Metacafe was an Israeli

video-sharing An online video platform (OVP), provided by a video hosting service, enables users to upload, convert, store and play back video content on the Internet, often via a structured, large-scale system that may generate revenue. Users will generally u ...

website, launched in July 2003. During the mid-2000s, it was one of the largest video-sharing websites, though eventually began to be superseded by

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

Vimeo Vimeo, Inc. () is an American video hosting, sharing, and services platform provider headquartered in New York City. Vimeo focuses on the delivery of high-definition video across a range of devices. Vimeo's business model is through software as ...

and

Dailymotion Dailymotion is a French video-sharing technology platform owned by Vivendi. North American launch partners included Vice Media, Bloomberg and Hearst Digital Media. It is among the earliest known platforms to support HD (720p) resolution video. ...

. In August 2021, the platform's website became inactive, along with its social media pages being abandoned.

History

Metacafe Inc. was founded in July 2003 in

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

by Israeli entrepreneurs Eyal Hertzog ( Chief Technical Officer) and Arik Czerniak (CEO) and raised $3 million from

Benchmark Capital Benchmark is a venture capital firm based in San Francisco that provides seed money to startups. History The firm's most successful investment was a 1997 investment of $6.7 million in eBay for 22.1% of the company. In 2011, it invested $12 mill ...

. In June 2006, the company closed a

Series B financing Venture capital financing is a type of funding by venture capital. It is private equity capital that can be provided at various stages or funding rounds. Common funding rounds include early-stage seed funding in high-potential, growth companies ( ...

round of $12 million. Investors included

Accel Partners Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is an American venture capital firm. Accel works with startups in seed, early and growth-stage investments. The company has offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, with additional ...

and

. That September, the company moved its headquarters to

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was estab ...

, California and in October, Metacafe was ranked the third largest video site in the world according to comScore.''We Try Harder,'' article fro
IPcommunications.tmcnet.com
It used to attract more than 13 million unique monthly U.S. viewers and streams more than 53 million videos in the U.S. each month, according to comScore Video Metrix (March 2011). The site's global audience was more than 40 million unique monthly viewers. In its early years, Metacafe was similar to other video viewing websites such as YouTube or

, but later turned into a short-form video entertainment. The company's partners had included marquee content providers such as major movie studios, video game publishers, broadcast and cable TV networks, music labels and sports leagues. The site was supported through ads, and worked closely with brands in the entertainment, consumer electronics, telecommunications, consumer packaged goods, food & beverage, and automotive sectors. In 2007, Erick Hachenburg, previously an executive with

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the d ...

, took over as CEO of the company. In June 2012, it was reported that Metacafe had been acquired by digital talent agency, The Collective, it moved headquarters to San Francisco, California, with another office in Los Angeles.

Producer Rewards

In October 2006, Metacafe announced its Producer Rewards program in which video producers were paid for their original content. Through this program, any video that was viewed a minimum of 20,000 times, achieved a VideoRank rating of 3.00 or higher, and did not violate any

copyrights A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...

or other Metacafe community standards was awarded $5 for every 1,000 U.S. views. Pay only for U.S. views. The program had several success stories, some of which have been featured on national TV, such as The Can Tossing Video, the Beer Launching Fridge on

David Letterman David Michael Letterman (born April 12, 1947) is an American television host, comedian, writer and producer. He hosted late night television talk shows for 33 years, beginning with the February 1, 1982 debut of ''Late Night with David Letterman' ...

, and the Ron Paul Girl series by Liv Films, that has been featured on

Fox News The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...

and

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

.Livfilms.com

Closure

In August 2021, the website became inactive.

Footnotes

References

* Bogatin, Donna. Interview with Metacafe CEO Arik Czerniak o
ZDnet Blogs
* Gerson, Jen. ''Off the wall flips.'' From th
Toronto Star
An article about a producer who has earned over $23,000 in Producer Rewards. * Holahan, Catherine. ''Don't I know you from the Internet?'' Fro

* Marshall, Matt. ''Metacafe unveils producer awards, to underscore advantage over YouTube'' fro
Venture Beat
* Richmond, Will. "Metacafe Drives Community-Based Programming Model.
videonuze.com
Commentary from online video news blog VideoNuze published on December 6, 2007.

External links