In Depth
Perez Hilton Shops the Video Services
After a public split with popular video-sharing site YouTube last week, celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton said he’s rebuffing offers from other video sites and instead is testing out a private-label service from a little-known company called Twistage.
With the Twistage service, Mr. Hilton said he’s able to post and host videos directly on his site. That’s important to him because he wants to drive traffic and views to PerezHilton.com, making it a more attractive buy for advertisers.
If his experiment to stick to his own site is successful, other video creators with enough traffic may follow suit and similarly shift away from destination sites.
Mr. Hilton has posted a video using Revver since his break-up with YouTube, but now he’s leaning toward a private-label solution for the long term. Revver didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.
“I can make more money doing that and my ad people are going to start selling ads on my original videos on my site. I don’t think anyone can offer me as good an offer as what I will potentially make on my own videos on my own site,” Mr. Hilton said.
That includes companies such as Veoh Networks and Voxant, both of which have reached out to Mr. Hilton in recent weeks, he said. Veoh pitched the blogger last week on both hosting videos on Veoh and having him serve as a guest editor in a new celebrity channel Veoh is launching in January. Content providers are paid on an ad-sharing basis on Veoh.
Veoh Networks contacted Mr. Hilton’s lawyers last week, said Jennifer Betka, senior VP of marketing and programming at the company.
“We really value independent creators and treat them as equally as possible,” she said. “I would love to see him as an active partner with us and some of our celebrity initiatives and put his voice forward.”
Blog network Voxant had reached out to Mr. Hilton previously and planned to pitch him on joining the company’s network of bloggers, who are paid via an ad share, a company representative said.
But an ad share isn’t attractive to Mr. Hilton, who has soured on ad-sharing after making less than $5,000 from ads on his YouTube videos that drove more than 25 million views, he said.
“We are using Twistage right now, but that may change, based on what my tech people suggest,” he said. “We are still figuring out all the details, but in the future you will only find Perez Hilton videos on PerezHilton.com. Ideally I will do a lot more original programming, because that is a lot more appealing to advertisers.”
Twistage CEO David Wadler said he connected with PerezHilton.com because of a strategic relationship Twistage has with blog ad network Blogads, which sells ads on PerezHilton.com.
Twistage licenses its video technology on a private-label basis to content providers, Mr. Wadler explained. If the content providers sell the ads, they can essentially drop pre-roll, post-roll and overlay spots into the videos, keeping the ad dollars themselves.
Twistage also offers ad-sharing for other clients.
Daisy Whitney's 'New Media Minute' on the Perez-YouTube Split
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Comments 2
Angela Wilson Gyetvan
Hi, Daisy:
Congrats on the article. Sorry that you may have not received my comment in time to publish, but to reiterate what I said in my earlier email: I spoke to Mr. Hilton earlier today, who confirmed with us that he is trying multiple strategies, including keeping some videos solely on his own site. However, he is also experimenting with other providers — he signed up for a Revver account on his own accord before the holidays. We were delighted to have him on board, of course, and have been having some direct discussions regarding how we’re going to work together in the future. We’ve always been focused on supporting creators as they build their brands, and Perez is no exception.
Steven Rosenberg
Daisy, you have a good way with the camera. You need a better microphone, though -- you sound a little echoish. Tell Chuck to pony up.