What they're saying about Magnify

For more information see our press kit.

May 2007

ZD Net, by Steve O'Hear, May 30, 2007
Policlicks and Magnify.net have partnered to create a one-stop-shop for viewing online video associated with the US presidential election — both the official efforts from campaign teams, as well as the plethora of User-Generated Content from supporters and critics alike.

Utilizing the technology of Magnify, the Election 08 site “will gather, sort and allow visitors to rank and comment on candidate videos collected from virtually every point on the Internet”, according to the release. The idea is that voters can quickly get a sense of the official party line, in conjunction with voter reactions as expressed through online video. As well as the site itself, users can also display a widget on their own blogs or social network profiles, which aggregates a candidate’s or party’s channel, again combining the officially spun videos with those created by voters. [MORE »]
Magnify.net, by staff, May 29, 2007
Hi there, I'm robin miller, known as Rob Limo on linux.com and slashdot and a number of other websites where i've worked for many years. Our mutual friend Steve Rosenbaum - of Magnify.net - want's me to tell you what my life was like before video. What was my passion and interest? I discovered what you call video - but it was film back then - when i was about 15. My Passion is storytelling. Film and now video is just one way to tell a story. I like typing a lot because it's fast and easy.

Video you have to set up a camera, in this case you can't see it but it's a blue screen, and I'm dropped into the other backgrounds. It's more work. And yet video has a 'take you there' quality' that text and still photo's do not. So it's a great storytelling medium and i've been getting better and better with it lately. Our next question from Steve is "how did you find video. How has it changed the way you think about the web, communications, community, and programming."

Video to me is one of many storytelling devices. i've been working a lot with text stories that have videos embedded in them. Or, are they videos that have text wrappers around them? It's hard to say. I've written 3 books that have had video instructional CD's in the back. And I'm thinking my next book is going to be just the CD.. mostly videos but text around the videos for where text is better. So I'm not sure that video has changed the way i think about anything - it's one more tool. It's not like having vice grips has changed my outlook on life. I've had vice grips for many years too.

Here's the plug request - he asks: "How has Magnify.net solved a problem for you, was it hard to use, do you have to be a video geek?" The thing about magnify.net is that you can take videos published elsewhere, and not necessarily made by you, and put them together into communities of interest. I personally tend to work on my own video, I'm one of the people that creates original content. That's not as interesting to me as it is to other people. But still yea, I'm building a magnify.net collection of my own, and yea, you know what - it's outstandingly easy. Geek cred required? None whatsoever.

Ah, the future of video Steve wants to know where I think it's all going.

The tools are getting better, faster, cheaper.

I'm taking this shot right here with a Sony camera that cost about 2,500 and is a better camera than you used to get for 30,000 dollars back even five years ago. It's kind of Amazing. And it's easier. I'm taking this on auto focus and auto everything. Because this is just a little short snippet shot in my home office. I haven't done much lighting. I've got fluorescent over here, but they're 3200 k. And i've got some natural light coming in there. I have lights i could set up, but more and more i find myself able to get pretty good shots without. That's where things are going - cell phone video not quite for me cause i like my stuff to look good. I make videos these days. My company is Internet Video Promotion.com. We're making video ads for small businesses like mini-infomercials. That we put on YouTube and Magnify and all the different video sites. So our internet video promotion clients get huge reach and these are really effective.

Kim, the owner of the Charisma Cafe - not far from my house - called me last week, absolutely amazed at the number of people who've come into her restaurant after seeing the video i made and put on the web. the funny thing is she doesn't even have a web site. All they see is the video. And yet the come in and they love her place and they come back. It's great, and extremely cheap advertising. I'm charging hundreds of dollars for productions that used to cost thousands. And it's not like I'm taking a loss either. The tools have gotten that good. Ok, yeah, I'm super fast.

My personal thing is to make video as easy as writing. Yeah, i had to prep the camera, make sure the tripod was set up, make sure the battery was charged. But I'm getting so good at it, my editing skills are so good - so fast - it's becoming nearly effortless. When it becomes completely effortless then i will have achieved the total state of video Zen. I think a lot of other people are moving toward that direction as well.

I have a young associate in Miami. I live south of tampa in the small but semi scenic town of Bradenton - but Matthew over in Miami - man he's hot stuff. I'm getting work, not just for me but for him too. We've got other people coming into our little video promotion business. It's beautiful. The future is wide open. and if you want to get into it - either as a client - *hint, hint, hint*, or if you want to set up your own local video promotion affiliate and well make some money of your own - hey give me a call - email me. the number is here, you can see it in this video. I'm not shy. Give me a yell, let's build the future together. I founded Internet Video Promotion as a way for citizen journalists to make a good living, and have a good time, and afford professional level video gear. If that's you, then i want you on my team. It's not really my team, it's our team.

