Israeli Startup MetaCafe raises 15m USD and go for YouTube and Google Video
Announced today, MetaCafe the video sharing service closed a round table with Benchmark and Accel Partners. It is not just another Video Sharing service. It is one of the largest although not the largest. Well done to this company. But the way is still very long
But they will have to face a very very crowded space (let by YouTube and Google Video) and specially with the high burn rates due to video hosting and bandwith.
It seems that like YouTube, MetaCafe priority is not about making money for now (i think it is a mistake and the hardest challenge)
We’re formulating our business model. We won’t harass our users. It’s smart to be a media company that knows how to supply content. Every media company has a distribution/commercial leg and a content leg. We’re focusing on content at the moment.
The CEO also mentionned that rating is not available at YouTube and Google Video which is not correct (youtube screenshot below). And if this is not what he meant then he should rephrase…
Google and YouTube provide storage services for movies, and lack the capabilities of our engine, which can rate the movies
Read here for full interview. TechCrunch got more. Web2.0 is Israel is getting hot.
After posting on this on TC, I checked to see if I was the first to cover it. Nope, you were! lol, good job!
Posted by: Marshall Kirkpatrick | 04 July 2006 at 12:29 AM
Though Metacafe's community features are very basic, I liked their video player and find it much nicer than YouTube's.
Also the previews screen that's displayed when a video ends is a good idea.
Posted by: Uri L. | 04 July 2006 at 10:06 AM