By Ken Liebeskind
DURHAM, NC --Digitalsmiths/Durham, NC, a Web development and hosting firm founded in 1998, has launched VideoSense, a contextual video ad matching technology that will analyze video content to help advertisers run targeted ads.
VideoSense is based on a video indexing platform Digitalsmiths developed to index TV shows and feature films that utilizes image recognition and speech-to-text technology. “We index everything you can think of that happened within the content of a show,” said Ben Weinberger, Digitalsmiths co-founder/CEO.
Now Digitalsmiths will be able analyze the audio and visual elements of videos and the information can be used to serve ads. “With VideoSense, we take data from the video and feed it to the ad network and they can make a decision about which ad is most appropriate for the video and they serve an ad.”
The data may be supplied to an ad network, but it will be generated by a content owner, who is Digitalsmiths’ customer because the technology enables content owners to generate more ad revenue.
VideoSense will provide text data for video content, similar to the information that has been available about traditional Web content through Google’s AdSense.
As an example of how VideoSense works, Weinberger said a video about how to prepare a Thanksgiving meal might include an ad for Perdue turkeys. It could also include an ad for Kmart for home decoration products. “The ads will change as the video plays based on the content in the video,” he said.
Digitalsmith has just generated $6 million in financing to support VideoSense and launched a beta program in which major content owners, TV and film studios are participating in, according to Weinberger. The beta program will run up to six months for each participant, “depending on how much content we want to push,” he said.
Companies can contact Digitalsmiths to sign up for the beta program.
Francis Ford Coppola To Receive 50th AFI Life Achievement Award
Francis Ford Coppola will be the 50th recipient of the American Film Institute (AFI) Life Achievement Award, America’s highest honor for a career in film. The award will be presented to Coppola at a Gala Tribute at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on April 26, 2025.
“Francis Ford Coppola is a peerless artist--one who has created seminal works in the canon of American film, and has also inspired generations of filmmakers who now embody his artistry and his independent spirit,” said Kathleen Kennedy, chair of the AFI Board of Trustees. “AFI is honored to present him with the 50th AFI Life Achievement Award.”
Coppola’s The Godfather, The Godfather Part II and Apocalypse Now are ranked among history’s greatest films in AFI’s 100 Years...100 Movies list. He is one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of our time; a six-time Academy Award®-winning (including the Board of Governors’ Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award) director, writer and producer of such films as Patton, The Godfather Trilogy, American Grffiti, The Conversation, Apocalypse Now, The Outsiders, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and his latest epic, Megalopolis.
As the co-founder of American Zoetrope with George Lucas, Coppola initiated and nourished the careers of talents such as Carroll Ballard, John Milius, Sofia Coppola, and actors Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, James Caan, Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfus, Diane Keaton, Robert Duvall, Matt Dillon and Diane Lane. As a writer, director, producer and technological pioneer, he created a body of work that has helped shape contemporary American cinema. Coppola’s latest film Megalopolis is a Roman epic set in modern times with an all-star cast including Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito,... Read More