Intercast Networks Expands Kazam Video Service to Universities Across the US
Intercast Networks Expands Kazam Video Service to Universities Across the US
Kazam Beta Version Includes Even More Major Media Brands, a New Ad Based Monetization Model and an Improved User Interface
NEW YORK, October 7/PRNewswire/ -- Intercast Networks, the pioneer in personalized video delivery to
storage, announces the expansion of its free Kazam video service to a select
number of US university campuses with more to follow in the coming weeks.
Following a successful spring semester alpha trial at Columbia and Purdue
University, in which students validated the service, Kazam has redesigned the
UI based on student's feedback and partnered with many new content providers
to create a channel lineup that specifically caters to the student audience.
The beta service will be available via the next-generation Internet2 Network
for Internet2 university members that want to participate in the service. The
network provides advanced IP multicast capabilities and connects over 50,000
U.S. research and education institutions today.
In addition Kazam now provides targeted and dynamic ad serving from
storage capabilities to allow for the monetization of video content in online
and offline viewing mode. Kazam's ad platform is integrated with DoubleClick
DART Enterprise for campaign management, ad trafficking, ad tracking and
reporting.
Kazam offers students access to a well rounded content offering appealing
especially to the student demographic. Students can enjoy premium video
content from several major media brands, (including Sports Illustrated and
many more) some of which is not generally offered over the open internet.
Added to the mix are some great online originals and programming from
independent production companies including live concerts from Baeble Music,
web series from My Damn Channel, HD shows from On Networks, various shows
from Revision3, and even human rights documentaries from WITNESS. (For a
complete listing of all the media brands and programming available on Kazam
please visit http://www.kazam.com)
Kazam allows content providers to test the impact of new video delivery
technologies in a walled garden and early adopter environment, which does not
interfere with their traditional business models. Advertisers are able to
test Kazam's targeted and dynamic ad serving from storage technology in the
most sought after demographic (18-24) market segment and experiment with a
wide variety of ad formats, including high-definition, full screen
interactive video ads, to see how they resonate among the student audience.
Several leading ad agencies such as Moxie Interactive of the Publicis Groupe,
MPG and others have agreed to evaluate Kazam's targeted and dynamic
advertising from storage capabilities and are publishing video campaigns from
some of their major brands.
"HD video is a strong differentiator for us and current Internet
streaming technologies are still struggling to support these bandwidth
intensive video formats. We are committed to distributing TV shows across
premium platforms that offer the best viewer experience," said Jen Grogono,
Chief Content Officer of ON Networks. "The Kazam Video Service and its
multicast delivery technology does just that by delivering our HD programming
most efficiently without compromising the video quality and improving the way
students find and enjoy fresh, original programming without draining the
resources of their campus IT networks."
Rob Barnett, Founder & CEO of My Damn Channel said, "Kazam gave My Damn
Channel a unique way to disrupt America's finest college campuses with our
twisted curriculum. We're offering up Harry Shearer's "Found Objects," our
web phenom, "You Suck at Photoshop," our evil soap opera "Horrible People"
and the 2008 Webby Award winner for Best Comedy Series, "Wainy Days."
Tim Hanlon, Executive Vice President, Publicis Groupe's futures unit
Denuo added: "Ad serving from storage is one of the emerging technologies in
our space. Kazam's implementation allows for the dynamic serving of targeted
ads from storage even when the consumer is offline. All ads are already
present on the consumer's storage and are instantly retrievable for display
in the highest video quality. Every user action is captured on Kazam's video
platform which allows us to determine ad relevance and interaction on a per
user basis and to effectively measure campaign results."
"Kazam's ability to interact with storage enabled devices and to deliver
ads in an interactive and high quality manner offers an innovative approach
to monetize the available storage capacity of consumer devices by matching
content with targeted and dynamic ads from storage," explains Mitch Oscar,
Executive Vice President at OMD's Televisual applications unit. "Satcasters
and most movie services cannot track consumption and user behavior patterns
as they lack a feedback channel to offer full VOD services. However, Kazam's
underlying technology provides valuable data to accurately measure consumer
reaction," continues Oscar, "On the advertising side traditional push
marketing campaigns are not always the most effective way to reach the
college market and Kazam provides a fresh approach to penetrate this
important demographic segment."
