BEVERLY HILLS — The OVGuide indexes and highlights some 1800 episodic online video programs. It is powered by a staff of editors and a video search technology.
While it has operated largely under the radar, it has become quite popular. According to Chad Cooper, editorial content manager of OVGuide, the site will have 10 million uniques this month. (These are internal numbers.)
In the interview we shot at the company’s Beverly Hills offices earlier this month, Chad gives us a demo. He says the goal of the company is not just a "guide" but to become a dominant video search engine.
The company is backed by David Bohnett. Bohnett founded GeoCities and sold it to Yahoo! for what was said to be $260 million. Bohnett is based nearby in Beverly Hills and is quite involved. This could be big. If you are a video producer — get your show indexed on the OVGuide. Beet.TV’s listing on the guide has generated quite a lot of traffic.
There is surely a need in the marketplace for video recommendations coming from humans, not just machines. Our friends over at NewTeeVee have launched a recommendation site for cool videos call NewTeeVee Station.
And the granddaddy of them all, TV Guide has recently launched a very useful guide to online video, primarily focused entertainment programming.
— Andy Plesser, Executive Producer
