Online video gold rush brings strange investments
Pete Cashmore over at Mashable reports that Indian site MeraVideo (a “YouTube clone”) is close to getting $1.5-million (U.S.) in venture funding.
Pete says that MeraVideo has been constructed using an off-the-shelf script from Alstrasoft. I’m assuming he’s talking about Alstrasoft Video Share Enterprise. It sure looks a lot like YouTube and Meravideo and plenty of other video sites out there. The demo is here, but be warned that some of the videos look to be NSFW.
The text at the bottom reads: “Please help keep this site FUN, CLEAN, and REAL”, which seems very familiar. I did a Web search on the phrase, and in fact there are plenty of video sharing sites with that term…that may be using Alstrasoft behind the scenes. Check out The Creative Loft for an example.
Pete seems aghast that MeraVideo would get $1.5-million for essentially using a pre-written $300 script. I’m not so sure. The value of a video-sharing business depends to a great extent on membership levels, the percentage of the membership that actively participates in uploading, tagging, and reviewing, videos, and the value of the brand. At this point it may be premature to call MeraVideo an also-ran.
Tags: MeraVideo, Alstrasoft, Online video sharing, Mashable, Venture capital
Too much stuff to do for preparing a new business , a script/software is just a point from so many points to prepare.
So Yes, it is too early to make any judgment about something new.
it’s a clear example of living in a fools paradise,where in you believe you are the only smartest and well informed human being on earth. No one, in its senses, bet money on these kind of sites and you surely cannot make him believe that money will be generated out of thin air.
Indian market is not yet matured to pay and view/use the contents, though surely desire to get fast buck, the best example is Meravideo.com (and one point is clear in the mind of site visitor is that, if these sites can get away with copy right issues , why can’t an individual get away easily by copying these sites contents)