forms of multimedia. This included audio, video, RSS feeds, and photos. Later on the company launched a new service called Social TV that allowed users to watch TV shows on Facebook and MySpace.
“At each turn, we moved from what ultimately proved to be a declining market opportunity to a larger opportunity,” stated SplashCast CEO Michael Berkley. “We have a lot to be proud of. In addition we have a lot of lessons learned to humbly take with us as we move on.”
Publishers were not willing to pay SplashCast to use their service. Venture capitalists were also not willing to “bet” further on the company. This is why the company has officially decided to shut down. It was a good run, guys. Best of luck on future endeavors.
The last time I wrote about SplashCast, it was around August 2007. However a fewof weeks ago, the company started building widgets that revolve around TV shows available on Hulu. When the company first started out, they allowed users to creates widgets that centers around user-generated content. That trend fizzled out shortly after the term Web 2.0 even came about.
SplashCast attempted to raise a Series B round of funding, but was unable to do so. The company’s first round was about $4 million by Mark Bayliss. Rather than trying to keep the company afloat, SplashCast is now looking for a buyer. Michael Berkley, CEO of SplashCast decided to focus more on Social TV.
SplashCast claims to be receiving 5.8 million unique viewers per month that are streaming 7.2 million videos. These visits come through 25 SplashCast channels. Despite all this traffic, SplashCast is having a hard time monetizing it. This is why they have decided to put themselves up for sale.
By selling off their core business, this will give Berkley time to focus more on the Social TV aspect of their business.
Ever since Facebook opened its APIs and encouraged companies, independent developers, and users to create their own applications, there was a flood of programs entering the market. There is no barriers to entry except having to deal with Facebook’s framework. I am still a proactive Facebook user and think its a great social network tool, but I believe that it makes a crappy “operating system.”
I honestly had mixed feelings when I saw NPR created a Facebook application. I had these apathetic feelings because I’m simply sick of all Facebook applications, both practical (like this one) and useless (like Top Friends, SuperPoke, Zombie, etc.). I definitely enjoy listening to NPR on occasion and I was a fan of Marshall Kirkpatrick’s work on TechCrunch and in the few times I interacted with Kirkpatrick, he seems like a genuine guy. Therefore, I am rooting for SplashCast to do well also.
I’d say I first truly appreciated NPR when I listened to a streaming episode of Tavis Smiley interview John Cho and Kal Penn about Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle and how their characters busted stereotypes. I regret not getting into the whole podcasting scene and adding NPR podcasts to my iPod, but perhaps I’ll start doing so.
I’d like to see a way for NPR to utilize SplashCast technology independently of Facebook. Perhaps have a YouTube-like user interface for it. But I do think SplashCast has truly added value to their partnership to NPR. SplashCast has taken a traditional form of media and integrated into a Web 2.0 world. And the intention for doing so seems to be another way to consolidate information and make it more accessible.
References:
[1] SplashCast blog: NPR Podcast Player Launches in Facebook, powered by SplashCast
Amit Chowdhry | April 30, 2007 | 539 views | Comments Categorized under SplashCast
SplastCast is a Portland, Oregon based company that utilizes Adobe Flash technology for streaming media. While YouTube only utilizes video files, SplashCast enables videos, music, photos, text, and RSS feeds. In addition to the aforementioned types of media, SplashCast today introduced a new feature called MyPodcastNetwork.
MyPodcastNetwork allows users to embed video and audio podcasts to their SplashCast players. MyPodcastNetwork hosts a plethora of video channels to embed on blogs and websites in its catalog. The video channel that caught my eye at the top of the catalog website is The Onion News Network which was given $1 million in funding about 1 month ago.
To embed videos from the catalog, users are asked to create an account and then click on “Podcasts and RSS [Source: SplashCast blog].” A sample SplashCast player is below:
Ever since Facebook opened its APIs and encouraged companies, independent developers, and users to create their own applications, there was a flood of programs entering the market. There is no barriers to entry except having to deal with Facebook’s framework. I am still a proactive Facebook user and think its a great social network tool, but I believe that it makes a crappy “operating system.”
