Delve Introduces Self-Service Online Video Platform
As the online video platform space becomes more competitive, vendors are clearly going to have to start offering more flexibility and options to appeal to users who want to go beyond YouTube but aren't ready to make the investment required for a full-scale SaaS video platform.
Delve Networks—which is backed by DFJ Network and Intel Capital and boasts a staff whose resumes include Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo!, and RealNetworks—made their play for that user base today with the announcement of a new self-service offering. For $249 a month—which users can pay online with a credit card—users get 20GB per month delivery bandwidth and 5GB of storage. Additional delivery bandwidth costs 59 cents per GB, while storage costs $1.39 per GB, per month.
The GUI for Delve Networks' self-service video platform offering.
"Self-service" doesn't mean "bare-bones," however. The Standard package offers drag-and-drop content management, including channel creation, as well as customizable players, player APIs, access to the Delve Ad Server, and basic performance metrics including viewing times, most viewed, most shared, and traffic sources. On the other hand, it doesn't allow for batch uploading or media scheduling, and only offers single-bitrate delivery. Delve's other packages offer delivery in up to four bitrates
Clearly, the company is hoping for upsell to its Professional, Premier, and Enterprise packages based on the assumption that once users get started with Standard, they'll want the additional features like HD and adaptive bitrate delivery. But as a basic starting point, the Standard package looks like a solid way for customers to get in the video game with minimal hassle.