WeShow, a video site that launched five months ago that distinguishes itself from YouTube by having the videos it plays carefully selected by an editorial board and listed in content channels, introduced My WeShow on Feb. 6, a video social network that will allow users to post their own video communities, which will be supported by advertising from Google AdSense. Advertising revenue will be shared with the users.
My WeShow already has 2,500 video communities posted, according to Marcos Wettreich, CEO and founder of WeShow. When asked how people will find them, he said it would occur via Google searches on video topics. They can also be accessed from a Members column on the My WeShow page, which is accessible at Weshow.com.
Advertising will play on video community pages like it plays on any web page affiliated with Google.
Wettreich said there will be other potential avenues for advertising revenue, including sponsorship packages for advertisers interested in buying community pages by subjects, agreements with ecommerce sites for click throught to products offered on video community pages and fees paid by large video sites like AOL to play their videos on the community pages. Ad networks will be used to sell the sponsorship packages, Wettreich said.
He also said video advertising can be used, but only through Google AdSense. Google just began playing AdSense video ads.
Wettreich sees My WeShow as the social network for video aficionados. “My WeShow could do for the online video universe what Flickr has accomplished for photography,” he said. “It will make it simple and easy for anyone to use online video to express themselves and create a community of interest around a single topic.”
My We Show will appeal to an international audience with portals dedicated to the U.S., U.K., Brazil, Germany, Spain, France, Japan and China.
Ron Cicero and Bo Clancey Launch Production House 34North
Executive producers Ron Cicero and Bo Clancey have teamed to launch 34North. The shop opens with a roster which includes accomplished directors Jan Wentz, Ben Nakamura Whitehouse, David Edwards and Mario Feil, as well as such up-and-coming filmmakers as Glenn Stewart and Chris Fowles. Nakamura Whitehouse, Edwards, Feil and Fowles come over from CoMPANY Films, the production company for which Cicero served as an EP for the past nearly five years. Director Wentz had most recently been with production house Skunk while Stewart now gains his first U.S. representation. EP Clancey was freelance producing prior to the formation of 34North. He and Cicero have known each other for some 25 years, recently reconnecting on a job directed by Fowles. Cicero said that he and Clancey “want to keep a highly focused roster where talent management can be one on one--where we all share in the directors’ success together.” Clancey also brings an agency pedigree to the new venture. “I started at Campbell Ewald in accounts, no less,” said Clancey. “I saw firsthand how much work agencies put in before we even see a script. You have to respect that investment. These agency experiences really shaped my approach to production--it’s about empathy, listening between the lines, and ultimately making the process seamless.” 34North represents a meeting point--both literally and creatively. Named after the latitude of Malibu, Calif., where the idea for the company was born, it also embraces the power of storytelling. “34North118West was the first GPS-enabled narrative,” Cicero explained. “That blend of art and technology, to captivate an audience, mirrors what we do here--create compelling work, with talented people, harnessing state-of-the-art... Read More