Companies have broad aims for online TV

So is Barrio 305, a Miami-based Internet-only channel devoted to the tropical hip-hop music flavor known as reggaeton. Brightcove pumps Barrio 305's videos to free sites in addition to Barrio 305's own pages. That gives the upstart network such wide dispersal that it hasn't mattered that Barrio 305 has yet to persuade any cable TV programming buyers to offer its package.

"We can bypass these traditional media agencies, and we can get out directly to our audience," said Antonio Otalvaro, one of the three brothers who founded Barrio 305. "Our primary audience is online. They're not watching TV."

Brightcove wins big praise from Forrester Research video analyst Josh Bernoff, who says Allaire "has really got it all figured out."

Even so, Brightcove is not alone in holding video publishers' hands as they step into the Internet.

NBC Universal recently launched an Internet video distribution system called NBBC (short for National Broadband Co.) that is working with NBC affiliates and even traditional NBC rivals such as CBS Corp. and News Corp. NBBC is a marketplace where content owners and third-party sites can agree to share content and ad revenue.  (MSNBC is a Microsoft - NBC joint venture.)

"You can syndicate over millions of sites, each one of which will drive somewhere between one stream and a million," said Mike Steib, NBC Universal's general manager for strategic ventures. "Web site partners can say, `I'd love to have Vibe.com (clips) and NBC News and product reviews from CNet, and `Saturday Night Live' — the Web site owner tells you what fits best for their audience. Being able to create that, we think, is the next big thing."

Another key player, Maven Networks Inc., is headquartered in the same Cambridge office complex as Brightcove. (The ties aren't just geographic: Allaire briefly served as an adviser to Maven before founding Brightcove in 2004; Maven licensed a video publishing tool to him and owns a minuscule stake in Brightcove.)

Like Brightcove, Maven is hosting video for customers and giving them quick, mouse-click methods of positioning content and setting up ad campaigns. Unlike Brightcove, Maven doesn't want to double as a video portal or dip into the ad business. Maven gets paid when viewers check out one of its customers' videos.

Maven's CEO, Hilmi Ozguc, is a tech veteran who sold an online ad company to ExciteAtHome _ which flamed out when its big dreams got way ahead of the early state of U.S. broadband penetration. Retrenching, Ozguc started Maven in 2002 "with an eye to this broadband future" and has raised about $30 million, mainly from venture capitalists.

Maven's customers include CBS-owned College Sports Television and The Weather Channel. Maven also powers aspects of NBBC's system, while 20th Century Fox uses Maven to show movie trailers.

"The whole industry is being transformed," Ozguc said.

So deeply is it being changed, in fact, that Web video companies will have to smartly evolve as content coming over the Internet is routinely funneled not only to computers but directly to living room TVs. This will require navigating around or working with cable companies, for example, that make a good deal of their money controlling what you see on TV.

Consumers would also benefit from better methods of finding all this stuff, since traditional Web search engines were built to read text.

None of these obstacles are insurmountable, but whoever can solve them would likely create an enormously valuable enterprise. Sure, YouTube sold for $1.65 billion, but Bernoff predicts "there will be multiple multibillion-dollar companies" before all is said and done.

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