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.
Netflix Series “The Leopard” Spots Classic Italian Novel, Remakes It As A Sumptuous Period Drama
"The Leopard," a new Netflix series, takes the classic Italian novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and transforms it into a sumptuous period piece showing the struggles of the aristocracy in 19th-century Sicily, during tumultuous social upheavals as their way of life is crumbling around them.
Tom Shankland, who directs four of the eight episodes, had the courage to attempt his own version of what is one of the most popular films in Italian history. The 1963 movie "The Leopard," directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, won the Palme d'Or in Cannes.
One Italian critic said that it would be the equivalent of a director in the United States taking "Gone with the Wind" and turning it into a series, but Shankland wasn't the least bit intimidated.
He said that he didn't think of anything other than his own passion for the project, which grew out of his love of the book. His father was a university professor of Italian literature in England, and as a child, he loved the book and traveling to Sicily with his family.
The book tells the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, a tall, handsome, wealthy aristocrat who owns palaces and land across Sicily.
His comfortable world is shaken with the invasion of Sicily in 1860 by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was to overthrow the Bourbon king in Naples and bring about the Unification of Italy.
The prince's family leads an opulent life in their magnificent palaces with servants and peasants kowtowing to their every need. They spend their time at opulent banquets and lavish balls with their fellow aristocrats.
Shankland has made the series into a visual feast with tables heaped with food, elaborate gardens and sensuous costumes.... Read More