I'm kind of an open source guy. Ok - kind of - I'm a heavy duty open source guy. I like things that are spread out. Not where i tell you what to do, but where we set up a group - in this case hopefully nationally eventually, and we all hep each other. And we help our local business get more recognition, and make them a little more attractive and give them promotional tools that they wouldn't have had five years ago that help them to compete in a world of walmarts and giant giant stores. We've got to help the small merchants because they're our people. They're our people and we've got to be there people. And we've got to be part of our communities. Aside from making ads for money and little infomercials for four or five hundred dollars each, we've also got to make sure we take those cameras and our pens and notepads - don't forget the pen and notepad - and report on things that are being overlooked by the traditional media outlets and make our communities more lively. That's the public citizen side of video. As a see it, as a citizen journalism thing.

And that's really my interest because that goes right back to the storytelling. Video as one of my storytelling tools - right along with text and still photographs. But I'm also really happy to use it as a promo-thing. As an advertising medium. To help small merchants get their message out and pay me to do it. I don't know about you, but free software maybe free, but i don't have a free mortgage. I do like to get paid. Yeah, i'll admit it, i like to get paid. And this video stuff is paying me and I love it. [MORE »]
www.lightreading.com/, by — A.L. Friedman, Editor at Large, Light Reading, May 25, 2007
Tuesday's panel discussion brought up how a more vertical model for hosting online video can make a site more profitable. If you want a vertical site and you aren't an established media conglomerate, you probably want to head right over to Magnify to get started. Users set up their own channels, and Magnify aggregates relevant clips from user-provided keywords. As a community builds up around the site, they can upload their own videos directly, and the engine harvests new clips from around the Web every few days. And it's stupid easy; I made my site in five minutes.

Plenty of companies are using user-generated video for promotion. Malibu is currently running one through YouTube, while Rita's Ice is using The Feedroom; is there any reason either of those couldn't have been done using Magnify? [MORE »]
socialcomputingmagazine, May 25, 2007
The mushrooming of user-generated video on the Web has spawned an increasing number of user-generated video channels for everyday people, web publishers, media companies, and video bloggers. As Steven Rosenbaum, CEO of Magnify.net, puts it "There's a new way for web site creators and content lovers to engage one another through shared video." "Now people can find, manage and curate their own media experience," Rosenbaum says, "and create entirely new media around subjects that would never have found room on the cable dial." [MORE »]
affiliatetip.com, by By Shawn Collins, May 25, 2007
That’s lots of buzz about video being so hot and affiliates are trying to figure out how they can cash in on it. There is a site where you can create your own video community and generate revenue through Google Adsense and Revver called Magnify.net.

Magnify sites include several types of advertising messages:

* Text Links and Banner Ads Magnify shows contextual advertising messages in the margins of some pages.

* Integrated Advertising Some videos syndicated from third-party hosting services contain integrated advertising. (For example, videos hosted by Revver include an advertisement after the end of the video.)
 • Video Pre-Roll A few Magnify sites are currently testing a pre-roll offering that plays a 10-30 second video advertisement before some video views.

Magnify.net provides upload, storage, and bandwidth free, and the revenue share on advertising is 50/50. [MORE »]
www.killerapp.com, by By Chris Brogan, Video on the Net, May 25, 2007
“Meta-aggregator” sites are helping users find the Internet videos that appeal to them.

Television is no longer a single box. It's no longer a single tuner. It's a combination of everything your video service provider offers plus everything available via the Internet today. Add to this various set-top box content offerings, like the Apple TV, and you'll see that the battle isn't for your living room; it's for your attention. [MORE »]
prnewswire, by staff, May 24, 2007
NEW YORK, May 22 /PRNewswire/ -- In less than four months after beta launch of Magnify.net, users of the company's video publishing platform have created more than 5,500 user-generated video web sites, called "video channels," making it one of the fastest growing user-trends occurring in the Web 2.0 revolution.

Users of Magnify.net are now creating more than 30 new video channels every day, collecting, organizing and serving videos to a rapidly growing community of Internet viewers who want videos of interest - including their own videos and those collected from sites across the Internet - organized in a single place. [MORE »]
undertheradarblog, by staff, May 16, 2007
Magnify.net is a video sharing platform that lets you create 'channels' using video content sourced from all over the web. Find, filter and share videos from your site using embeddable players or from your branded channel hosted by Magnify. Search for videos from all over the web and update your viewers with RSS when you add new content.

Features:

* Your audience can add video, discuss, review, and help to organize videos
 • Customizable channel templates - supporting text, photos and sound
 • Integration with Revver http://www.magnify.net/support/faq/revver (increase your revenue share income)
 • Non-video uploads (text, photos, sound) are also supported
 • Chat widget
 • PayPal integration

Funding: $1.2M - New York Angels and NextStage Capital

CEO: Steve Rosenbaum

Headquarters: Both NY and SF. Diverse workforce is based on both coasts.

