blinkx, the world’s largest video search engine, expects to begin monetizing its recent move into mobile by the middle of next year, according to company founder and CEO, Suranga Chandratillake.
In July, blinkx, launched a new Application Programming Interface giving app developers access to its database of MP4 video content. The company has over 35 million hours of indexed audio, video, viral and TV content, and says about 25% of this is currently available on mobile.
In the same month blinkx also signed a deal with Samsung to provide a video app for the Android platform which is the only video app to be featured in the elite SamsungApps offering for the Galaxy S in the US and major markets in western Europe. In September, blinkx then signed a deal with Evri to include video on its new iPhone and Android apps – with RIM and Symbian to follow shortly.
Chandratillake said content on all offerings will be monetized when there is sufficient traffic with pre-roll and mid-roll brand advertising. “There has been a lot of agency interest from both Europe and the US, and we hope to see some movement in the next 3-6 months, but I wouldn’t like to say in which market or when.”
blinkx prefers the pay per impression model, but says that mobile may turn into searches, click-through rates and/or conversion rates. “We may have to try a mix for the mobile market,” he said.
Advertisers are currently looking for ’single million’ views on a monthly basis for its web content, but Chandratillake said mobile will be more like ‘hundreds of thousands’ of views. “The big question is also geographical breakdown as we’ll need a large chunk in one place. Usage on a per-user basis is higher in Europe, but the US is obviously a mass-market opportunity,” he said.
Initially, blinkx saw ‘tens of thousands’ of initiations every day via the Samsung S app, and ‘hundreds of thousands’ with the Evri app. “With Samsung there was more immediate installs as users discovered what was on the handset, but perhaps we will see less multiple use,” said Chandratillake. “The conversion rate is much better with Evri as it is an app people have chosen to download.”
from Mobile Squared
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