Le Journal du Net is reporting that Dailymotion is aggressively seeking new financing and that its Chairman and CEO, Mark Zaleski, may be on his way out. Reliable sources suggest he may be replaced by Ian Brotherston, who is, according to his LinkedIn profile, a London-based management consultant currently with Severn Trent Plc and previously with Red Bee Media and Anam Mobile. Brotherston lists “M&A” and “turnaround” among his specialties, so it would be consistent with the notion that Dailymotion is looking for a serious infusion of cash or perhaps even looking to get acquired.
CNET France is also reporting that the company has been ordered by the TGI of Paris to pay a total of 80,000 euros in back royalties to video creators. All in all, it doesn’t bode well for Dailymotion’s future, which has until recently looked quite bright as it became the closest thing to a YouTube-killer in the European market.
We’ve got a message in to Dailymotion’s press office, and will post more information as we get it. Updated 4/24/09: Dailymotion has confirmed that Zaleski has stepped down, and that Brotherston will be replacing him.
CDNetworks announced today that it renewed its partnership with Toyota Spain to provide Flash streaming for the auto maker’s sales website. Normally, the announcement of a renewed contract wouldn’t be worth noting, but with CDNetworks’ recent merger with Panther Express, the content delivery network is making a push to become a major player in the European space.
Currently, CDNetworks has about 150 customers in Europe, according to VP of EMEA Robert Gribnau, with whom I spoke last week; he said the company hopes to double its European customer roster by the end of 2009. Right now CDNetworks has 17 data centers in Europe, but since some of those were Panther Express nodes, Gribnau said that number will actually decrease in the next few months to cut down on redundancy.
Gribnau also spoke to the challenges that the Korea-based company has faced moving into the European market after its successful entry into the U.S. market a couple years ago. “Most of the content generated in the U.S. has some general global appeal, whereas most of the content in European countries tends to be specific to that country, for language and cultural reasons,” he says. “So the challenge is that the market is so fragmented.” Beyond the language and cultural issues, he pointed to the differences in regulatory environments that mean a CDN can’t simply treat Europe as a single entity. “French labor law is different from British labor law, for instance,” he said, “and for security and confidentiality reasons, some content needs to be stored in and delivered to only the country in which it’s created.
We’ll be taking an in-depth look at the European content delivery space in the Autumn issue of Streaming Media magazine — get your free subscription here.
Depending on who’s talking, online video advertising is either in dire straits or just about to turn the corner. paidContent:UK has a story today pointing out that, though web advertising is still growing, the UK online ad spend only grew 17% in 2008 versus 38% in 2007. Given the economic situation, that’s no surprise; the good news is that analysts across the board are predicting that online ad spending should stablise in 2009 while other forms continue to decline.
That’s due in part to the fact that online video advertising offers narrow targeting that television simply can’t match. In this video from Streaming Media Europe 2008, advertisers and advertising technology providers discuss online video advertising’s opportunities and challenges, and how to maximise that targeting capability. Moderator is Coull CEO Ifron Watkins, who was chair of the Interactive Advertising Bureau in 2007-2008; panelists are Nationwide Building Society senior advertising and promotions manager Nicola Sztuka, TurnHere Inc. CEO and founder Brad Inman, TicTacTi Ltd. founder and CEO Eyal Margalit, and Real Time Content CTO Ian Cameron.