Employees: Less than 10

Founded: 2006

Business model: Advertising with Revenue Share

Users: 5300 channels created to date

CEO and Founder Steve Rosenbaum answered a few of our questions and shares his unabashed enthusiasm for Magnify.net. Read more below-

1. What is your company about? What's your business model?

Magnify.net is a platform that allows web sites, communities, and content creators to build video-centric web channels easily. This means that any site, large or small, can leverage the passion of their members, and the extraordinary wealth of user-generated video that exists on video hosts across the web.

Maybe the best way to explain is to give you an example:

Let's say you've built a site that invites hobbyists who build and fly radio controlled air planes and you want to offer your members a place to upload, share, and discover videos about their hobby. Well, using the Magnify.net self-serve tools you can use the graphic elements of your site (header, footer, background, even CSS) and create pages that integrate seamlessly with your existing site. All you need to do is put in a few key words, and Magnify.net goes out and discovers videos from all the popular hosting sites... and creates a page of videos for your community to comment, rate, and sort. And because it's your look and feel, and even your URL, your members never leave your domain.

The example is real: www.rcuvideos.com. And there are already 1,600 members registered to this niche community.

Being able to create video communities with easy tools has caught on quickly, and there are already 5,300 channels that have been built and are being watched by folks who want to take the job of network content curator. And what's so cool is that the subjects cover a wide gamut from sports, music, business, and niche communities.

We do it as a partnership with our Channel Producers, so we provide the technology - Channel Producers provide the concept, the curation, and the community. And we share all of the revenue on our pages with our partners on a 50/50 basis.

2. Why did you start this company?

Well - I'm a visual storyteller. So I've spent my life making films, documentaries, and trying to understand the world by recording and sharing pictures. So now that the tools have made it possible for video to become a really useful part of web sites - I knew I wanted to help share the tools that would make that possible. But it goes further than that - I've been building companies that are based on User-Generated Content going back to my early days at MTV. When I created MTV UNfiltered - it was the first time a TV network had turned a regularly scheduled slot over to its viewers. And UNfiltered was a monster hit. Since then, I've been convinced that high quality digital video and the growth of broadband and wireless would shift the power away from mainstream network television, and toward much more focused niche video. Turning personal passions and interests into video content makes it possible to find a network on the web that totally meets your needs.

3. What's your background?

Hmm. Let's see. Technologist. Documentary Filmmaker. Magician. Bartender. I'm a serial entrepreneur - this is my 3rd startup. And I've always been hungry to innovate, explore, and be part of the democratization of media. In all of my work with TV networks, I always tried to find a way to explore new voices and new POV's. Through my companies I've worked for HBO, MTV, Discovery, CNN, MSNBC, Court TV and my feature documentary "7 Days in September" played in movie theatres in NY and LA.

4. How do you build a community of people who create shows on your platform? What's in it for them?

Well, we don't build a community. That's not our job. Magnify.net isn't a destination, it's a platform for people who are looking for a way to find, upload, organize, and publish video channels. We're certainly not the only game in town, but we think that we've built some really solid solutions that are coherent, easy to use, and focused on our customers. We've got a very active user community so our Channel Producers are always suggesting new ways to add features and services on the platform. We take that input really seriously - we just released 10 new features and 8 of them were built based on user requested features. So folks that build on Magnify.net should find that they're getting a great service, with a very committed team of developers who are going to be constantly innovating so that we can grow along with our members and the video space.

5. Have you entered into any partnerships with other companies? How did you go about finding opportunities and negotiating deals?

Tons. We have a great biz dev team in both San Francisco and New York. Scott Milener is in the Bay Area and he's working with companies in the community, web development, and advertising space. In New York we have Ken Berger who's working with tech companies, media companies, and publishers. Lots of companies find us - by emailing businesssolutionsmagnify.net. We are quick to respond - since most of our partners have already done their homework and decided that we're a good fit. We look for win/win deals, where our platform and our partner's tools or traffic help both teams grow together.

6. Are you funded? What was the process for you to raise capital? How did you decide what investors to work with?

We've got an amazing group of investors. David Rose of RoseTechVentures and NY Angels and Dan McKinney of Next Stage Capital led the round. Active Angel investors, Chris Anderson, Bruce Greenwald and Ava Seave and Stage1 ventures participated as well. We're currently talking to a number of Venture groups about plan to continue to invest aggressively in our technology, customer development, and advertising network integration. The reception has been pretty encouraging.

7. What are you bringing to the market that's innovative and groundbreaking?

People should be able to use video on their sites. It shouldn't be hard. It shouldn't be scary. It should be fun and fast. And if we can help people find, organize, and share video around their niches of knowledge - then we're going to sleep at night knowing we're helping spread ideas and information that can really make the web a dynamic dimensional place.

Buy a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. Give a man (or woman) a video camera and a broadband connection - and they'll be building a fishing channel in no time!

How cool is that. [MORE »]