Google Inc (Nasdaq: GOOG)'s YouTube is not the only popular video destination. For example, there is Metacafe, which has more than 25 million unique monthly viewers.In fact, the company has announced a $30 million found of venture capital from Highland Capital Partners, DAG Ventures, Accel Partners and Benchmark Capital.
Metacafe has built strong community features and also has developed regional versions of the site. It's known as "audience-driven programming."
I had a chance to interview Chase Norlin, who is the founder and CEO of Pixsy (a multimedia search engine). According to him:
"The Metacafe funding makes perfect sense and sends a signal to the market that they're really going for it in the shadow of YouTube. Their prospects look good given they're clearly one of the top 3 players in that category. Paying out users via their Producers program makes a lot of sense; the real question is, how big is the customer generated content market and is there an upcoming saturation of viral video on the web? Given their large audience, the model bodes well if they can make inroads in semipro and professional quality content."
Also, if you want to check out more venture capital fundings, click here.
Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.
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