"In the current advertising environment it's essential to utilize new
emerging media opportunities to help clients effectively connect with target
audiences-and we're confident Kazam is a great example," said Daina
Middleton, Senior Vice President at Moxie Interactive. "We're excited to
utilize Kazam to roll out new, rich video campaigns specifically geared to
the college demographic."
"Kazam is one of the first large scale video services to take advantage
of the inherent IP multicast capabilities of the Internet2 Network, "said Rob
Vietzke, Executive Director of network services for Internet2. "Through this
beta service, university members can 'opt in' to Kazam's application to not
only deliver a great service to their campuses, but also leverage the
advanced features of their multicast-enabled networks. We are excited to see
the future of video services unfold within the Internet2 community and
support applications that will in the future, influence the way consumers
make use of the Internet."
Noam Bardin, Intercast Networks' President and CEO, concluded: "I am
extremely excited with the release of the newly improved Kazam video service.
The new version includes lots of great content, a set of brand new features
that significantly improve the user experience and offer users even more
personalization possibilities. Content providers and advertisers partnering
with Kazam can now test new ways to monetize their content and deliver it
cost-effectively to the student market. Universities benefit from improved
bandwidth efficiency due to Kazam's underlying multicast delivery technology
and can pro-actively take a stand to discourage illegal file sharing by
introducing legal video delivery services to their student body."
Schools at which Kazam will be available this fall include Columbia,
Northwestern, Penn State, University of Alabama, UCLA, University of Delaware
and others. For more information about Kazam please visit
http://www.kazam.com
Intercast will present its VideoXpress delivery platform and
Multicast-to-Storage technology at the upcoming Fall 2008 Internet2 Member
Meeting on Oct 15th in New Orleans.
About Intercast Networks
Intercast's flexible video delivery platform provides network operators
with scalable delivery, management and monetization of personalized video
from storage. Based on Intercast's Multicast-to-Storage (M2S) technology this
platform can be utilized to introduce a variety of profitable and bandwidth
efficient video solutions over IP networks. Intercast's video platform is
interoperable with a wide variety of storage equipped consumer devices and
provides flexible business models for the monetization of video content.
Intercast operates offices in the United States and Israel. For more
information visit http://www.intercast.com
About Kazam
Kazam is a student internet TV and video service based on Intercast
Network's VideoXpress platform. Currently Kazam is exclusively available to
US students at selected universities connected to the Internet2 backbone. Via
Kazam students get free access to premium cable content including hit shows
from leading and independent content providers such as Showtime, Discovery,
Sony Pictures Television, Sports Illustrated, Revision3 and more. Kazam
allows content providers to test the impact of its new video delivery
technology in a closed and early adopter environment, which does not
interfere with their traditional business models. Advertisers are able to
test Kazam's dynamic and targeted ad serving-from-storage technology in the
most sought after demographic and experiment with a wide variety of ad
formats, including high-definition video ads, to see how they resonate among
consumers. By leveraging IP multicast Kazam is able to efficiently deliver
large amounts of bandwidth intense video files to a large number of students
without straining campus networks. Campus IT departments can improve overall
network efficiency and utilization at no additional cost. For more
information visit http://www.kazam.com
Press Contact:
Intercast Networks Inc.
Adam Ehrlich
adam@intercast.com
Tel: +972-9-885-6485
Content Providers / Advertisers / Universities
Contact:
Kazam @ Intercast Networks Inc.
Linor Tal Levav
linor@intercast.com
Tel: +1-212-594-5610
Source: Intercast Networks Inc.
Press Contact: Intercast Networks Inc., Adam Ehrlich, adam@intercast.com, Tel: +972-9-885-6485; Content Providers / Advertisers / Universities, Contact: Kazam @ Intercast Networks Inc., Linor Tal Levav, linor@intercast.com, Tel: +1-212-594-5610
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