FierceOnlineVideo Leaders - Ben Weinberger, CEO Digitalsmiths

FierceOnlineVideo had a chance to catch up with Digitalsmiths CEO Ben Weinberger to talk about the company's progress so far in 2009 and hear his thoughts on trends in the online video industry. 

FierceOV: Ben, what have been some highlights of 2009 so far for Digitalsmiths? 

Weinberger: This year generally has been a very positive growth year. While it's been a tough year in the industry and the global marketplace, we've been on target with customer acquisition as well as revenue growth. From a measured outcomes and expectation level, it's a direct correlation to the team growing the product base, we've been able to recruit some phenomenal people this year, executives, engineers, and now we're firing on all cylinders.

On the product side, we've hit all of our milestones as far as launching VideoSense 2.0, which is a significant milestone for the company. We've also done some executive recruitment, bringing in Melissa (Hamilton Sargeant) as vice president of marketing and Bob Bryson, formerly of Move Networks, as senior vice president of sales and business development. We're also ahead of plan for customer acquisition and revenue growth, and we're seeing even more significant client opportunities than we'd anticipated. 

FierceOV: Ben, how have you deployed the capital you raised back in November, as well as the strategic investment you received from Cisco?

Weinberger: Raising the funds was key at that time, because it enabled us to show that what we're doing is very strong. I think we bucked a trend in the space by closing that round, and there were multiple parties interested. Also, bringing on a new investor in that round and adding Cisco as a strategic investor showed the maturity of our technology and products.

I see the funding being used in three buckets: 1) continued product development; 2) growth of sales and marketing forces, directly represented in the hires I mentioned; and, 3) expansion of the company internationally, which we can't announce specifics on yet.

I think we've got the right level of funding to grow at the right place right now, and we're not looking to raise any more money. Our current investment level will enable us to break even. 

FierceOV: With the recent retrenching of Joost and Maven's demise, do you think the online video space is better suited to technology plays like yours than the consumer facing video sites like Joost or video platforms like Maven? 

Weinberger: The consumer-facing plays face a tougher battle, such as the video production houses, because they really don't have control over their own destiny. They have to have both the content producers and advertisers on their side. If either don't work, the company is in trouble, and I don't think anyone knows how to solve that puzzle just yet.

On the reverse side of that, being a back-end enabler like Digitalsmiths, you can say ‘I'm going to be neutral, I'm going to be Switerzerland,' but if the end user doesn't understand how to use your stuff, you're simply an enabler. Our customers need to know how to use it, so we have to be the platform tech enabler, but also show people how to leverage whatever they've built. We don't want to say here's our tech, do with it what you will. We want to help them succeed. 

FierceOV: What's been your biggest challenge so far in leading Digitalsmiths? 

Weinberger: Getting enough sleep, (laughter). No, I think the biggest challenge with any early stage company is timing the company feature set right. You don't want to be ahead, and you don't want to be behind. You have to make sure you're building the product and monitoring how it's sold. We have really great investors, and that's not just a political answer, because they understand working with limited resources and operating with a ferocious focus on conserving resources. Yet they also understand how to be aggressive and win in a very competitive environment. 

FierceOV: Where do you see the online video industry heading?  Are there any trends you see in the market that really stand out? 

Weinberger: The way we look at it, it's the digital media industry we're looking at rather than just online video. So we're looking for where the digital media industry is going. I see convergence, which is one of those things that has been mentioned for years but never actuallty happened, and what I think we're going to see is development of a common infrastructure so that multiscreen delivery can occur. That will enable rapid ad buying and serving and much better forecasting of audience, so you can see how something is performing in IPTV, S5, broadband, etcetera. People are going to start to do this, and it will really develop into a multi-screen, multichannel environment. I think people are missing a lot of revenue, currently, but better metadata capture and analysis is going to enable the multiscreen environment to drive revenue.