We’re Falling Behind Here, Folks

Not to continually beat up on CJ, Linkshare, Performics, ShareASale, LinkConnector and now pepperjamNETWORK but why aren’t affiliate networks doing this??

Overlay.tv is an upcoming video network that lets you add hyperlinks and image overlays to video content in order to monetize the clips. The Overlay technology and network won’t be launched until Valentine’s Day, but the service is getting some early press thanks to its funding news. $4.6 million in Series A financing has been provided by Celtic House Venture Partners, EdgeStone Capital Partners and Tech Capital Partners.

Seriously.

There’s a ton of money and traction to be made in the video space. The tech doesn’t look that difficult considering the amount of money that the affiliate networks are making.

Lead us to the promised land of innovation, oh great networks. Please.

7 Replies to “We’re Falling Behind Here, Folks”

  1. Great suggestion Sam and let me clarify the technology a little. I am Rob Lane, CEO at Overlay.TV. The intelligence in the tech is not in the “backend” affiliate networks but in making the platform so simply that anybody of any age, with little prior knowledge, can find a video that they have knowledge of on any video sharing site, recognize the products/items in that video and then overlay that product from one of our affiliates for future people the view/interact with. One of the big points about Overlay.TV is it allows advertisers to be relevant to the video content which increases effectiveness.

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  2. Sam,

    I agree with you – we are further behind on this than we wanted to be (we, meaning ShareASale). It is a sector we are working hard on and will have things to announce in 2008 at some point, but now is not that point for us.

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  3. Brian, maybe we could assist you get there quicker

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  4. Thanks Rob, but we are developing the tech inhouse.

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  5. I know when another product like this was brought up before, issues of overlaying ads on other people’s videos/content/copyrighted content was brought up. Thoughts on that? Think it will be a problem?

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  6. Our approach is slightly different in that we don’t store or modify the original content and in many cases we are partnering with the content owner/video sharing site. Think of an overlay in the same way you can use the ad blocking feature in many browsers. You simply view the content through a different lens. We even provide the link to the original content and the user can choose to have overlays on or off.

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  7. Video tracking for affiliate programs is a great idea, but we’ve seen it very weak in terms of driving sales. Online users currently don’t much watch or click these videos, it seems.

    It would be nice to see this change in the future. In the meantime, I think a system that makes it easy to add undertitles would be very welcome, as many people at work don’t want to listen to audio.

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